Your source for community news and sports 7 days a week.
ROCKETS ARMED FOR VICTORY
Home & Garden
SVM ATHLETES OF THE WEEK SPORTS, B3
BASEBALL, B1
PAGES C1-8
TELEGRAPH Tuesday, April 26, 2016
SERVING DIXON AND THE SURROUNDING AREA SINCE 1851
ROCK FALLS | UTILITIES GOVERNANCE BOARD
Mayor pitches utility idea again But the idea still hasn’t caught on with everyone BY PAM EGGEMEIER peggemeier@saukvalley.com 815-625-3600, ext. 5570 @pam_eggemeier
ROCK FALLS – It’s been more than a year since the city started serious talks
about the formation of a utilities governance board, and some alderman still aren’t sold on the idea. The issue was discussed at length during Monday’s Committee of the Whole meeting, a format that allows for inten-
sive dialogue, but no council action. “The council has been split on doing this up until now, but it’s important to remember that the council would still have to OK any recommendations of the governance board,” Mayor Bill Wescott said. One governance board would replace
ROCK FALLS
the standing committees that now deal with the city’s utilities enterprises. Water, sewer, and garbage fall under the jurisdiction of the public works and property committee, while an electric panel oversees the city’s electric utility and its fledgling broadband services. BOARD CONTINUED ON A5
STERLING
Alex T. Paschal/apaschal@saukvalley.com
Anne Polzin, who’s volunteered at Loaves and Fishes for about the past 4 months, slices strawberries Monday for the morning meal at First United Methodist Church in Sterling.
Photos by Philip Marruffo/pmarruffo@saukvalley.com
Scott Jesiolowski and his son, Gavin, plant flowers in the butterfly garden Monday at Centennial Park in Rock Falls.
Taking
nature
under their wing
Preschoolers dig in to help give butterflies and hummingbirds a colorful place to call home
BY PAM EGGEMEIER peggemeier@saukvalley.com 815-625-3600, ext. 5570 @pam_eggemeier
ROCK FALLS – Flashing floppy straw hats, neon sunglasses, and SpongeBob SquarePants gloves, the Tot Time Preschool kids were ready to hit the dirt. “Everybody dig a hole, because we have lots to plant,” teacher Cindy Sondgeroth shouted out. After months of indoor preparation, the afternoon class of Tot Time preschoolers, ages 4 and 5, planted a new butterfly garden on the grounds of the Little Red Schoolhouse at Centennial Park. The morning class of 3-year-olds also participated in the project. The idea for the garden started last year when the kids watched larva turn into butterflies. “We talked about how cool it would be to create a home for the butterflies and hummingbirds, and it just took off from there,” Sondgeroth said. The class learned about the plight of the monarch butterfly. The monarch caterpillar feeds only on milkweed, especially amid Midwest farmland. Herbicides, urban sprawl, and climate change have been cited as factors in the loss of milkweed, and the monarch butterfly has declined by 90 percent since the mid-1990s.
Rise and dine 5 years and 50,000 meals later, Loaves and Fishes still makes room at its table BY JERMAINE PIGEE jpigee@saukvalley.com 815-625-3600, ext. 5525 @JPigee84
STERLING – When Loaves and Fishes served its first free breakfast in 2011, it had but one diner. Like the biblical meal, things have expanded greatly. Monday, exactly 5 years later, volunteers served 115 meals. “The program has definitely come a long way,” volunteer Bill Abate said. Loaves and Fishes now serves an average of 100 free meals a day – 50,000 in the last 5 years – to anyone who walks in the door of the First United Methodist Church annex on East Fifth Street. “Some people need to be here for financial reasons and some need to be here for social reasons,” said mission coordinator Lois Heerdt. “No questions are ever asked, and there were no questions asked today. “We take all kinds of people and serve all kinds of people from all walks of life.”
NATURE CONTINUED ON A10
DINE CONTINUED ON A5
CRIME
Famed author’s comic book collection target of theft Valuable pulp fiction belonged to Sterling native and ‘Shannara’ author Terry Brooks BY ANGEL SIERRA asierra@saukvalley.com 815-625-3600, ext. 5695 @_angelsierra
STERLING – Famed fantasy author and Sterling native Terry Brooks is the owner of the sto-
$1.00
TODAY’S EDITION: 20 PAGES 2 SECTIONS VOL. 164 ISSUE 253
len collection of valuable vintage comic books, estimated to be worth between $100,000 and $500,000, the law firm from which it was stolen confirmed Monday. “Yes, he entrusted them to us,” said Michael A. Lancaster, law part-
INDEX
ABBY ................... A7 BUSINESS ......... A10 COMICS ............... A8
ner at Miller & Lancaster, 15. E. Third St. Brooks, 72, who is named in court documents, once was an attorney at the firm. Whiteside County prosecutors say that between Jan. 1, 2010, and CROSSWORD......B7 LIFESTYLE ........... A7 LOTTERY ............. A2
Feb. 12, 2012, Trisha J. Clemens, 36, of Sterling, “knowingly obtained or exerted unauthorized control over ... numerous vintage comic books, having a total value exceeding $100,000 and not exceeding $500,000.”
OBITUARIES ........ A4 OPINION .............. A6 POLICE ................ A2
Terry Brooks
THEFT CONTINUED ON A5
Today’s weather High 70. Low 46. More on A3.
TO SUBSCRIBE TO THE PAPER, CALL 815-284-2224
Need work? Check out your classifieds, B6.