“We are focusing now on building up our membership and gaining more financial and human resources,” Jake Marino, one of the founders of the organization, said last week. “Our plan to establish a museum in the Deicke farmhouse has become more of a long-range project.”

Marino gave the Sun Day an update on the society’s activities during an interview in the Huntley Library, where he is a full-time member of the staff.

While it is a historical organization, the society is a very young one. It was established in 2009 by a group of area residents who wanted to formalize their keen interest in the area’s history, form an organization that would be¬come a prominent part of the community, and preserve and display historical information and artifacts. One of their first priorities was to establish an administrative home and museum.

The Huntley Historical Society is still hoping to move into the farmhouse located near Deicke Park, (pictured) but is currently more focused on building membership and financing. (Chris LaPelusa I Sun Day Photo)

At first, things moved quickly.

Society members identified the 170-year-old Deicke farmhouse at Main Street and Lee Lane as a possible site for a potential office-museum. The house is located on Huntley Park District property and has been used as a storage facility by the park district in recent years. Initial discussions with park officials led to an agreement in principle that the museum idea was potentially feasible.

But challenges remain. A formal agreement between the society and the park district must be adopted. Extensive and costly exterior and interior renovation of the house is needed. Funding sources must be established, and the society needs to develop into a viable organization.

“We spent much of 2012 discussing the legal aspects of developing our organization and the details of the museum project,” Marino said. “We weren’t focusing on history. Our membership dwindled. Some important people moved on to other things. We are slowly but surely recovering from that, but it will take time. We are still talking with lawyers and park officials about the museum idea, but on a more long-range basis. We have a long way to go to finalize an agreement with the park district and define the financial and administrative responsibilities of each party.”

But the talk with Marino wasn’t all about challenges. He also revealed some of the history of the Deicke home and some of his own ideas about what can be done with it.

“Our research reveals that this home is one of the oldest buildings in McHenry County, and maybe the oldest one still standing,” he said.

The Deicke farm was one of five in the Huntley area owned by Edwin Deicke, who moved here in the 1840s after establishing an insurance business in the DuPage County area. He was one of the wealthiest farmers in Huntley in the mid- 19th century. Research also reveals that he built the house around 1841. He probably built the barn first because that was the way farms were developed in those days. Deicke also later built the home that still stands on the north side of Main Street, across from the original farmhouse.

Deicke holdings extended south and east over most of what is now Deicke Park, Sting Ray Bay, several athletic fields, and the Cosman Center.

“We have talked about eventually renovating the house back to the way it was in about 1900, in its heyday as a prominent location in the community,” Marino said. “We have been trying to find pictures of the building, but so far we have been mostly unsuccessful. Old photos would be valuable to tell us how to take the building back to a certain historical time.”

Marino is an original member of the Society board. The group meets every other month in the park district’s Cosman Center. It is planning a series of promotions and events to increase its visibility in the community.

As an example, it set up shop at a table at the first 2013 Farm¬er’s Market in the village square on May 25 and conducted activities honoring current and former Huntley-area firefighters.

“Anything that can be done to cut the noise down will help,” Diane Novak, neighborhood representative, said. “We are still communicating with tollway officials, Sun City board members, and village leaders. The village people have told me they will try to help us develop some solutions.”

Diane and her husband, Robert, live on Bluebird Lane. Their home is one of several dozen in Neighborhoods 31, 33, 34, and 35 that are affected by the problem.

Late last year, following a meeting with tollway officials, residents were told that construction of a sound wall along the north side of the tollway was not cost-effective and not required under tollway rules, as most of their homes are about 900 feet away from the tollway.

Residents acknowledge that they knew they were close to the tollway when they bought their homes in the last 2-3 years, but they also say they weren’t aware of the plan to build the interchange. This project, they say, has caused the removal of many natural sound barriers between their homes and the tollway.

“Now, the area between the highway and our homes is completely open,” Novak said. “A five-foot-high fence was installed behind the backyards of homes along Meadowlark Lane and Court when the area was originally developed. It doesn’t help to reduce the noise very much. It was meant to shield us from Dhamer traffic, which isn’t causing a problem.”

Novak said the neighborhood has been offered other options that could provide some sound protection. One would involve installation of extensive plantings near the tollway. A second would take some of the dirt removed in the tollway interchange expansion project and build a berm on the north side of James Dhamer Road, next to the Meadowlark homes. A third would involve construction of a berm on the south side of Dhamer, on commercially zoned property that is currently vacant.

“We are still asking the tollway people to do more noise studies, since they only did one last year, and it was on a day when the wind was not out of the south,” Novak said. “We continue to believe the noise monitoring was incomplete.”

To get a first-hand experience of the noise levels, this writer visited two homes on Meadowlark Lane, the southern-most street in Sun City. It runs parallel to Dhamer Road in Neighborhood 35. At the residence of Amelia Felinski, 13335 Meadowlark, the sound of traffic was clearly audible from the rear patio.

“Right now, the noise isn’t quite so bad, because there is a 45-mile-an-hour speed limit near Route 47 because of the construction projects,” Filenski said. “When that ends, it will get worse.”

“I don’t usually go to bed until 1 or 2 a.m. because the traffic is so bad in the evenings up until that time,” she said. “I sometimes take sleeping pills to get to sleep.”

Felinski added she is still considering sound-proofing her home.

“We came here three years ago to be in a quiet place, and we have enjoyed it except for this noise.”

Kathy Matthews, who lives next door to the Filenskis at 13345 Meadowlark, echoed her neighbor’s opinions and experiences.

The residents met recently with Huntley Village Mgr. Dave Johnson, who acknowledged that the village is getting involved in the discussions.

“We have had conversations with the residents and with the tollway,” Johnson said. “Some specific proposals have been discussed. We are waiting now to hear back from the tollway. This issue involves another property owner in the area in addition to the Sun City residents, so we are making sure everyone is consulted and informed.”

Johnson said no timetable for making decisions has been established.

The truth is, our society is making significant progress toward finding a cure – one day, one fundraiser, one cancer survivor – at a time. On June 14, Sun Citians have a chance to support the American Cancer Society’s annual Relay for Life fund-raising campaign. The public is invited, and encouraged, to attend.

Deicke Park in Huntley is the site, for the second straight year, of the 2013 local Relay for Life effort, which will be built around a theme of “party hard for the cure” and will last 12 hours overnight, with a Hawaiian flavor.

From 6 p.m. Friday, June 14, to 6 a.m. Saturday, June 15, 20 Huntley-area fund-raising teams with about 119 participants will set up overnight campsites, walk a track in relays, eat, play games, enjoy entertainment, luminaria ceremonies, a survivor dinner and walk, children’s games and face-painting. In the past year, the area teams have raised nearly $25,000.

Also planned will be a tacky tourist relay, coconut bowling (with pineapples or liter bottles), hula hoop circles, limbo contests, water balloon tosses, and baggo.

“This is fun and fund-raising,” Mary Lou Dorgan, chairperson of the Sun City Surfers, said. “You can come and eat, play games, socialize, and stay as long as you want.”

This writer is a cancer survivor (prostate, 2008). I benefited from first-rate, state-of-the-art care and I was lucky; the disease is now just a distant memory. There are millions just like me, surviving because of the support of so many fellow citizens. Almost everyone has been touched or impacted in one way or another by this disease.

This intensely personal, highly emotional, and often controversial question was brought front and center before a small group in Sun City and other residents on May 14 at Fountain View Center.

Nineteen people attended an informal, informational meeting arranged by Sun City resident Kurt Geier, who wants to form a group to discuss this complex issue and educate the community on end-of-life matters. Geier said he invited a representative from Compassion and Choices, a national end-of-life advocacy and educational organization, to lead a presentation at the meeting. But that didn’t happen, because Geier said CAM officials told him it would have violated “outside group” guidelines.

While Compassion and Choices does advocate for “aid-in-dying,” “It operates within the law of all states in which it functions,” Geier said.

A Compassion and Choices representative told the Sun Day on May 9 that it gives advice only within the boundaries of what is legal. On its website, Compassion and Choices says: “Professional counselors and trained volunteers work by phone or in person to offer assistance in completing advance directives and living wills, referrals to local services, including hospice and illness-specific support groups, advice on adequate pain and symptom management, and information on safe, effective methods of aid in dying as an option of last resort.”

Geier himself stated his beliefs and then invited the group to ask questions and comment. The dialog lasted an hour.

“I want to start the group within the rules of the Sun City association,” Geier said. “They were established and agreed to by all of us.”

