THURSDAY
RECOVERY
Januar y 14, 2016 • 75¢
Plano senior overcomes 2 ACL injuries to rejoin hoops team / 11 KendallCountyNow.com
SERVING PLANO AND KENDALL COUNTY FOR MORE THAN 40 YEARS
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County sitting on mountain of road salt
CELEBRATING ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT
Highway engineer not convinced that mild winter will continue By MATT SCHURY mschury@kendallcountynow.com
Eric Miller - emiller@shawmedia.com
This year’s Plano High School’s State Scholars are (front row, from left) Annie Shirley, Amber Barkes, Lindsay Hoalt, (second row) Emmanuel Zambrano, Daniel Wittry, Mackenzie Kerry, Christian Estrada, (third row) Trevor Backus, Lucas Thoms, Jaquelin Salcedo and Shannon Tierney.
Plano High School honors State Scholars PLANO RECORD Plano High School Principal Eric Benson is pleased to announce that 11 Plano High School students have been recognized as Illinois State Scholars. Those named are Trevor Backus, Amber Barkes, Christian Estrada, Lindsay Hoalt, Mackenzie Kerry, Jaquelin Salcedo, Annie Shirley, Lucas Thoms, Shannon Tierney, Daniel Wittry and Emmanuel Zambrano. “We are very proud of these excellent students and congratulate them on this signifi-
cant accomplishment,” Benson said. “Many of these students not only excel in the classroom, but also extracurricular activities. They are well-rounded students.” Illinois State Scholars awards, which are presented annually by the Illinois Student Assistance Commission, go to the top students in the state. Winners rank in the top 10 percent of high school seniors from some 652 high schools in Illinois. Selection is based on standardized test scores and class rank at the end of the junior year of high school.
Until last week, this year’s mild winter had meant a good season for the Kendall County Highway Department’s stockpile of rock salt. According to Fran Klaas, the county’s highway engineer, the department has used, on average, about 3,000 tons of road salt each year for the past 10 years. Scientists have pointed to an enhanced El Niño pattern as a likely reason for this winter’s trend of mild temperatures. “Every agency that plows is just saying, ‘We’re one day closer to April,’ ” he said. However, Klaas added that he still can’t help but wonder if they may use more salt before the spring. “I wouldn’t be surprised at all if in the next two months we wind up catching up and using just as much fuel and just as much salt and just as much overtime as
in a typical winter,” he said. “It wouldn’t surprise me a bit.” The county has 5,300 tons of salt stored in its igloo on Route 47 in Yorkville. It shares that salt with 12 other local governmental agencies in Kendall County, including the nine townships as well as Plano and Yorkville. The villages of Montgomery and Oswego store their own road salt. Salt prices have been volatile the last few years, Klaas says, something that wasn’t always the case. This year salt was priced at about $66 per ton, a decrease from 2014 when prices spiked at $91.50 per ton, according to highway department purchasing data. Klaas said the county doesn’t have the option of not plowing and salting if it is over budget or things get costly. He added that the county is contracted to take at least 80 percent of what it orders. In a year
Eric Miller - emiller@shawmedia.com
A large pile of salt awaits loading onto snowplows at the Kendall County Highway Department garage in Yorkville. This year salt was priced at about $66 per ton, a decrease from 2014 when prices spiked at $91.50 per ton, according to highway department purchasing data.
SPORTS
LOCAL NEWS
WHERE IT’S AT
Two wins for Reapers
Sentence in drug case
Plano girls’ basketball team rallies from double-digit deficit to overcome Somonauk / 12
Plano man gets 16 years in prison for deliveries of cocaine, one of them near a school / 7
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Vol. 41, No. 2 3 sections