INTERSECTION

BY CODY CUTTER SAUK VALLEY MEDIA

The 100th edition of the Women’s Lincoln Highway golf tournament took place July 7 and 8 at Lake Carroll’s golf course, bringing 64 of the best golfers from eight northern Illinois courses together for a chance to be part of the longrunning tournament’s history book, and its list of champions.

For the third consecutive year, Lake Carroll’s top golfers took part in the historical event, but this time it was extra special. Hosting it this year, on a milestone occasion, was a badge of honor for the Lake Carroll women, golfer Deb Scheidegger said.

“We just celebrated our 50th anniversary last year, and this is women’s golf for the last 100 years, which is amazing for women,” Scheidegger said. “It was so nice to host it because I think they really see the camaraderie that everyone has, and the respect that this tournament has. I really think this is a good thing. This is only our third year in it, so it’s been a lot of fun.”

Lake Carroll golf course pro Jason Hill keeps track of scores July 8 during the Women’s Lincoln Highway tournament.

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The event is the oldest best-against-bogey women’s tournament in the nation, as part of northwest Illinois’ premier golf program, with the men facing off the following weekend each year (Lake Carroll does not participate in the men’s event).

Having a home course advantage helped Lake Carroll’s women improve their score from last year’s event, which was at Deer Valley Golf Club in Deer Grove. Lake Carroll finished fourth with a score of +55, with Jo Yeager’s +17 leading the group.

Each team has eight women competing, and the best six final scores among them are used to calculate the team total. Each of the women also compete among one another in flights, where each team’s No. 1 golfer competes against other teams’ top golfer, and so on. Yeager, in her first year competing for Lake Carroll, was her team’s No. 4 golfer, and her score was best among the No. 4 golfers on the other squads, which made her the fourth flight winner.

Yeager’s score tied for tenth among the entire field.

“This is the best I’ve played at Lake Carroll,” Yeager said. “We couldn’t have asked for better weather. It was great. I had great women to play golf with, and that makes it great. So many nice women play in this tournament.”

Sandy Bogusevic (first flight) and Deb Cuvelier (third flight) tied for second among Lake Carroll’s octet, each having finished with +14, while Scheidegger (second flight) scored +9. Lake Carroll’s remaining four golfers finished near or at bogey: Angie Thompson (sixth flight. +1), Sheri Moutrey (seventh flight, 0), Tracey DeCrane (eighth flight, -1) and Jaime Melville (fifth flight, -2).

Scheidegger, Yeager and Cuvelier are veterans of the Lincoln Highway, having competed in years past for other courses long before Lake Carroll became part of the long-running event. Schei degger competed for Rock River Country Club in Rock Falls and then for Timber Creek more than 20 years ago.

When a course backed out of playing in the tournament a few years ago, Lake Carroll was asked to join, but there wasn’t enough interest at that time, Scheidegger said. It took a little convincing, but by 2021 there was enough interest in being part of the tournament and they played in their first tournament that year at Rock River Country Club.

At each tournament, a collection of historical books and pictures are displayed for people to browse through. Among the pictures in that collection: One of the first tournament in 1923. Timber Creek, formerly Dixon Country Club, hosted that year and won the first event, and a young Ronald Reagan served as a caddy for a Dixon golfer.

“It is just a fun format, and you got people from high school kids to grandmothers playing in this,” Scheidegger said. “It’s just a fun tournament. We couldn’t have asked for better weather. That really helps, too, with the weather so nice.”

Yeager and Cuvelier also competed for Timber Creek a couple of decades ago; this year is the first that the both of them competed for Lake Carroll.

“It’s fun being a part of it,” Yeager said. “It’s nice to have it at Lake Carroll because there’s a lot of support here, and there’s a lot of support within the women and they’re eager to help.”

Participation in the Lincoln Highway tournament gives golfers and golf courses a place in what has become a storied history of competition and bragging rights among one another.

Some of those who have taken a swing at it have gone on to achieve more mainstream success in later years, while a select few managed to make a name for themselves before winning their first Lincoln Highway.

About 2,000 men and women have tried their hand at etching their names not only in the tournament’s prestigious history, but also on the trophies they hope to bring home. There’s quite a story to tell of the tournament’s history, and it all starts with members of six golf courses who sought to expand interest in the game throughout the region ...