There currently are three states that have legalized a patient’s opportunity to choose when and how to end life. They are Washington, Oregon, and Montana. In Washington and Oregon, the issue was widely debated and then decided in public referenda.

In Oregon, one attendee said a person must be a resident of the state for one year before end-of-life actions can be taken. In Montana, the state’s Supreme Court ruled in favor of not punishing doctors for aiding a death process.

On May 13, the Vermont legislature approved a bill aimed at legalizing the practice, and it has been sent to the governor for his signature.

“Recent surveys and polls reveal that half of our nation’s seniors want the option of developing a dying plan,” Geier said. “Also, one in 10 persons has indicated they would seriously consider getting help with dying if they were allowed to do so.

“This is an intensely personal issue in which most persons are very interested,” Geier added. “If you’re here to hear people from Colorado teach you how to kill yourself, that’s somewhere else; it’s not here. This is simply a meeting about end-of-life issues.

“In Sun City, I envision the possibility of a group of like-minded people meeting together on one of life’s most important issues,” he said. “We would decide collectively what we would do and what our activities would be.”

Geier, who cared for his sister through the end of her life and currently is a caregiver to a friend, said he has come to feel passionately about the matter.

“I think there are certain circumstances when I should have the option of choosing how and when to end my life,” Geier said. “It’s nobody else’s business unless I choose to make it so. I should be accorded the option of ending my life when my death appears to be inevitable, painful, emotionally exhausting, or, dare I say it, expensive.”

“I like the idea of a group, and I like the idea of it being an open-minded and free discussion, and that we would not be judgmental,” one attendee said.

“I hope it would help teach people about the importance of planning ahead in case of serious illness or end-of-life,” another said. “I watched my husband die of ALS. He refused to face the fact of death, and as a family we couldn’t bring anything to resolution about how things were to take place until two days before he died.”

One attendee asked Geier how he would justify his beliefs in light of the biblical standard of “Thou shall not kill.”

“I respect people’s relationship with God enormously,” Geier responded. “I have prayed about this with my God, and I feel He has given me free will to make choices. I feel comfortable with that. I have an obligation to share my beliefs with others.”

Another attendee, who said she was a registered nurse, repeated the idea that families should prepare directives, such as power of attorney, a living will, and treatments, so that medical personnel will know what to do in an end-of-life situation.

“We too often have a problem with death, and we don’t deal with it properly,” she said.

While the dialog was civil and most attendees appeared to be on the same page with Geier, he said controversy arose before the meeting. After the Sun Day article appeared on May 9, Geier said he received several phone calls.

“Some were supportive of my ideas, but some were not,” he said. “One caller threatened to call the police and mount a demonstration in Prairie Lodge at the meeting.”

No such activities took place.

Geier collected the names and email addresses of all the attendees, asked those who didn’t want to participate to cross their names off, and said he planned to set up a meeting with most of the attendees as soon as possible.

An Illinois Appellate court recently ruled in favor of ComEd in the utility’s effort to place several power transmission line towers on Kreutzer family property along the south side of Kreutzer Road.

A house that stood for generations on landnow lays in rubble at the approaching power
lines. The house sat on land the Kreutzer family has owned since 1868.

A formerly rented farmhouse on the south side of the road, near the current home of Frances Kreutzer, was recently demolished to make room for the utility’s construction crews.

“The house was rented out for a while but was vacant for the last several months,” William Byrne, Frances Kreutzer’s son-in-law, said.

ComEd now will proceed to complete installation of towers and lines from Huntley Road westward along the south side of Kreutzer and then northwest along the Union Pacific Railroad tracks near one of the village’s industrial/business parks.

ComEd officials say the project will expand the utility’s ability to react favorably to storms that have caused power outages and provide more long-term power resources to the Huntley area, including Sun City.

“We fought against their plan to locate the towers on our property as long as we could,” Byrne said. “Unfortunately, all of the authorities in the state agreed with ComEd’s preferred plan. We still believe there was a cheaper and better route that wouldn’t have impacted our property and other residential areas of the village. ComEd didn’t even use its own land; they decided to use ours, which they acquired through legal action.”

The dispute over the location of these towers, which also initially involved the Village of Huntley, began more than a decade ago.

Despite village objections to the Kreutzer route and recommendations that ComEd use a route farther south along Powers Road, the Illinois Commerce Commission approved ComEd’s Kreutzer route. The Kreutzer family filed an appeal to the decision, which was resolved in favor of ComEd in recent weeks.

“We’ve been pursuing this legal appeal since sometime late in 2006,” Byrne said. “We based our case on the fact that ComEd had a cheaper option. We believed it made sense. But unfortunately, the court didn’t agree.”

The road is named after the Kreutzer family, which were among the original settlers that came to the Huntley area in the late 1800s.

Very few people’s signatures swing at upwards of 75 mph. As a marketing professional and baseball bat designer for deBeer, Bob Campbell’s signature made contact all across the country. (Chris La Pelusa | Sun Day Photo)

Bob Campbell found a way, however, to surmount the superstar’s private wall. And he has a photo or two to prove it.

Campbell was a baseball fan with chutzpah who never met a ballplayer he didn’t want to meet. He decided he needed a prop in order to capture Williams’ attention one day in 1985. He also knew he needed to be prepared to talk about hitting, Williams’ favorite subject outside of fishing. A corporate representative for the deBeer Company, one of the nation’s foremost manufacturers of sports equipment, Campbell entered the Red Sox locker room during spring training day in Florida.

He held his own invention, a strange looking, foot-long “power bat” that he developed as an exercise tool for hitters.

“Williams stared at the weird bat as I approached, not at me,” Campbell recalled. “He was fascinated by it. He asked me about hitting, and we talked together, along with Red Sox manager Sam Mele, for 1 1/2 hours. When I was leaving, one of the Red Sox reps asked me, ‘No one gets to talk to Williams that long, how did you do it?’”

Such has been the life of Bob Campbell, a seriously fascinating sports guy/promoter/minister. This new Sun Citian (he moved into N-9 last fall), has a ton of chutzpah to help him teach hitting, sell sports equipment, and just spend his time “hangin’” with players, coaches, managers, and baseball/softball executives.

If you love to “talk ball,” Campbell is your guy. He’s got more stories than Yogi Berra, and they’re more logical. Don’t get into a sports trivia contest with him, however; he’ll probably beat you. He developed one of the first aluminum bats for softball and invented the power bat that has become a standard tool in teaching the challenging art of hitting a softball and baseball. At age 73, he has retired from the sports marketing business, but still conducts hitting clinics literally all over the world, mostly in softball. When he isn’t discussing swings and tees, he is sharing his Christian faith, all under the umbrella of Bob Campbell Enterprises.

A native of the Austin neighborhood on the border of Chicago and Oak Park, Campbell’s background and early life are a testament to overcoming obstacles, adapting to your strengths, and practicing and preaching a faith in God to guide him along the way. He was introduced to sports, and God, very early. He grew up playing softball, baseball, and basketball on school and park district teams in his neighborhood and on church teams. But it was not always easy. A learning disability resulted in his dropping out of high school before graduation, and he then served a short stint in the U.S. Marine Corps. “After I left school, I had a tough time finding work, but God gave me some other smarts,” he said.

As a young man, he recognized both his limitations and his talents in sales, advertising, and promotion. He started his own advertising business in Chicago while continuing to play the Chicago-style, 16-inch softball on the many city parks in the 1950s. “One of my good friends had a brother who said I should join the Windy City league playing at Clarendon Park on Montrose Avenue at that time,” Campbell recalled recently. “So not too long after high school and the Marines, I broke into the League.

“I was always a good hitter, and I learned how to teach hitting from the best hitters in the League, which is a part of the Chicago fabric and history,” he said.

Later a resident of Buffalo Grove, he played with the Bobcats, the legendary 16-inch Chicago team that won many state and national 16-inch championships. His biggest claim to fame, however, came when he formed the Buffalo Grove Bruins in 1969. From that year through 1986, the Bruins became one of the most successful 16-inch and 12-inch softball teams in Chicago history, compiling a 685-93 record and winning many state and two national championships. He also founded and was the player-coach for the Junior Bruins of high school and college-age young men, who fashioned a 101-21 record, won 4 tournament titles, 5 ASA Illinois state crowns, and 2 ASA national championships. He was a three-time All-American during his playing days with the two Bruin teams.

