W eekend SV
Saukvalley.com
Your source for news and sports 7 days a week
Serving Lee, Whiteside, Carroll, Ogle and Bureau counties Saturday&Sunday, June 7-8, 2014 $2.00
Amboy clipped in state softball semis HIGH SCHOOL SPORTS, B1
LANDMARK ON DIXON FARM GETS A FACELIFT LOCAL, A9
LOCAL ECONOMY | ANCHOR COUPLING EXIT
Jobs moving to Michigan Sterling, Dixon to lose Caterpillar-owned facilities BY MATT MENCARINI mmencarini@saukvalley.com 800-798-4085, ext. 5529
STERLING – Caterpillar, which owns the Anchor Coupling facilities in Sterling and Dixon, will consolidate and move the plants to Michigan. In early May, the company announced plans to consolidate the plants, but didn’t say where it might relocate operations, other than the possible sites were in North America. In meetings Friday, Caterpillar told employees at the Sauk Val-
ley plants that production and distribution operations would be moved to the Anchor Coupling facility in Menominee, Michigan. Closing the Sauk Valley plants will affect about 170 fulltime employees, according to a Caterpillar new release. The decision was made after a yearlong consolidation study by Caterpillar. Sterling Mayor Skip Lee said that until he was informed of the decision Friday afternoon, he had held out hope that the company would stay.
“It’s a sad day for this SterlingRock Falls area,” he said. “Those are jobs that we can’t afford to lose. The best scenario is people follow the job to Michigan, which takes talent out of the area.” In anticipation of expanded operations, the Menominee plant will add about 120 jobs during the next year, Caterpillar spokeswoman Rachel Potts said. Local employees will have relocation opportunities, she added. JOBS CONTINUED ON A3
Philip Marruffo/pmarruffo@saukvalley.com
Anchor Coupling plants in Sterling and Dixon will be closed in early 2015 and operations will be moved to Menominee, Mich., parent company Caterpillar announced Friday.
WEEKEND FEATURE | ST. MARY’S SCHOOL IN STERLING
‘This was my ministry’
DIXON
Financial review on horizon BY MATT MENCARINI mmencarini@saukvalley.com 800-798-4085, ext. 5529
DIXON – An 18-week review of Dixon’s financial controls could begin in just a few weeks. In the coming weeks, officials will meet with Sikich, a Naperville-based accounting firm, to complete an agreement to study the city’s financial controls and cash management procedures. The meeting will happen after the Dixon City Council and city staff have had a chance to review the initial proposal, Mayor Jim Burke said. The review’s purpose, Burke said, is to determine whether the city’s financial controls systems have any weaknesses and, if they do, to possibly get recommendations on how to fix them. “I’m not expecting any problems,” Burke said. “... But we don’t want to take any chances on anything.” Alex T. Paschal/apaschal@saukvalley.com
Kraig Schweiss takes a break while packing up his classroom at St. Mary’s School in Sterling. The English teacher is hanging it up after 41 years.
Longtime St. Mary’s teacher exits, stage left BY KATHLEEN A. SCHULTZ kschultz@saukvalley.com 800-798-4085, ext. 5535
STERLING – If you’re lucky, there’s at least one teacher in your life for whom you’ll always be grateful, who made learning fiery fun, who knew how special you were, and celebrated it. If you’re really, really lucky, you had Kraig Schweiss. For the past 35 years, Schweiss has been the tender beating heart of St. Mary’s School in Sterling. He’s firm
Mostly sunny
VOLUME 4 ISSUE 41 44 Pages
Today: 83/64 For the forecast, see Page A11
but fair, and extraordinarily kind. And funny. His laugh wrinkles have laugh wrinkles. For an English teacher, he’s got a whole lot of that French joie de vivre. Schweiss retired this year, after 41 years of teaching elementary students in the Sterling and Dixon Catholic school systems. No one’s happy about it, except maybe his wife, Valerie, and their two horses, three dogs and four cats. Valerie, an RN who also just retired
The People’s Voice
Curt Phillips has plenty of people helping him to keep Dixon looking good. See Page A3
from the digestive health department at CGH Medical Center, has a honeydo list that grows daily at their rural Sterling home. (On June 24, they will have been married 25 years. They also have two sons, Jonathan Schweiss, 23, a mechanical engineering student at the University of Wisconsin, Platteville, and Mike Wilkinson, 34, who lives in Fulton and works in Princeton, Iowa.) TEACHER CONTINUED ON A5
Nation’s pitch man Meet Clint Dempsey, the man leading the USA into the World Cup. Also inside USA Weekend: Father’s Day gift ideas A talk with Bill Paxton
REVIEW CONTINUED ON A4
COMMUNITY
Setting the scenes The Dillon Home Museum in Sterling was the scene of recent work on the film, “Sons and Daughters of Thunder.” PAGE C12
Index Annie .................C6 Markets ...........A11 Births.................C5 Obituaries ..........A4 Business............C1 Opinion..............A6 Classified ...........D1 Scrapbook ........C3 Community ......C12 Sports ...............B1
Crossword Support groups ..C5 Saturday ............C8 State ...............A10 Crossword Sunday ..............D5 Travel ...............C10 Scoreboard .......B9 Wheels ..............D8 Lottery ...............A2 World ..............A11