The tournament is named after the historic highway that runs through the area, itself named after Abraham Lincoln. The “original six” clubs were Clinton Country Club in Clinton, Iowa, Dixon Country Club, Edgewood Golf Club in Polo, Kishwaukee Country Club in DeKalb, Morrison Country Club, and Rock River Country Club in Rock Falls. The first meeting to lay out its structure took place Nov. 28, 1922, at the Nachusa House in Dixon.

Scoring is different than the national mainstream professional tournaments. Instead of the widely known stroke play concept, the tournament uses a best-against-bogey format to help erase some of the moments where certain holes may take their toll on golfers — in other words, the scoring isn’t as bad if it takes an large number of strokes to finish.

Most golfers in the tournament join their Lincoln Highway team through a qualifier event on their course; other courses either select participants or have a sign-up sheet at their clubhouse. The men’s event has six golfers on a squad, and the women have eight; for women’s team scoring, the best six scores are used to determine a champion. The event is unique in that it honors the top golfers in six flights, with one member of each team assigned to a flight.

The legwork to keep the tournament going usually falls on senior members from the participating clubs during an annual meeting. New clubs are invited, and if they win the approval of the rest of the courses at the meeting, they get to host the event the year following their debut.

The Kishwaukee men and Dixon women were the first team champions in 1923. Kishwaukee golfers dominated the first few years, with 1927 being the first year that golfers not from there won titles:

F. L. Markel of Edgewood and Elizabeth Curtis of Clinton. Curtis was a back-to-back Iowa Womens Amateur champion in 1926-27.

Milo and Hazel Oakland of Kishwaukee are the only husband-and-wife duo to win the event so far.

They both won in 1925; Milo also won in 1924 and 1941, and Hazel also won in 1926.

To win the Lincoln Highway is considered one of the top feats in regional golf, and winning it more than once adds to golfers’ bragging rights. Several have won it twice, and 16 have won it three times or more.

Then there’s Kishwaukee’s Ruth (Fender) Heal, who’s become without a doubt the greatest Lincoln Highway golfer of all time, finishing on top 21 times in the last 50 years, and leading her club to even more team titles during that time.

Her first win came in 1972, but she already had plenty of golf success before that. The Northern Illinois University Hall of Fame athlete won several 18-hole tournaments at Kishwaukee after college, and she also won Women’s International Amateur titles in 1972 and 1973. Her Lincoln Highway successes also helped her win the Illinois State Senior Women’s Championship in 1999. Heal continued to participate in the event into her 70s, having last won in 2014.

Kishwaukee’s total successes are more plentiful than the others when combining accolades among men and women: The course has 78 total team titles — including 47 for the women — and 62 total individual titles.

The women’s portion of the event was cancelled on two occasions, in 1974 due to inclement weather and 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The men’s side of the tournament has not missed a year.

Whether one is in their 70s or fresh out of middle school, the Lincoln Highway tournament is a mix of many different cultures, lifestyles and personalities, each with their own goal in mind, whether it’s taking home a trophy, earning bragging rights, or just improving their game.

Those who have taken part in it can claim to be part of something prestigious, and there’s none better in northern Illinois than the Lincoln Highway.

Scheidegger’s first-day score of +6 led her team at that point. Bogusevic and Cuvelier each improved upon their plus scores in the second day, Cuvelier with a +10 and Bogusevic with a +9.

“I did pretty well for myself, so that was good,” Bogusevic said. “I like the tournament. There’s a great group of ladies, and I like the history of it with this being 100 years.”

Melville had a much better showing in the second day after finishing the first with a -6; she turned in a +8 to finish at -2 for the event.

“It’s something different and something to look forward to,” Melville said, adding that she struggled the first day, but bounced back: “[The second day] was a better day.”

Dixon’s Timber Creek Golf Course won the tournament with +124, besting defending champion Kishwaukee Country Club of DeKalb and its score of +70. Prophet Hills of Prophetstown was third with +59, and Sunset of Mount Morris (+50), Indian Oaks of Shabbona (+45), Deer Valley (+32) and PrairieView of Byron (-45) rounded out the bottom half of team scoring.