“I’ve been so blessed to be able to find a way to make something I love into a career,” Campbell said. “I’ve also been blessed in that I’ve found a way to make sports into a platform for my faith.”

Bob Campbell sits at his desk in his home office filled with career memorabillia. (Chris La Pelusa | Sun Day Photo)

On another national stage, Campbell has worked with such Major League Baseball hitting stars as Jim LeFevre of the Dodgers, Eric Soderholm of the White Sox, and Charlie Lau. “These guys are three of the best hitting instructors I have known, Campbell said. They also played a big role in preparing me to be a hitting instructor in so many places around the world.” Campbell has conducted hitting clinics throughout the continental U.S., made 16 trips to Hawaii to put on clinics, and even has combined international mission trips around the world, with teaching kids how to play the game of softball.

In 1975, two things happened that turned his life around, he related.

“That year, I re-dedicated myself to Christ, and God brought me a terrific career boost. I earlier had co-founded the Windy City League magazine, which brought me into contact with many sports equipment companies at trade shows in Chicago. One of them was Fred (Fritz) deBeer, president of the deBeer Company. We had talked a little sports marketing at shows in Chicago. He called me during that year and said he wanted to meet with me to talk about a project. We met and he offered me a job with his firm.”

Campbell spent the next 27 years as national director of promotions and sales for the deBeer Baseball and Softball Co., a leading manufacturer and distributor of athletic equipment. When he started with them, they weren’t into bats, preferring to leave that to Louisville Slugger. Campbell designed the firm’s first aluminum bat for softball, persuaded his company to manufacture and sell it, and aluminum bats are now staples of the sport at all levels. Campbell also served on Nike’s advisory staff for softball for 16 years. He also served on the International Sports Coalition Board, and the Trinity University Sports Advisory Board.

Today, Campbell’s Sun City home is literally a small sports museum. His basement and office are loaded with All-American and state/national championship trophies from the Bruins teams. Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter sent letters and telegrams of congratulation to two of Campbell’s Bruin teams.
Bob Campbell overcame and adapted and marched on to success, with the help of a lot of faith…and chutzpah.

But this fascinating state has much more to offer the visitor – things hidden in tiny towns, almost lost in the huge deserts, or buried deep within the frenetic activities in sprawling cities.

After spending a month in the state recently, I suggest that the way to really see and enjoy the myriad points of interest in Arizona is to connect with a local friend or family member, ask about what to do and see, and take off.

Casa Grande ruins located in Casa Grande, AZ. (Dwight Esau I Sun Day Photo)

I did just that in March to celebrate my wife’s retirement with a visit to our daughter, Barb, and her family in Phoenix. We bought a new set of wheels, left Chicago’s snows and cold behind quickly, and soon were basking in 85-degree temps in what the nation has called “The Grand Canyon State.”

With all due respect to the big gorge, however, we never got close to the place. Nor did we hit the big dam and the OK Corral – all worthy stops.
Arizona is full of Esau friends and family members. So we took full advantage of their enormous knowledge and collective hospitality, plus helpful tour guides and scenic attraction hosts, to see and experience an Arizona that a lot of folks never see.

Our first stop, and the highlight of our trip for me, was a really creative place called the Organ Stop in Mesa, a major Phoenix suburb. It’s just a few minutes from HoHoKam Park, the former Cubs Baseball spring training site.

This truly unique establishment has to be the largest pizza parlor you’ve ever seen. It is hundreds of people eating very good pizza and listening to the Hallelujah Chorus played on the world’s largest Wurlitzer organ while viewing all the instrument’s pipes and parts gyrating and clattering.

How much fun is it to listen to the Handel classic or other favorite music in a pizza parlor. Patrons are encouraged to submit requests to the artist, so I asked him to play “‘Ol Man River,” and a few minutes later he did so.

He played patriotic songs, marches, classical numbers, rag time, jazz, Broadway favorites, and he made the organ sound like a passing train and a brass band. The instrument, purchased from a Denver theater in the 1970s, has been renovated many times and now boasts 6,000 pipes and can make any sound you can imagine. It is the largest Wurlitzer in the world. If you go to Phoenix, go to this place.

Next, check out Arizona’s mountains. Friends in the Tucson area drove us up near the top of Mt. Lemmon in the nearby Catalina Mountains. This took us up higher than 9,000 feet and chilled us with deep snowbanks and a temperature of 40 degrees. Luckily, we brought our jackets.

Dwight Esau (back) and friend encounter a snowbank on Mt. Lemmon.
(Dwight Esau I Sun Day Photo)

On a sobering note, our hosts took us to many areas of the mountain range that are now gray wastelands of stumps due to wildfires. The former resort town of Summerhaven on the mountain is slowly replacing burned-out foundations with new homes.

Fast forward to the Arizona Broadway Theatre in Phoenix. After a delicious three-course dinner, we welcomed a 21st century version of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. We laughed, reminisced, and immersed ourselves back in the 1950s, when crooner/straight man Martin and crazy comic Lewis entertained America with their popular shticks. The modern Lewis had the same rubber legs and soprano voice, and this time he added something the original Lewis never did: spectacular piano talent.

Speaking of music, we went to the Musical Instrument Museum in Scottsdale, which Tony Bennett calls, “my favorite museum.” This one-of-a kind facility is home to nearly 15,000 instruments and artifacts, showcasing music and culture from every country in the world.

View and listen to presentations by icons such as John Lennon, Elvis Presley, Taylor Swift, Eric Clapton, Roy Orbison, Carlos Santana, and many other artists and celebrities. Attend a traditional Beijing opera, celebrate a contemporary Ukrainian wedding, pulse to the rhythm of Nigerian drums, and soak in the sounds of music from ancient campfires to modern symphony halls.

You think olives are associated only with Europe and the Mediterranean? They also thrive in central Arizona, where long sunny days and cool desert nights provide ideal growing conditions. Not surprisingly, one of the area’s biggest attractions is the Queen Creek Olive Mill, home of extra virgin oils. It is a few miles southeast of Mesa. Take a 30-minute tour to view olive oil processing, taste the variety of flavored oils, and discover the 100-acre olive grove that produces some of the most sought-after oils for discriminating restaurants and palates.

Chicago Cubs fans, if you haven’t heard yet, HoHoKam park in Mesa is now part of Cub history. After 33 years there, the Cubs will move next spring to a new park a short distance away. This new facility will have a stadium reminiscent of historic Wrigley Field, a state-of-the-art team clubhouse, a cluster of top-notch baseball practice fields, pristine youth soccer fields, and a sparkling public lake. It has been under construction for several months already. We saw the last Cub game played at the field, and it sparked an interesting question – how far is the pitcher’s mound raised above the field in Major League Baseball? Answer below.

For you wild west history buffs, there was historic Florence, not far from Queen Creek, southeast of Mesa. Here, you’ll view preserved 1870s old west buildings, read about the infamous shootout between the town’s top two lawmen, and discover that the tiny settlement was home to one of the 600 prisoner-of-war camps built throughout the nation by the federal government to house German and Italian POWs in World War II.

Like to imagine ancient history with the world’s geologic experts? Stop at the Meteorite Crater just off I-40 a few miles east of Flagstaff. This 700-foot deep, 4,000-foot wide hole in the ground is where historians say a giant meteorite collided with earth about 50,000 years ago. (Historians at the visitor center assured me they have carefully measured the evidence and have the time right.) The site is now the scene of scientific research and was a training ground for Apollo astronauts. An animated video depicts what the collision was probably like.

Arizona – home of the Grand Canyon, and a lot more.

Memorial for the victims of the Oklahoma City bombing. (Dwight Esau I Sun Day Photo)

A tree that survived the Oklahoma City bombing is a prominent part of the memorial. (Dwight Esau I Sun Day Photo)

On the way home – in our car instead of an airplane – we had a chance for one more memorable stop. It was in Oklahoma City, at the National Memorial and Museum on the site of the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah federal office building on April 19, 1995. A total of 168 persons, many of them children, died that day, and more than 700 were injured by terrorist bombers.

The outdoor and indoor facilities are beautiful and somber reminders of the tragedy and redemption that took place that day.

A different group of burglars has entered homes that are vacant, for sale, and foreclosures.

During the week of April 7, two Sun City homes were burglarized – one in the 13000 block of White Oak in Neighborhood 29 and the other in the 12000 block of Castle Rock Drive in Neighborhood 31. Both residences are vacant and for sale in foreclosure. Taken were large appliances such as stoves, washers, dryers, and similar items.

