Serving the Forreston area since 1865
FORRESTON Journal January 4, 2018 Volume 155, Number 37 - $1.00
Fourth in Tourney
Bird Count
Issue of Appeals
The Marcos varsity basketball team finishes fourth at the Eastland Tournament. B1
The results of JoDaviess annual Christmas Bird Count are in. B3
Ogle County’s Board of Appeals will meet this month to review tax appeals. A2
Snow and negative temperatures arrived Friday, just in time to ring in the new year. Left, a man plows his driveway on Ill. 26 between Polo and Forreston on Saturday. Right, Forreston Police Chief Mike Boomgarden shovels a sidewalk in Forreston following Friday’s snowfall. Photos by Earleen Hinton
Year ends with snow and begins in deep freeze By Vinde Wells vwells@oglecountynews.com To combat the effects of frigid weather, Nash Recreation Center, Oregon, opened its doors Monday as a warming center. “Anyone needing a place to keep warm are welcome to relax in the facility at no charge,”
a press release said. The facility, at 304 S. Fifth St., opens at 9 a.m. and is handicapped accessible. It has water, restrooms and several lounge areas to escape the freezing temperatures. After a balmy 15 degrees for a high on Christmas Day, Ogle County’s weather has steadily gone more frigid in the last week.
Thanks to a much-touted polar vortex (just think cold, very, very cold), 2018 ushered in the coldest temperatures maybe ever, setting a record low high on New Year’s Day of -1. That was on top of wind chills dipping to -30 overnight. It wasn’t all that windy, but when it’s already -15, it doesn’t take much of a breeze.
The National Weather Service offers only limited relief with expected highs of 7 through 10 degrees through Friday and lows dipping to -10. A warm-up to the freezing mark is expected on Sunday, but brings with it the likelihood of snow — so far the forecasters aren’t saying how much.
Downtown Polo business will close its doors By Vinde Wells vwells@oglecounty news.com
Longtime downtown Polo business, Charley’s Pharmacy & True Value Hardware will close its doors later this month. Photo by Zach Arbogast
In This Week’s Edition...
Church News, A5 Classifieds, B6-B8 Entertainment, A6 Fines, B4
Marriage Licenses, A4 Property Transfers, B4 School Menus, A3 Sheriff’s Arrests, B3
Social News, A4 Sports, B1, B2
A decades-old downtown Polo retail business will close its doors later this month. A sign on the front window of Charley’s Pharmacy & True Value Hardware, 110 E. Mason St., says the store will close on Jan. 13. Business owner Tom Felker said Tuesday that he is closing the store for economic reasons. “If it was making money I wouldn’t be closing it,” he said. “I would love to keep it open and I would have loved to have kept the Mt. Morris store open, too.” Felker’s Snyder Pharmacy in Mt. Morris closed in April of 2009. Felker said the main reason for the dilemma is that the companies that manage prescription drug plans set the amount they will pay pharmacies for prescription drugs and are generally unwilling to negotiate. “That has had a terrible effect on pharmacies,” he said. “You can’t have wages, utilities, and taxes going up and your income going down.” Felker also owns a pharmacy and a grocery store in Byron, a pharmacy
and Ace Hardware store in Oregon, as well as pharmacies in Dixon and other locations. Despite the Polo store closing, he said he will continue to serve the local community. “We will continue to deliver to customers free of charge on a daily basis,” Felker said. The pharmacy accounts will be transferred to the Dixon Snyder Pharmacy, he said, and hardware accounts will be handled through his Oregon store. Polo alderman Jim Busser, who formerly owned the hardware end at Charley’s, said he is saddened to see the store close. “It’s a big loss to the community,” he said. Busser bought the hardware business from Charley Haisch, who still owns the building, around 1990 and sold it back to him four years later, he said. Haisch, a pharmacist, opened a pharmacy across the street from the present store in the early 1980s, and as his business grew moved to the present location, which had been a movie theatre for many years before that. He sold the business to Felker in 1997 shortly before he retired.
Deaths, B5
Maurice J. Bronkema, Shirley A. Coffman, Dean Johnson, Ruth Kramer Richards, Joyce A. Stauffer, Vicki L. Young, Richard A. Zilly
Published every Thursday by Ogle County Newspapers, a division of Shaw Media • www.oglecountynews.com