“I am so proud of Dixon, I really thought they were going to win it this year,” Scheidegger said. “For them to win it, especially on the 100th anniversary, is pretty cool. They have a great team.”

Timber Creek’s Katie Drew, a Dixon High School senior, had the event’s best score of +31. Kester, who is the head women’s golf coach at Northern Illinois University, finished second with +30, beating Timber Creek’s Mandy Hinkey in a playoff. Hinkey, daughter of Lake Carroll’s Rick and Barb Curia of Dixon, may have missed out on second place, but her score was good enough to take top honors in the second flight of golfers. Barb also competed for Timber Creek, having won the seventh flight with +13.

Final team results

1. Timber Creek (Dixon) +124, 2. Kishwaukee (DeKalb) +70, 3. Prophet Hills (Prophetstown) +59, 4. Lake Carroll +55, 5. Sunset (Mt. Morris) +50, 6. Indian Oaks (Shabbona) +45, 7. Deer Valley (Deer Grove) +32, 8. PrairieView (Byron) -45.

First flight

*Katie Drew (Timber Creek) +31 & individual champion, **Kim Kester (Kishwaukee) +30 & individual runner-up, Ali Scheidecker (Sunset) +17, Joanne Sharp (PrairieView) +15, Shelley Felske (Prophet Hills) +15, Sandy Bogusevic (Lake Carroll) +14, Deena Simester (Deer Valley) +13, Jackie Johnson (Indian Oaks) +8.

Second flight

Mandy Hinkey (Timber Creek) +30, Cathy Verhulst (Prophet Hills) +20, Jan Nissen (Kishwaukee) +19, Ellie Wasson (Deer Valley) +18, Ava Hackman (Sunset) +17, Beth Haag (Indian Oaks) +10, Deb Scheidegger (Lake Carroll) +9, Carla Leddy (PrairieView) -10.

Third flight

Patty Head (Timber Creek) +24, Donna Martin (Kishwaukee) +18, Karen Wiersema (Prophet

Hills) +15, Deb Cuvelier (Lake Carroll) +14, Carol Wold (Deer Valley) +9, Lynn Martz (Indian Oaks) +8, Jessica Janes (Sunset) +4, Cory Lawrence (PrairieView) W/D.

Fourth flight

Jo Yeager (Lake Carroll) +17, Nikki Massini (Timber Creek) +10, Jennie Francis (Indian Oaks) +4, Linda Hartley (Kishwaukee) +2, Torri Scheidender (Sunset) 0, Dawn Smith (PrairieView) -1, Margie Sommers (Prophet Hills) -2, Donna Brooks (Deer Valley) -3.

Fifth flight

Mimi Boysen (Timber Creek) +16, Diane Nehring (Indian Oaks) +12, Denise Oberle (Deer Valley) +8,

Donna Moore (Prophet Hills) +4, Jaime Melville (Lake Carroll) -2, Debbie Brue (Kishwaukee) -2, Amy Kubatzke (PrairieView) -4, Stes Page (Sunset) -16.

Sixth flight

Colleen Miller (Sunset) +16, Megan Kerkman (Indian Oaks) +3, Angie Thompson (Lake Carroll) +1, Kris Zschiesche (Prophet Hills) 0, Kathy Halloran (Kishwaukee) -5, Lorrie Nagy (Timber Creek) -9, Marcia Chapinski (Deer Valley) -14, Brenda Henry (PrairieView) W/D.

Seventh flight

Barb Curia (Timber Creek) +13, Sheri Moutrey (Lake Carroll) 0, Diana Hanson (Sunset) -4, Jane Kielb (Kishwaukee) -8, Lean Richardson (Indian Oaks) -8, Corri Kelly (Prophet Hills) -14, Laura Medlar (PrairieView) -13, Jan Wetzell (Deer Valley) -13.

Eighth flight

Karen Stenzel (Prophet Hills) +5, Laura Osborne (Kishwaukee) +3, Tracey DeCrane (Lake Carroll) -1, Janet Freil (Timber Creek) -10, Sonia CalhounGilroy (Sunset) -10, Cindy Moorehead (Deer Valley) -13, Judy Rud (Indian Oaks) -15, Jeanne Washko (PrairieView) -32.