“These incidents were not the work of the people who have been burglarizing Sun City homes in the past,” Sgt. Michael Hewitt of the Huntley Police said. “These two Sun City homes are among several others in the village that have been hit this way. These people obviously use large vehicles and heavy equipment to accomplish what they want.”

He added that since the homes are vacant, there is an extended time lapse between the break in and notification to the police.

“Since these homes are in foreclosure, the banks hire a company to check on them periodically,” Hewitt said. “It often is several days after the break-in occurs before we find out. Typically, homes are checked once a week. We don’t know yet if the incidents occurred at night or daytime. We have canvassed the neighboring areas but have not been able to get too much information.”

Because of the ongoing investigation, Hewitt declined to say if any physical evidence has been found in the Sun City homes.

In a previous interview with Huntley authorities regarding earlier burglaries in Sun City, more information about the group of burglars active in Sun City for a couple of years was revealed.

They have been slowed down by police interrogations and relentless investigation, but not stopped.

“This is strange. We know who at least some of these people are, and they know that we know,” Huntley Police Chief John Perkins said recently. “We have questioned them, and we have some physical evidence, but we don’t have enough yet to make an arrest and get a conviction.”

There have been two break-ins in the last seven months in Sun City homes, he said. The last one occurred in early December, 2012, in a home on Black Oak Trail in Neighborhood 7. The offenders pried open a window to gain entry and stole jewelry and cash from the empty home. In the other incident last September, a door was left open by the residents, with similar losses.

“We are glad to say we have slowed them down, but we are disappointed to say that we haven’t stopped them,” Perkins said. “We are working with an area task force on this because this group operates in several states. They are very good at what they do, particularly in leaving behind little or no physical evidence. They operate almost every day, but not in the same town or area. It is very difficult to predict where they will strike next. They always steal jewelry and/or cash. So we again advise residents to protect those assets, as well as their homes.

In most instances, they watch a house for a while, wait until they see a car drive out of the garage and go away, and then they approach the house. They ring the doorbell to make sure no one answers, and then they enter by prying open a door or window. They have been lucky so far; we hope they make a mistake sometime soon.”

Perkins believes part of the reason the number of incidents has declined in Sun City is that residents have become more diligent in protecting their homes.

“Some residents have told us they have found some evidence of an unsuccessful attempt to gain entry,” he said. “Residents that have fortified their door jams, installed devices that make it difficult or impossible to push a door open, or installed alarms are finding that it pays off.”

The suspect group operates in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Minnesota, in addition to Illinois, Perkins said.

The break-ins began in Sun City in April, 2011, and so far 17 community homes have been burglarized. Except for the last two, the incidents have occurred during daylight hours, usually in the morning. The group rents cars frequently and does not operate in a certain area with the same vehicle more than once, Perkins said.

The Sun Day did this recently in a discussion with Victor Narusis, the village’s director of business recruitment.

Project yourself to 2030 or 2040:

Think of Route 47 as a Randall Road-style commercial corridor, with more shopping centers, strip malls, more big-box stores, restaurants, upscale boutiques, gas marts, convenience stores, and home centers – stretching from Reed Road on the north to Big Timber Road on the south.

See office buildings along the Jane Addams Tollway occupied by high-tech engineering, manufacturing, and technical research firms, many of them internationally-based.

“In the past year, FYH, a prominent Japanese manufacturer of industrial ball bearings, brought its 40,000-square-foot Western Hemisphere distribution and sales center to our corporate park located on the north side of the tollway, south of Dhamer Road, near the south edge of Sun City,” Narusis said.

“At the same time, Lionheart, a high-tech European engineering firm, also located an office here. These came about because of our contacts with business brokers that represent these firms. The Japanese firm told us they came because of the expansion of the tollway interchange.”

He added, “We are receiving inquiries from businesses all over the world on a daily basis.”

The new strip mall off Regency Square Rd. that houses
Jimmy Johns, Rookies, and Little Caesars is an example of
Huntley’s growth. (Chris La Pelusa|Sun Day Photo)

See Huntley’s south section near the tollway transformed into a series of business parks surrounding a (hopefully) re¬vitalized factory outlet mall. See Huntley’s southern boundary extended southward all the way to Big Timber Road (a land use agreement with the Village of Pingree Grove is set to make this possible in the near future).

Note a complete four-way tollway interchange at Route 47, allowing multi-directional traffic flow into and out of a fast-growing Huntley area.
See a possible Metra station on Kruetzer Road next to the Union Pacific tracks, with commuter trains serving the village directly.

“The existence of the Union Pacific Railroad cutting right through the village, the possibility of a future Metra station and commuter train service coming to the village, the widening of Route 47 through Huntley, the recent approval of a new hospital in the village by Centegra, and the partially completed fiber optic and electrical distribution expansion by ComEd are all factors that are fueling this development,” Narusis said.

Imagine Huntley with a population of 45,000 by 2040, making it possibly the largest municipality in McHenry County. The current population is about 24,000.

Some of this is already happening, and village officials are insisting that much more of it will happen or start happening in the next few years. The recent recession slowed the pace of redevelopment, but didn’t stop it, officials said.

According to Narusis, the lynchpin of this development is full-access expansion of the tollway interchange, which is expected to be finished later this year.

“We believe we have a solid reason to be very optimistic for 2013 and beyond. Inter¬state Partners’ opening of the strip mall next to the Chase Bank on the west side of 47 recently is another encouraging sign, bringing Little Caesar’s, Rookies, Jimmy Johns, and Starbucks here. Walmart’s coming to the Huntley Grove center along with several other businesses was a major development, along with the opening two years ago of the recreational vehicle service and sales center next to the outlet mall along Route 47,” Narusis said.

Mayor Charles Sass put it this way in a village business-development brochure: “We are catching the eye of domes¬tic and international businesses because of our outstanding infrastructure, the new full-access interchange, our business-friendly environment, and our close proximity to two international airports (O’Hare and Midway).”

While all of this business-industrial growth has been happening, Huntley has become one of the fastest-growing residential communities in the Chicago area, fueled primarily by Sun City, starting in 1999. Sun City alone expanded Huntley’s population by almost 10,000 in little more than a decade.

This is the scenario behind the planned extension this year of Kreutzer Road from near Walgreen’s on Route 47 west and north to Main Street in Huntley. Work is expected to begin this spring as soon as the weather permits, according to Victor Narusis, director of business development for the village.

The new roadway will run from the curve joining Princeton Drive and the existing Kreutzer west for about 100 yards, then turn sharply north to connect with another existing section of Kreutzer extending south from Main Street, which will be repaved. In this area, Kreutzer’s only function up to now has been to serve as an access road to the Lions Chase subdivision.

Kreutzer Road is named after one of the families that originally settled in the Huntley area in the 19th century.

The purpose of the project, said Narusis, is to send a significant chunk of north and northwest-bound traffic off 47, reducing the volume of traffic using the 47-Main Street intersection. It is only intended as a partial solution, since there is no bypass planned for southbound traffic.

“When this is done later in the year, this project will form a western bypass from Route 47, just like Haligus Road forms an eastern bypass,” Narusis said. “Anything we can do to reduce the volume of traffic coming to Main and 47 will help.”

The project also includes a roadway extending southwest from Kreutzer to Regency Square near the Heritage facility. But Narusis said that won’t happen until landowners expand their development of the property near Heritage and the Supportive Living rehab facility now under construction.

Margorie Hamberg, a Sun City resident for five years, has always believed in that idea, and she recently found a way to translate her faith into a practical foreign mission project in the nation of Zambia.

Marge Hamberg, wearing her Sun City T-shirt, with a Zambian woman, who displays the purse Marge taught her how to make now for sale in the U.S. (Photo Provided)

Zambia is a small, land-locked nation in south-central Africa. While it has not experienced the violence and genocide that has raged in many other African nations, it has been severely impacted by a high incidence of HIV/AIDS. More than half the 1.1 million Zambian persons living with HIV/AIDS are women. They are frequently widowed and vulnerable to the abuse of absent, drunken husbands, with no money for food or the education of their children. Zambia is a place where the culture does not value women.

A local ministry to help and support these women has been developed in the Sun City and Woodstock areas by Kristin Choitz of Woodstock, who has gathered a number of area women around her in a sustainable products project called Extending Hands Ministries. Marge Hamberg is one of five who committed to action last year.

“The ministry makes use of Zambian women’s talents and gifts in making products that are marketable throughout the world,” Hamberg said. “At the same time, the ministry attempts to empower, love, and lift up the women to see who God created them to be.

