The Weekly Post
Thursday August 1, 2013 Vol. 1, No. 23 Hot news tip? Want to advertise? Call (309) 741-9790!
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Ray LaHood considering future career options By BILL KNIGHT
After more than four years as U.S. Secretary of Transportation during the Obama administration and 35 years in government, Republican Ray LaHood is taking time to consider various options and plans to decide his future in the next few weeks. But he notes that whatever his future holds, “our home is Peoria. “After Labor Day, we’ll figure out what we’ll do,” he said. “I’m taking the summer to listen to people. We’ll stay involved, maybe volunteer, maybe help with some not for profit or some other board, [so] we’re going to be For The Weekly Post
spending a lot of time there.” LaHood has spent a lot of time creating a substantial transportation legacy. After serving on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee from 1995 until 2000, he became Transportation Secretary and is credited with its fixing or building thousands of bridges and hundreds of thousands of miles of roads. He also has also shared the credit for: • Helping create 65,000 jobs from government’s economic stimulus; • Launching high-speed rail; • Leading on consumer-friendly initiatives ranging from better fuel efficiency, bicycle-sharing programs and
auto recalls to air safety monitoring, the “Cash for Clunkers” program and distracted driving measures. His leadership arguably stems from a lesson he took from decades of public service. “I learned that you can be successful if you hire good staff and let them do the job,” he says. “When I came to the Department of Transportation I had 100 positions to fill and I interviewed for every one. I tried to hire based on their professional qualifications, to build a team and give them the leverage to do what they do best. “I took two with me [from previous offices]: Marlise Streitmatter, from
WHITNEY’S WALK
Walk revenue tops $130,000
Members of the Grotts extended family pose for a picture during Saturday’s Whitney’s Walk For Life, a memorial to the late Whitney Grotts. The event at Jubilee College State Park raised more than $130,000. See a related column by Jeff Lampe on Page 4.
BRIMFIELD – Unseasonably mild weather helped attract a record number of more than 1,350 participants for Saturday’s 10th annual Whitney’s Walk For Life, held at Jubilee College State Park. That crowd helped generate a record of more than $130,000. “On the day of the walk you always see this sea of green shirts, but usually you can see the grass. It seemed for a while there I could not see the grass. It was wall to wall people, shoulder to shoulder,” said Jamie Sanders of Mental Health America of Illinois Valley. “It was phenomenal.”
Thank Mr. Brown when the lights go on By KARL TAYLOR
When you turn on the lights in Elmwood, Yates City, Brimfield or even Maquon, don’t forget to thank Mr. Brown. When you drive by Max Morse’s house in Elmwood, tip your hat to the man who built that house in 1898. You see, Edwin L. Brown brought electricity to Elmwood in 1891, the third city in Central Illinois, just behind Peoria For The Weekly Post
(1884) and Pekin (1888). Until that year, our ancestors had been using candles and kerosene. Who, in the world, was E. L. Brown? He was born in 1850 near Springfield, Mass., moving with his family to Elmwood in 1856. After graduating from the Taft Academy, Brown operated several businesses, including a book and stationery store, a dry goods store (he bought merchandise in Chicago from Marshall Fields) and eventually the Elm-
wood Paper Mill. When he was running the mill, he was also thinking about electricity. While he used kerosene lamps in his home and businesses, he was a little jealous of his friends in Peoria and Pekin and decided to build a power plant just south of town on the banks of the Kickapoo Creek, believing electricity was the wave of the future. As the Peoria Transcript said Continued on Page 4
your area, and Joan DeBoer.” DeBoer, formerly Deputy Chief of Staff at LaHood’s Congressional office in Washington, was LaHood’s Chief of Staff at DOT; Streitmatter, the daughter of Norma and Joyce Streitmatter of rural Elmwood, was LaHood’s political director in Peoria, and was Deputy Chief of Staff at DOT. Streitmatter, a 1979 graduate of Brimfield High School who has also worked for the Department of Defense and the World Bank, says the upbringing she and LaHood had has helped. “The small-town heritage is extraordinarily valuable,” Streitmatter says. Continued on Page 2
Man charged with child porn By BILL KNIGHT
State and Knox County police executed a search warrant in the 600 block of South Dixon Street last Thursday morning and arrested a 54-year-old Yates City man and charged him with 12 counts of child pornography. Kevin Eugene Martin was charged with four Class-X counts of distribution of child pornography, punishable by 6 to 30 years in prison; four Class-1 counts of distribution of child pornography, punishable by 4 to 15 years in prison; three Class-2 counts of possession of child pornography, punishable by 3 to 7 years; and one Class-3 count of possession of child pornography, with a possibility of 2 to 5 years in prison. “Possessing or distributing child Martin pornography is a horrific crime,” commented Attorney General Lisa Madigan. “Every time an image of a child being sexually assaulted is viewed, it perpetuates the initial offense and further scars these innocent victims. “My office will continue to be relentless in targeting these offenders and working with local law enforcement to arrest and prosecute them.” Part of Operation Glass House, a statewide initiative that Madigan launched to apprehend the most active offenders downloading and trading child pornography online, the search and arrest involved officers from the Knox County Sheriff’s Department. “The operation was out of the Illinois Attorney General’s office,” said Captain Dave Caslin of the Knox For The Weekly Post
Continued on Page 3