Notes * – denotes defunct course **Bureau Valley Country Club now is Chapel Hill Golf Course. Tournament not played in 1974 due to inclement weather and 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. No team scores were kept for the 1929 tournament.

“I wanted to do as well as a I did last year. I think I was +26, so I did that, and I’m very happy with it,” Hinkey said. “I’m so happy we won as a team. We’ve been chasing Kishwaukee for a number of years now, and to win by a pretty good margin, it feels really good.”

In last year’s event, Lake Carroll placed seventh out of eight teams, with a combined score of -9. Emma Norton led Lake Carroll with a +20 and was runner-up in the first flight, followed by Scheidegger’s +9 for runner-up honors in the fourth flight; and Bogusevic (+2), DeCrane (-9), Melville (-14), Sue Pfaff (-17), Athena Peterson (-19) and Moutrey also competed. Norton tied for seventh-place overall last year with Jan Nissen of Kishwaukee.

Sunset is scheduled to host next year’s tournament, tentatively planned for July 5-6 in Mount Morris.

Some of Lake Carroll’s golfers used this year’s competition as an opportunity to get warmed up for this year’s Club Championship, which took place July 15-16 (a recap of that event will appear in the September edition of Lake Lifestyle).

Lake Carroll’s golfers enjoyed being a part of history.

“This is pretty cool, especially with it being just the third year Lake Carroll has been a part of it and now hosting the 100th anniversary,” DeCrane said. “It was a lot of fun for both days.”

(Shaw Media’s Dan Wussow contributed to this story.) Cody Cutter can be reached at 815-632-2532 or ccutter@shawmedia.com

BY CODY CUTTER SAUK VALLEY MEDIA

on Hennings can make a pretty good case for getting hooked on music.

That’s because he’s a lawyer who could argue before the Supreme Court during the day and crank out some Diana Ross and the Supremes at night.

What began with a call for help from the Fishing Club turned Hennings into “the local DJ” around Lake Carroll, and while it’s a role the longtime Lake Carroll member didn’t look for, he’s glad he found it.

You know Hennings has a gig when you see him decked out in his musical gear — hats and pants with guitars on them. That’s how into it Hennings is: He’s not just a guy with some music equipment, he has a passion for what people listen to, from classic rock to current hits and everything in between.

His talent for getting people to snap their fingers and tap their feet — and maybe even bust out their best dance moves — is part instinct, part research, and part knowing your audience. A lot of times he knows he’s going a good job when no one notices that he’s there, he said.

“The thing that can be the hardest thing to do, but you get a feel for it, is dealing with the crowd,” Hennings said. “What kind of music are they looking for? What songs are they dancing to? You try to keep the music along those lines. There are some songs that everybody will get up and dance to, I can make up a set list of songs that I know pretty much everybody will get up and dance a little.”

Ron Hennings has volunteered his time at Lake Carroll events as a master of music, emcee of entertainment and a maestro of music quizzes. “There are some songs that everybody will get up and dance to, I can make up a set list of songs that I know pretty much everybody will get up and dance a little,” he said.

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Hennings became friends with career musicians near his primary home in Geneva, and that influenced him to build up a collection of musical gear for hosting get-togethers and cranking up the karaoke from time to time. Having been a member for 32 years at Lake Carroll, where he built his part-time home in 2006, his talent for tunes didn’t go unnoticed. About 10 years ago, when the entertainment for the Fishing Club’s Christmas party fell through, Ron got a call from a club member who thought he might be able to help solve the club’s holiday dilemma.

“The phone rings, and it’s someone from the Fishing Club saying, ‘Hey Ron, we need entertainment for tonight,’” Hennings said. “I said, ‘Are you sure you’re calling the right person?’ I had never done anything like that.”

But as they say, there’s a first time for everything, and Ron’s first time wasn’t his last.

The Fishing Club gig opened up the door for more, and Ron started getting calls for his services, either from people who were at the party, or others who had heard about it.

Ron Hennings hosts a trivia night July 3 at Candlelight Inn at Lake Carroll. The occasional quiz nights consist of teams answering 60 music-related trivia questions, and one final bonus question, from topics that include classic and current rock, pop and country genres.

“It all snowballed from there,” he said — but he makes sure he doesn’t let the snowball get too big.