“Kristin Choitz of Woodstock traveled to Zambia to 2008 and 2009,” Marge said. “She discovered the beautiful jewelry the local women made for sale in local markets. At the same time, she also learned how many of them struggle with socio-economic issues in a tragically undeveloped country. Many are the heads of households and have few or no ways of supporting themselves and their families.”

Kristin returned home determined to find ways to support the Zambian women. She met Marge and others in the area, and together, a group of women with a deep understanding and empathy for the situation began to develop some practical ideas.

“I traveled, mostly at my own expense and supported by donations, to Lusaka, the capital of Zambia, last summer,” Hamberg said. “I spent two weeks training local women on the use of sewing machines and showing them how to crochet purses and handbags out of grocery bags we collected from Walmart, Jewel, and other places. I saw a video on YouTube showing how this purse-making project could be done. I prayed, ‘Lord, how can I get these bags to Zambia?’”

Marge Hamberg with some of the finished bags and materials. (Chris La Pelusa I Sun Day Photo)

While she and others were there, the Extending Hands Ministries partnered with a local Community for Health Development, a Christian agency. An agency counselor held a two-day conference dealing with the abuse and other issues the women face on a daily basis. About 150 women attended these sessions.
In an EHM ministry document, Choitz said, “This is the giving of an opportunity and not a handout. By challenging the cultural view of women in a place that does not value them, we are giving them the tools to overcome these barriers.”

There are four fair trade stores in the northern Illinois area—one in Rockford—that are selling the jewelry and baskets that the women have been making for many years. Marge, Kristin, and others in the Extending Hands Ministry hope purses and other products may be brought back soon and start showing up on the stores’ shelves.

In a letter to her family and friends after she returned from Zambia last year, Marge said, “The women are eager to learn how to sew and develop other ways to make products. They take such pride and satisfaction in learning new trades that will help to provide resources for their family’s needs.
“What a joy it was to see the women eager to learn how to sew on the new sewing machines. The plastic bags to crochet purses were a hit. The blessings our team received in return far outweighed that which we dealt out to others.”

A much larger team of area women is returning to Zambia this coming summer. Hamberg may be among them.

Members of the HHS Girls Basketball team pose for a photo. The team had the best season in school history, finishing 4th in state.

HUNTLEY – Huntley may be the only town in Illinois where a 55-plus active adult community and a large high school are very close next-door neighbors. Dozens of homes in the Del Webb community back up to the school’s sports complex or massive parking lots. Some Sun Citians may have grandchildren, nieces or nephews playing sports for the Red Raiders. Writing this story is a form of bridging the generation gap.

In 1999, when the first Sun City homes were rising, there were about 650 students at the high school. But then urban sprawl came to Huntley, and the school’s enrollment exploded. The school quickly became one of the fastest-growing in the Chicago area. In the next 14 years, the enrollment soared to more than 2,500 and is likely to pass 3,000 in the next five years.

One of the most visible parts of this record growth is the increased prominence of the school’s interscholastic sports programs. The Red Raiders are blasting into the world of elite high school competition thanks to a new generation of administrators, coaches, trainers, and athletes with enthusiastic work ethics and dedication.

Case in point: the Red Raider girls’ basketball team surprised the experts this winter with a record-breaking 26-8 season and finished 4th in the state’s Class 4A state tournament. At a school assembly on March 4, the Lady Raiders presented the school with large plaques for regional, sectional, and super-sectional championships and a huge 4th place state trophy. These were the team’s first-ever sectional and super-sectional titles, and they set a school record with 26 wins for the season.

Since 2000, the school’s football, girls’ volleyball (five times), and baseball teams have all reached the state’s final four in post-season tournaments. The north wall of the gym displays dozens of conference, regional, and sectional championships in more than a dozen sports.

The main architect of the girls’ dream season is head coach Steve Raethz, a native of Hoffman Estates who has brought winning and success to the girls’ basketball program. Raethz starred on Hoffman Estates boys’ hoops teams in the early ‘90s, played at St. Norbert’s College in Wisconsin, and decided he wanted to be an educator and coach. The two milestone dates in the girls’ basketball program are Raethz coming on board at the beginning of the 1999-2000 season and Huntley switching to the Fox Valley Conference from the Big Northern in the 2003-04 season because of its swift enrollment growth.

“This year has set the bar very high for the future and expanded everyone’s awareness of the possibilities in athletic competition,” Raethz said. “That is a tremendous legacy for these players to leave, especially our six seniors.”

Most of the key players will return next season to try to take the final steps to a state title. Sisters Ali and Sam Andrews, Kayla Baretto, Bethany Zornow, Britni Siwuda, Jessica Brock, and Rachel Zobott all return next year. Raethz was assisted this season by Phil Leiterman.

“When we left for the final four games at downstate Normal [IL] last week, the entire student body lined the hallways and clapped and cheered for us as we walked the halls on our way to the bus,” Raethz said. “It was a thrilling, special experience for all of us. At the super-sectional game, the Huntley students and fans made it seem like a home game; we got great support from the students and community all season long.”

Haley Ream, the only senior on this year’s team, was prominently vocal throughout the super-sectional game, keeping her teammates focused.
“When I was a sophomore, I admired the teammates who were leaders, and I tried to copy their example this year,” she said.

She hopes to play basketball in college next year but hasn’t decided yet where she will go. She also is a prominent athletic and academic role model. She has been a year-round athlete all of her four years, playing volleyball in the fall, basketball in the winter, and participating in track and field in the spring. Her grade point average is 3.9.

Other seniors completing their basketball careers at Huntley this season are Amanda Kaniewski (another outstanding three-point shooter), Maureen Prerost, Leah Lowenstein, Courtney Feites, and Haley Sabie.

With two freshmen and two juniors on the starting five, this year’s girls’ team was not experienced enough, so the “conventional wisdom” said. The team overcame that mindset with camaraderie and chemistry learned by playing on park district teams since they were six and seven years old.

“I’ve always been tall,” said freshman Ali Andrews, who is 6’-2” now and still growing. “I started playing organized basketball on Huntley Park District teams when I was in first grade.”

Sister Sam, now a six-foot junior, started when she was in second grade. She led the team in scoring this season and was the area’s leading three-point shooter, in addition to serving as co-captain along with Ream.

“We started this season by asking the players to write down their personal goals for the season, which I do every year,” said Raethz. “Then we had meetings where we discussed how the personal goals translated into team goals. The players had the primary input. We figured we could contend for conference and regional championships, and we won one of those and came very close in another. We used that process to help us win the sectional and super-sectional games. We lost our last two games of the regular season, and we used that to re-focus ourselves for the post season. We were third-seeded out of five teams in the regional, and when we won both those games, we knew we could have a great state tournament.”

The Raiders came up short in the final four competition, which included two of the state’s perennial powerhouse teams. But they had fun and enjoyed themselves.

“It was a great learning experience,” several players said as they savored the end of the most exciting four months of their high school careers.
That, of course, is what high school is all about.

In addition to a license from the State of Illinois for which it has applied, Jameson’s must receive approval from the community association board of directors. This subject came up briefly at last week’s February board meeting in Drendel Ballroom. Betty Darow, N.5, asked the board about the status of Jameson’s pursuit of approvals needed to install up to five video gaming machines in its facilities in Prairie Lodge.

Keys on a gaming machine already installed at The Village Inn. (Chris La Pelusa/Sun Day Photo)

Bill Pennock, CAM executive director, said the restaurant needs CAM board approval as well as a state license. Later in the meeting, Board President Bonnie Bayser said, “They [Jameson’s] can’t do anything with video gaming until we approve it.”

Jameson’s was one of eight Huntley establishments that applied for video gaming licenses after the Huntley Village Board authorized village businesses to apply for licenses last year under the state’s new video gaming program.

As of Feb. 20, Jameson’s license application was pending at the Illinois Gaming Board, according to the board website and a board official. The restaurant has not approached the CAM board about the matter, according to CAM sources.

An IGB staff member said last week that there is no firm timetable for approval of license applications.

The Village Inn on the Huntley town square is the first establishment in Huntley to gain approval for video gaming. Four machines were installed there late last year. Other establishments that have either applied for, or received state licenses, are Parkside Pub, Offie’s Tap, Bowl-Hi Lanes, Sponsors Bar and Grill, Sammy’s Restaurant and Bar, and the American Legion Hall.

This is the scenario behind the planned extension this year of Kreutzer Road from near Walgreen’s on Route 47 west and north to Main Street in Huntley.

