Thursday January 25, 2018 Vol. 5, No. 46 Hot news tip? Want to advertise? Call (309) 741-9790
The Weekly Post
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PRSRT. STD. U.S. POSTAGE PAID Elmwood, Illinois Permit No. 13
“We Cover The News of West-Central Illinois With A Passion” Serving the fine communities of Brimfield, Dahinda, Douglas, Duncan, Edwards, Elmore, Elmwood, Farmington, Kickapoo, Laura, Monica, Oak Hill, Princeville, Williamsfield and Yates City
Dwyer has enjoyed decades as a barber
By BILL KNIGHT
For The Weekly Post
Dick Dwyer, 74, is retiring after 44 years of running a barber shop on the east edge of Kickapoo. Photo by Bill Knight.
His clientele ranged from business executives to farmers, he recalls. “Royal Coulter, president of PDC, was a regular,” Dwyer says. “I had all kinds. There were a few who said they’d been here the day I started, and they came back the day I finished. “It was a great, fun job – an adventure.” The 1961 graduate of Spalding In-
stitute, who worked a bit at Ben Schwartz’ grocery store as a teen, says he remembers his father asking what he planned to do and suggesting he consider becoming a barber. “So I looked into it,” he says. “I went to Roy Gibbs’ Midwest Barber College on Peoria’s South Side and after nine or ten months I was ready to go. I went up to Chicago for the Continued on Page 2
Coal mining has a deep history in Illinois By CASEY BISCHEL
Louis Joliet and Pere Marquette, returning from an expedition on the Mississippi River in 1673, were the first explorers to notice the combustible material that would shape the Illinois economy. The coal just sat there on the surface like low-hanging fruit near Utica along the Illinois River. The first mine appeared near Peoria not long after, but it wasn’t until 1830, when coal from Belleville found a market in nearby St. Louis, that the industry took off, according to Keith Weil and Alvin K. Grandys, who wrote the 1976 Illinois Coal Digest, a publication
The Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) last week released the long-delayed results from the 2016 Illinois Science Assessment (ISA), and the five schools in The Weekly Post area mostly showed aggreIllinois gate scores of Science Assessment average or 2016 Scores slightly above School Mean (avg.) average. The test is Brimfield untimed, but 5th Grade 309 designed to 8th Grade 312 take about an 305 High School* hour. Each stu- Elmwood dent’s score be5th Grade 318 8th Grade 304 tween 200 and High School* 318 400 correlates Farmington to one of two 5th Grade 302 performance 8th Grade 297 levels: ProfiHigh School* 294 cient or Not Princeville Proficient. 5th Grade 305 The ISBE 8th Grade 314 gauges “ProfiHigh School* 314 cient” as 296Williamsfield 400 for 5th 5th Grade 304 grade; 293-400 8th Grade 300 for 8th grade, High School* 295 and 307-400 * NOTE: High School tests taken for high by 11th graders. school. By that SOURCE - ISBE standard, Brimfield, Farmington and Williamsfield high schoolers are determined “Not Proficient.” All others were deemed “Proficient.” Measured on a letter-grade scale, with A being 360-400, B 320-359, C 280-319, D 240279 and F 200-239, all area students performed at a B or C level. (See chart). “Overall, the statewide 2016 ISA results reflect a solid mastery of science in the ‘all stuFor The Weekly Post
By BILL KNIGHT
Of the Belleville News-Democrat
Compliments of Our Fine Advertisers!
Local schools earn Bs, Cs in science testing
‘I LIKE CUTTING HAIR’
KICKAPOO – It takes a lot of work to get as playful as Dick Dwyer is. And time. It’s been 44 years since the 74year-old barber opened his shop on the east edge of town, and he retired this month. Now, at ease in his single-chair shop, he sports a pixie grin and reflects on his decades here with a bit of a wizard’s wisdom and a smartaleck’s sense of humor. “This place got to happening!” he says, stroking his goatee and smiling. “It got busy. We’d say, ‘What plays here, stays here.’”
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from the Illinois Department of Business and Economic Development. Coal grew by leaps and bounds over the decades. In the 1850s and 1860s, railroads opened lines to new customers and the Civil War. Later, Weil and Grandys write, the formalization of geology and the appearance of the steam engine made coal easier to find and dig. The mines attracted tens of thousands of workers, many of whom were
exposed to the dangers of an unchecked industry. As mine collapses and explosions claimed hundreds of lives, new vitality sprang into labor unions that went on to fight for better safety and health care. Early mine collapses, the result of apathetic owners, encouraged miners to organize but still produced few gains, according to Rosemary Feurer, a history professor at Northern Illinois University. Reforms went unenforced, and even a nascent form of workers’ compensation, the victory of a particularly deadly episode in Cherry, in the northern part of the state in 1909, barely Continued on Page 8
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