Hennings’ full-time job is as a lawyer — his office is in St. Charles and he’s a member of the Bar of the United States Supreme Court, which means he can practice in front of the nation’s top justices — so he’s selective about the DJ jobs he takes. He doesn’t advertise, but he said people at Lake Carroll “know how to get a hold of me” if they need a DJ.

Part of being a DJ means keeping your finger on the pulse of what’s going on in music — and having your finger on the radio buttons.

Henning is a self-professed “obsessive button pusher,” cruising up and down the dial on the car radio during his nearly two-hour drive from Fox Valley to Lake Carroll, listening to both broadcast and satellite radio.

If he hears something that piques his curiosity, he’ll jot it down in a notebook he keeps in his car and the musical nugget may end up in his DJ banter during jobs.

“I’m constantly flipping through stations all of the way from the ’50s to the current ‘Y2K’ music, they call it,” Hennings said. “So I hear everything, and I get a lot of questions off of what they’re telling me. The DJs are always telling little trivial things. I have a notepad in my car and will actually write things down if I hear something.”

His mastery of music knowledge comes in handy elsewhere, too, like hosting music trivia nights at Lake Carroll’s Candlelight Inn at the Clubhouse. The first one was held in May 2022 and they’ve been part of the restaurant’s entertainment lineup since then.

Teams of up to six people vie to see if they can match trivial wits with Hennings. Each night’s contest consists of 60 questions, with 10 questions each round, and players can’t get Google-eyed; no help from electronic devices is allowed. Themes include: name that tune, lyrics, band members, and general music trivia. At the end, a Final Jeopardy-like question is asked, with teams wagering up to 20 points. Hennings doesn’t like to make things too easy, as the challenge brings out the fun in people, he said. “The music trivia is a lot of fun, but it’s not easy,” Hennings said. “The first time I did it, some people said it was way too hard, but it was a lot of fun. So I tried to create some sort of balance.”

Song covers were a tricky topic in June’s contest.

“Some songs you would never actually know were covers,” Hennings said. “One of them that surprised people was Joan Jett’s ‘I Love Rock and Roll.’ That’s a cover. The song that launched Allison Krauss’ career, ‘When You Say Nothing at All,’ that’s a cover. That song was never meant to be released as a single; it was on a tribute album for Keith Whitley, who did the original. The radio stations were playing it, and the record company felt like they had no choice than to release it as a single, and that launched Allison Krauss’ career.”

“Killing Me Softly With His Song” is another one: Younger people tend to remember Lauryn Hill and the Fugees’ 1996 version, while others are more familiar with Roberta Flack’s 1973 hit, which itself was a cover.

“Roberta Flack’s was a cover, too,” Hennings said. “It was actually done by Lori Lieberman, and the story behind that one was that Roberta Flack was on an airplane and was listening to music, and when that song came on she kept playing it over and over. When the plane landed, she got a hold of her manager and said, ‘You get me that song.’ Then she recorded it. Lori got the idea at a concert for Don McLean, because she felt that the songs that he was singing matched her life.”

Sometimes Ron makes a little music of his own, tackling a tune on the karoake machine. Here he belts out some BTO with Wayne Schricker (left) after Schricker’s team, Takin’ Care of Biz’ness, won a music trivia contest July 3 at Candlelight Inn. The song they sang? “Takin’ Care of Business,” of course.

At the a recent trivia night on July 3, the team of “Takin’ Care of ‘Biz’ness” came out on top in a two-team race throughout the night, with others jockeying for position in the rest of the top 10. Both guests and the host have fun putting their trivia talents to the test, and Hennings will sometimes cap the night with karaoke. Recently, he and Wayne Schricker, who was on Lake Car- roll’s winning team, sang BachmanTurner Overdrive’s “Takin’ Care of Business” to celebrate. Schricker, a BTO fan, later shared with Hennings his knowledge of how the song came to be, and about the band’s earlier incarnation as Brave Belt.

“I’ve learned so much about music, even some things that we take for granted,” Hennings said.

Hennings said that even though his DJ work began “as a fluke,” it’s become a lot of fun. He’s enjoyed meeting new people in the community through his interest in music.