Work is expected to begin this spring as soon as the weather permits, according to Victor Narusis, director of business development for the village.
The new roadway will run from the curve joining Princeton Drive and the existing Kreutzer west for about 100 yards, then turn sharply north to connect with another existing section of Kreutzer extending south from Main Street, which will be repaved. In this area, Kreutzer’s only function up to now has been to serve as an access road to the Lions Chase subdivision.

Kreutzer Road is named after one of the families that originally settled in the Huntley area in the 19th century.

The purpose of the project, said Narusis, is to send a significant chunk of north and northwest-bound traffic off 47, reducing the volume of traffic using the 47-Main Street intersection. It is only intended as a partial solution, since there is no bypass planned for southbound traffic.

“When this is done later in the year, this project will form a western bypass from Route 47, just like Haligus Road forms an eastern bypass,” Narusis said. “Anything we can do to reduce the volume of traffic coming to Main and 47 will help.”

The project also includes a roadway extending southwest from Kreutzer to Regency Square near the Heritage facility. But Narusis said that won’t happen until landowners expand their development of the property near Heritage and the Supportive Living rehab facility now under construction.

Well, he once rode a bike from San Diego to Georgia. It took him six weeks. He later topped that with a bike trip from Seattle to Delaware. Those were tours sponsored by a touring group called Wandering Wheels.

A resident of Sun City since 2005, he has ridden every bike trail and route in the northern Illinois area and has created several new riding routes in the Sun City area. He has been a busy rider most of his adult life.

In fact, his riding hobby actually brought him to Sun City about eight years ago.

“I was a long-time member of the Arlington Heights Cycle Club,” Hinkle said. “We used to ride and camp out in the Garden Prairie Park area near Woodstock, and other places in McHenry County. I wasn’t looking for a new home after I retired in 1995, but I began to notice a lot of homes being built in the Huntley area. I saw houses I liked in Sun City that [were] for sale, and I took a virtual tour of the property on Realtor Sara Mitchell’s website. I liked the prices, and my wife Shirley and I came here in early 2005.”

Hinkle and bike riding are inseparable, like a boy and his dog. Hinkle rides all year, in rain or shine, cold and heat, in snow, ice, and fog. A day without a ride is a bad one to him. He likes it so much he makes a big deal out of getting dressed for a ride in winter. When this writer arrived at Hinkle’s house for an interview, he had his cold-weather riding clothes laid out on the dining room table, and he happily demonstrated how he puts on several layers of pants, shirts, sweaters, jackets, and high-tech gloves, shoes, and hats. He doesn’t wear just one of anything when it’s cold.

“For bike riders, cotton is out in winter,” he said. “You need polyester and Lycra materials in what you wear, and you need layers. You also need bright colors to be very visible to motorists.”

When Cyclepaths Club members ride in a group, it’s a colorful scene, with lots of bright red, green, yellow, and blue outfits.

“Most of us use metal cleats in our shoes, which attach to the pedals,” he said. “That helps us keep our feet firmly in control. But it requires us to twist our legs and pull up to separate our feet from the pedals when we stop.”

Hinkle has been instrumental in turning the Cyclepaths Club into a year-round activity.

“We ride in winter when the pavements and sidewalks are dry and it’s around 40 degrees or higher,” he said. “We try real hard to get a group together on every New Year’s Day for a mid-winter ride. We’ve been able to do that for several years. We usually ride over to Hampshire or Marengo, go to the Cool Bean Coffee Shop in Hampshire to warm up and drink coffee, and then return. One New Year’s Day when the weather was bad, we just rode around the block near our homes.”

Hinkle was a major early member and the first president of the Sun City Cyclepaths Club, one of the community’s newer charter groups. It began with just a few riders and now numbers about 40 men and women. Hinkle and others have made up several routes for riding in the northern Illinois area.

“We have three groups in our club,” he said. “The C group rides in the community. The B group rides a little faster and goes to nearby communities. The A group goes beyond, to the Fox River trail east of here and to places up near the state line or into Wisconsin. The routes vary from a few miles to 30 or 40 miles.”

He said, “I’ve ridden my bike in every state of the nation, including Alaska and Hawaii. I’m proud of that. I keep fit by riding, and my life is exciting, not boring.”

Hinkle didn’t get into bike-riding the usual way; it happened because of one of his sons.

“My son was hanging out at a bike shop in Arlington Heights, where we raised our kids,” Hinkle said. “The shop’s owner eventually gave him a job there, and I could tell my son really liked bikes and riding. I soon learned about the Arlington Heights Club, and I joined. My first bike was a 12-speed Fuji, and I remember getting sunburned and being chased by dogs. I learned the hard way to get used to some of the challenges in riding.”

Hinkle, now 73, retired in 1996 from a career as a biology and chemistry teacher at Maine East High School in Park Ridge. Asked if he taught any of several East students who later became famous, he smiled and said, “I had Jami Gertz in one of my classes, and I remember she was talented in drama and singing. I don’t remember if she changed her name. She eventually wound up in Hollywood in movies. My other major memory of East was how the airplane noise from O’Hare broke windows in the days before the building was sound-proofed and new windows were installed.”

HUNTLEY – Video gaming has made a successful debut at Huntley’s Village Inn and may be coming to Jameson’s in Sun City later this year.

“We have video gaming now,” reads the huge hand-written notice on the Village Inn’s front window. Folks driv­ing by on Main Street on the town square would have a hard time missing it. At about 1 p.m. on a weekday, there were about a dozen diners in one dining room, and the Huntley Rotary Club was following up its lunch with a business meeting in the other one.

In a partitioned-off, private area in one corner, three peo­ple played electronic games of chance at video gaming devices that were placed in the restau­rant on Dec. 2. Village Inn was the first establishment in Hunt­ley to receive a license for video gaming in the state’s latest pro­gram to raise money. About two hours later, there was no one at the restaurant’s dining tables, but there were four people in the gaming area.

After about two months of having the gaming machines, Village Inn owner Bill Galanis said the machines are one of the best things he has done in his eatery.

“We are doing very well with them,” he said. “More people are coming to our place, and they are eating and playing the machines. They say they don’t have to go to Elgin and the boat [Grand Victoria Casino]. They can entertain themselves here.”

Galanis also said the approval process and the installation of the machines and subsequent maintenance service has been excellent.

“I applied for a license in the summer, and I was approved two months later, in October,” he said. “The installation and service of the machines by a company in Crystal lake has been outstanding. When I call for service, they are here in min­utes. We are very happy with this whole arrangement. Fridays are our big day, both for dining and video gaming.”

The video gaming machines at Village Inn (pictured) have
been a success according to owner Bill Galanis.
(Chris LaPelusa/Sun Day Photo)

The partitioned area where his machines are located provides privacy for gaming customers while maintaining the machines in a convenient place for all cus­tomers, Galanis said.

“We are a family-oriented res­taurant, and we are maintaining that reputation while providing an additional entertainment ser­vice to our customers,” he said. “It is a win-win for everyone.”

Jameson’s is one of seven other Huntley establishments whose license applications to the Illinois Gaming Board are pending. Jameson’s operates a restaurant and pub in Prai­rie Lodge and serves the food and beverage interests of Sun City activity groups at events in Drendel Ballroom.

Jameson’s manager Dmitri Papadatos said at the end of January he had not decided how many machines he would have (state law permits up to five in any one establishment) and where they would be located.

“We have applied for a li­cense, and when we get it later this year, we will have meetings and make decisions as to exact­ly how we will set these up,” he said.

The other local establishments that have applications pending are Park­side Pub, Offie’s Tap, Bowl-Hi Lanes, Sponsors Bar and Grill, Sammy’s Res­taurant and Bar, and the American Le­gion Hall.

Del Webb rented the facil­ity to serve as an administr

The old customer service building on Farm
Hill Road is currently in receivership with its
future to be decided by its owner and a bank.
(Chris LaPelusa/Sun Day Photo)

a­tive center for maintenance of common areas and individual properties, and administer war­ranties on homes and buildings. It also was a clearing house for construction activities during the time when Sun City was building homes and creating neighborhoods at a rapid rate.

In 2004, these activities were moved elsewhere and the build­ing was vacated and has re­mained so for almost a decade. Today, this property, located immediately behind several homes on Cold Springs Road, is in receivership while the owner and a bank sort out its future. It probably will be a while yet before its owner completes the receivership process or sells the property for redevelopment, ac­cording to a source involved in the process.

Receivership is a legal pro­cess in which a court takes con­trol of a property and appoints a receiver to administer it until all parties involved agree on a course of action for the prop­erty’s disposition.

The receiver in this process is Martha Winter of LM Com­mercial Real Estate, located in DuPage County.

“I’m a liaison between the bank and owner,” she said.

LM is one of two such firms currently marketing all the va­cant property located along and near Farm Hill and Regency Square Roads for lease or sale. A medical office building, a vil­lage fire station, and Heritage Assisted Living are already lo­cated in this area, and a facility for physically disabled adults rehabbing from accidents or military service wounds is in the final stages of construction.

Winter said the law does not allow her to discuss details of the receivership matter publicly, but she did say that eventually she hopes the former customer service facility will be revital­ized in the same way as other nearby facilities.

“I envision the possibility of it becoming a senior medical facility, a senior care facility, or as an office building for a finan­cial, real estate, or legal group,” she said.

When Del Webb first came to Huntley in the late 1990s, it envisioned areas next to Sun City like this one would be de­veloped for retail sales, office, municipal, or institutional uses. The Provena medical building, Heartland Bank (formerly Citi­zens Bank), the small strip cen­ters along Princeton Drive, the fire station, and Heritage Woods are examples of this.

Today, 163 years later, the township has over 45,000 residents in five local communities and an impressive array of programs to serve residents. A prominent resident said last week, however, that relation¬ships among leaders and officials of the township have got¬ten so bad that, “The township appears to have ground to a halt.”

The speaker was Marty Waitzman, one of four candidates currently running for Grafton Township supervisor for a new four-year term beginning in May. A public forum in Sun City’s Drendel Ballroom on Feb. 6 was quiet and civil, but there was no mistaking the wide¬spread perception of acrimony and dysfunction that many residents say permeates all aspects of township operations.

The four came to Sun City at a candidates’ forum sponsored by the community’s Volunteer Civics Committee. They are: incumbent Linda Moore, who is completing her first four-year term as supervisor and seeking a second; attorney and CPA Marty Waitzman of Algonquin; Huntley businesswoman and current Village trustee Pam Fender; and Huntley business¬man James Kearns.

All four are Republicans, but they are running in two different ways. Moore, Fender, and Waitzman are on the Feb. 26 Republican primary ballot for the supervisor position. Kearns is running as an independent and will oppose the winner of the Feb. 26 voting in the area’s April 9 consolidated election.
While there are many issues and activities that are sparking debate and disagreement in and around the township (bus transportation, food pantries, services for the needy and seniors, property tax assessments, etc.) much of the night was devoted to talk of a future township free of infighting and its current legal fees.

(Second table from left to right) candidates Linda Moore, Marty Waitzman, Pam Fender, and Jim Kearns at the Feb. 6 forum in Drendel Ballroom.
(Mason Souza /Sun Day Photo)

Fender’s campaign flier put it concisely: “I am the antidote to Linda Moore. Together we can stop her.” The campaign has emerged as a “three against one” confrontation. Fender, Waitzman, and Kearns all say that Moore should be replaced and that a culture of civility and respect needs to replace the “mess” that has turned the township into a dysfunctional organization.

When asked about specific township programs or issues, Moore defended her record in brief statements. Defining her¬self as a fiscal conservative, Moore said she has lowered taxes and expenses, changed the budgeting process to increase efficiency, and voted in favor of reducing her own paycheck by 30 percent. On a piece of campaign literature, she claims that she “saved $5.5 million by stopping illegal actions of a prior town board to build a new township town hall.”

Moore blamed the other four township board members for the acrimony and bickering. “The board has asked me to do things I have no authority to do, and I have refused to carry those things out,” Moore said. “They spent $472,000 on legal expenses to defend themselves, and I spent about $60,000 to defend the township,” she said.

When asked what they would do about “getting along,” Kearns, who has founded and led two businesses in Huntley, said, “I had no plans to run for this office until I learned about the situation in the township. I entered this campaign for some personal reasons. I plan to fix the problems using my business experience and then leave. I don’t expect to stay as a super¬visor. I am just sick and tired of the problems.”

“I have made a positive impact on those I have worked with in 20 years in running a business and volunteering extensively and [in] my community,” Fender said. “I have organizational skills that are needed in the township. We need only one food pantry, not the one Moore has been running. I won’t cash checks that are meant for someone else,” referring to a recent controversy about donations intended for the Grafton Food Pantry going to the Grafton Township Food Pantry.

Waitzman said, “We have too many lawyers involved in township activities in so many lawsuits. We need only one; I believe I can be that person. One would cost a lot less. I want to end the childish bickering that is costing tax¬payers money and return commonsense to Grafton Township government. I will create new audits and clean up our finances using my CPA experience and knowledge.”

On the new town hall issue, all four candidates agree: they oppose building a new one. As to specific programs, Fender revealed a lengthy “to do” list if she is elected.

“Create peace and harmony through¬out the township, stop the litigation, expand support to [the] working poor, and don’t cash checks that do not belong to someone else,” she said. “Put the coffee on and say hello. We need a diabetes clinic and a diaper bank for both kids and adults. We need financial assistance to homeowners and students. We need to bring back the job center and get people back to work. We also need to start paying our bills correctly and promptly.”

Waitzman stressed the need for generating grants for expansion of programs and creation of new ones.

“We need to generate more support for single parents,” he said. “We need to figure out how to do more with less. But above all, we need to return to civility so we can focus on moving the community forward.”

“We need to upgrade our audit pro¬grams and strengthen our accounting,” Kearns said. “We need to take the food pantry out of the town hall, but I also think we need to keep a lot of our best programs in place.”

Moore stressed the need for reduced expenses and lower taxes.

“We need to get township employees to chip in more of the expenses for health insurance premiums. We need to adopt the township budget before we approve the property tax levy, and not the other way around, the way it is now,” she said.

“A vote for me is a vote to lower tax¬es,” states Moore’s campaign literature.

Fender defined the role of a township in the face of some public attitudes that say townships are not needed or should serve a new role.
“Townships play a vital role in our society,” states her campaign literature. “Municipalities take care of basic needs, like snowplowing and water services. But they do little for the enrichment of seniors or helping the poor. Townships are the catch-all for poor, working poor, seniors, and disabled adults. Grafton takes care of desperate people.”

Conversations and analyses over Sun City’s 2013 budget reveal that the association’s priorities for 2013, in a “big picture” perspective, are: cost-cutting on employee compensation and health insurance benefits, more spending on marketing and advertising in the face of increased competition from other publications and the termination of Pulte Homes’ sales efforts, completion of a renovation of the Prairie Lodge parking lot, more spending because of the tight insurance markets caused by the recession, and continued strong maintenance of reserve fund levels.

This year’s budget led to a $3 increase in the monthly assessment for residents – from $132 to $135. A total of $109 of this amount provides funds for the 2013 operating budget, and $26 is earmarked for reserves. The association actually has more reserve funds right now than its proposed 2013 expenses. The unaudited amount of reserves as of Dec. 31, 2012 was $9.3 million compared to the 2013 operating expense of about $8.5 million.

“The operating budget assessment for residents has gone up about $10 in the last 10 years, and the total assessment amount, including reserves, has increased [by] $20 in the same period,” Bill Pennock, executive director of Wentworth Management, said. “We believe those are positive trends in this period of constantly rising costs.”

The preparation of the 2013 budget sparked feedback from residents, some of it coming in the form of letters to the editor of the Sun Day. But significantly, some of it also came in the form of three “no” votes on the final budget proposal by three members of the seven-member association board. These were cast by Bonnie Bayser, the newly elected board president, and members Bob Beaupre and former president Jerry Kirschner.

Voting “yes” were Linda Davis, Ralph Bergstrom, Jim Van Fleet, and Harry Leopold. Bayser said, “There was not enough cost-cutting, including the area of employee compensation.”

William Ziletti, former board president, has been a member of the Finance Advisory Committee for several years. This seven-member group’s primary job is to review budget proposals annually and provide resident-based input to the board and Wentworth staff on budget priorities.

“There is considerable dialog among the staff, Wentworth administrators, department heads, and the committee on all line items, and we submit a long list of questions and comments back to the staff every fall,” he said. “Committee members are all experienced financial management people who spent years in corporate America doing this same thing. We provide a lot of valuable input into the process, and we make sure the final budget each year reflects a lot of member beliefs and priorities. Our philosophy in this process is to maintain the lifestyle and activities that we came here for when we bought homes.”