“I can’t tell you how many friends we’ve made here, and how nice the people really are,” Hennings said.

Cody Cutter can be reached at 815-632-2532 or ccutter@shawmedia.com

Find Candlelight Inn at Lake Carroll on Facebook and give it a "like" to keep up to date on future music trivia nights hosted by Lake Carroll’s Ron Hennings.

By CODY CUTTER Sauk Valley Media

Tom and Jan Young of Lake Carroll are members of Bluebirds Across Nebraska, and have extended the nonprofit group’s outreach to northern Illinois and Lake Carroll, where they’ve lived since 2014.

“We’ve met a lot of real nice people out there, “Tom said. “That’s one of the nice parts of doing this, there are people who care about bluebirds.”

CODY CUTTER/ CCUTTER@ SHAWMEDIA.COM hen Tom and Jan Young took on a project to help some of nature’s avian aviators set up house in Lake Carroll, they really came through with flying colors — especially blue.

The Youngs enjoy watching birds come and go from their lake home, but there’s one kind in particular they’re especially fond of: They’re blue, they’re small, and lately there’s more of them at Lake Carroll, thanks to the Youngs. They’re bluebirds, a kind once populous across the nation, but more recently dwindling in numbers.

The Youngs are working to change that, and they’re doing it one birdhouse at a time.

The couple have set out to make Lake Carroll a bluebird-friendly haven where the tiny tweeters can have their own birdhouses and freely flit and fly about, adding splashes of color to the bucolic backdrop that is Lake Carroll.

“Bluebirds used to be plentiful in the United States,” Tom said. “They were all over the place, and they aren’t now. The reason being is the introduction of the sparrow and the starlings, which came over from Europe to help control insects and mosquitoes. It was pretty much a big failure, but now there’s zillions of them around and they like the same habitat as bluebirds.”

Bluebirds prefer open spaces, and Lake Carroll’s golf course provides a prime location where they can be close to native prairies and still have places up high to perch. Houses are about 100 yards apart from each other. The wooded areas can be a tricky place to build a nest at, however, with wrens and sparrows disturbing bluebird eggs and being bird bullies.

“Both of those birds use the same type of birdhouse, but they kill bluebirds,” Tom said. “If we see a wren nest under construction, or a sparrow nest, it gets tossed. There’s a lot of people who like wrens; they sing a good song, and we’ll see a lot of wren houses, but they’re probably unaware of how bad those birds are, not just to bluebirds, but all songbirds. They’ll go in the nests, poke holes in the eggs and sometimes throw them around.”

Tom checks a bluebird nest in his back yard at Lake Car- roll. He and his wife, Jan, got hooked on the birds with the blue hue while living in Nebraska and getting involved in the Bluebirds Across Nebraska organization. “It’s the best group that we’ve had anything to do with,” Jan said. “I love the blue- birds and I love the people, too. They are awesome people.”

CODY CUTTER/CCUTTER@SHAWMEDIA.COM

These birdhouses are designed to be more inviting to bluebirds and discourage other natural pests from become unwelcome house guests. The nest on the left is made from a PVC tube, designed to look like a birch tree branch, topped off by a cedar roof that can be removed. The nest’s design appeals to bluebirds but not sparrows, and predators can’t cling to its smooth surface. The Troyer box on the right fea tures a small, rectangular entrance that lets in more sunlight, which discourages wrens and sparrows, which tend to prefer darker areas. The Youngs get their birdhouses from Bluebirds Across Nebraska. "They're top-of-the-line bird houses, better than what you would buy in a store," Tom said. “... If you're going to raise bluebirds, this is the way to go." Go to bbne.org/store/nestboxes/ to see the different kinds of birdhouses Bluebirds Across Nebraska offers

Bluebirds enjoy meal worms. Some of the cedar birdhouses have a small box where the worms can be placed for the bluebirds to eat.

The Youngs are Illinois natives who came back to the Land of Lincoln about a decade ago after living for years in Plattsmouth, Nebraska, about 25 miles south of Omaha along the Missouri River. It was during their time in Nebraska that they learned about the Bluebirds Across Nebraska organization, which helps spread awareness about the birds and their habitats. Tom and Jan attended one of their seminars and “it sounded interesting,” Tom said. They soon became members of the organization.