A few letters to the Sun Day questioned the incentive pay program for Wentworth employees.

“The best way to look at the incentive plan is like deferred compensation. A staff member’s compensation plan is established based on market comparisons, and then the employee is guaranteed to receive approximately 95 percent of that pay,” Pennock explained. “The additional 5 percent is the incentive, and they are evaluated on three criteria: the financial performance of the association, results of the resident survey, and the individual’s performance evaluated by his or her immediate supervisor. The amount of the incentive, paid out in a separate check in December, is based on a matrix of percentages.”

Pennock added that all staff members, full- and part-time, are eligible to receive an incentive.

“It is an effective management tool and is a widely used standard in the large-scale community management industry,” he said.

Pennock also said the budgets for employee incentives and the amount paid by the association for employee health insurance benefits are trending downward.

“This process started in 2008 and has continued since,” he said. “Even with merit increases, the average staff member is still making less now than in 2008.”

Here are a few other highlights to the 2013 budget:

Payroll costs are $3.358 million, up 0.9 percent from 2012. This represents about 40 percent of the operating budget, with general operating expenses totaling almost $4.6 million, or 60 percent.

Lifestyles magazine advertising revenue fell $51,500 last year, from $373,950 to $322,900. Advertising and marketing expenses are set at $70,000 compared to $27,900 last year, partly because of the drop in ad revenue and partly in anticipation of Pulte’s termination of its selling activities.

Fire, casualty, and liability insurance rates are up about $42,000 this year due primarily to the soft economy’s impact on the insurance industry’s return on its investments.

The association will spend about $969,000 on trash removal this year and $109,000 for snow removal from common areas. This last line item, of course, depends primarily on the weather.

The top capital improvement project this year is the parking lot renovation, expected to cost up to $1.1 million, to be paid out of reserves.

HHS also has a strong Sun City connection. Several members of its newly-elected 11-member board of directors are Sun City residents, including Dr. John Bierlein, Jim Blasky, and Elaine Kadakia.

“We have a good mix of Huntley lifers (lifetime or long-time Huntley residents), some who are just interested in history, and Sun City residents,” said Pam Fender, who is the new society president and also a member of the Huntley Village Board.

Like many brand-new organizations, the society improvises when it comes to communications and a central meeting place. The group meets monthly in the Huntley Park District’s REC Center, but has no physical place they can use as an office, a dedicated place for public meetings, or a place to display the growing number of artifacts and memorabilia about the nearly 160-year-old community.

However, they have embarked on an initiative to change all that.

Over a year ago, the society and park district agreed in principle on a project to create a home for the society in the former Sun Valley Farm property at the southwest corner of Main Street and Lois Lane. It would be in the farmhouse that once belonged to the Deicke family, after whom the park district’s largest park is named. The two parties and their attorneys, along with the Huntley Park Foundation, have been negotiating for several months on an agreement that would define the society’s use of the old farmhouse that is now owned by the park district.

The old Deicke farmhouse is suspected to be the one of the oldest structures within the village limits. (Chris La Pelusa|Sun Day Photo)

“We believe this building can become a home for us now and in the future,” Fender said. “We envision it as an office location initially and eventually as the community’s historical museum. We appreciate the park district’s willingness to help us accomplish that.”

“We think it’s a great idea, and we are working with the society to make this happen,” Thom Palmer, executive director of the park district, said.
Palmer said an initial draft agreement was recently sent to the society’s board, but details of the agreement are not being revealed yet.
“This is a long-range project right now,” Fender said. “We expect to complete this agreement with the park district sometime next year, and then we will begin work to upgrade and renovate the farmhouse, which has been vacant in recent years.”

In addition to the house, the property, which includes just a few acres out of an original 42, contains a barn and several smaller outbuildings, an ice house, a windmill, and even a chicken coop. The original farm stretched southeastward from the present corner of Lois Lane and Main Street to an area now occupied by park district ball fields and Stingray Bay.

The park district has recently upgraded the exteriors of the house, windmill, and barn, and formerly used the house for storage.
“Much work remains to be done on the interior of the house, and decisions have to be made on just what other facilities on the property would be used,” Fender said. “This farmhouse is one of the oldest historical buildings still standing in Huntley, possibly dating back to the mid-19th century. The Deickes apparently used the home as a cottage vacation site at one time. It’s an ideal location for this project.”

In its first three years, the society has focused on building its membership, holding public meetings to educate the community about its history, and gathering artifacts, documents, and memorabilia about Huntley history from various sources.
Long-time residents such as Frances Kreutzer, Mary Beth Manning, Barbara Ernesti, Patricia Hemmer, Margaret and Diane Drendel, and the extended Drendel and Deicke families, among others, have been helpful in these activities, Fender said.

In one of its latest newsletters, the society published an appeal for volunteers to help with this project.

The three-winged building, with the wings extending out in three directions from a central core, is being built by Deerpath Supportive Living Community and BMA Management LLC. When it opens in the late spring or early summer of this year, it will house a 128-bed rehabilitation program for physically disabled adults who are recovering from injuries in traffic or other accidents or who are wounded war veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. They will range from 22 to 64 years old.

It is not a medical facility for the elderly, nor is it a place for mentally disabled people or those under psychiatric care, according to Deerpath and village officials.

The community offers short-term residential amenities in its 117,800 square feet, such as activity rooms, beauty/barber salon, computer lab, convenience store, movie room, multi-purpose room, therapy areas, and a weight/fitness room. Meals, housekeeping, and laundry services also are provided.

“This is the first facility of its kind in the Chicago north and northwest suburbs,” according to Victor Narusis, Huntley village economic development director. “It is one of several rehab facilities for victims of trauma. There are very few facilities of this type in the Chicago area, but the number is growing. We are privileged to have one of them in Huntley.”

On its website, Deerpath Supportive Living said, “This property is being developed by Bravo Properties, LLC, of Oak Brook, for occupancy in the summer of 2013. The community will serve as an alternative to a nursing home or struggling alone at home for those who can benefit from some help to maintain their independence, but do not require skilled nursing care.”

BMA operates 35 senior living communities in Illinois, 33 of them through the Illinois Supportive Living Program, the website said.

“The building is located next to Heritage because there is common ownership between the two, but Deerpath will be managed separately,” Narusis said.

You take a few practice shots, get a few pocket hits, the pins seem to be falling. The games begin.

You nail the first shot, then the second, and the third. “Hey,” you say, “this is good, I just might have my high game tonight.” You come in a little high on the fourth frame, but you strike anyway. You come in on the “Brooklyn” side on frame five, but you drop them all. The strikes keep coming…six, seven, eight. You think, “This is unbelievable, I must be in some kind of zone.” Your teammates and some bowlers in nearby lanes are watching with peripheral vision, but not saying anything.

You’re tense, but not nervous. Every time you prepare for your shot, you remember to follow your usual procedures, don’t vary, don’t try anything new, focus on the pins, forget everything else, focus…focus…focus. On nine, your curve doesn’t appear to break in as usual, and your heart soars to your throat as the ball approaches. It hits the head pin a tad light, but the seven-pin wobbles and then topples. Now on ten, you need three more, and the dream of the perfect 300 roars through your brain like a runaway train.

Ron Tenggren playing with the Sharks Wednesday, January 2 Brunswick XL.
(Hannah Sturtecky | Sun Day Photo)

“Don’t get nervous, maintain your preparation and approach, and stay focused,” you think. But you also ask if this is real or a fantasy. “Is this really happening? My average is just under 200. I’m way out of my league, but if I can hang in for three more…” You note that most other bowlers are not stopping to watch you; they actually appear to be ignoring you. But you know they’re watching, just not cheering or yelling at you so as not to distract you.

Your first ball on 10 is perfect, and so is the next one. “Don’t rush the last one,” you think. “And don’t blow it. Think of it as just another frame, just another shot, just another….”

The pins all fall. You let out a ton of air from your lungs, and the roar of the crowd confirms you’ve achieved what most bowlers only dream or joke about in a career of bowling nights and beer frames. Luck and talent have joined to make you perfect, at least for 30 minutes on a bowling lane.

The above is of course a fantasy, but it’s one that actually played out for a Sun City bowler recently.

Meet Ron Tenggren, a resident of Sun City for over nine years. There are hundreds of Sun Citians in several bowling leagues in the Huntley area, and he is one of the best of them. He has performed and experienced the above “perfect 300” scenario 13 times in his life, and he has come within a pin of doing it four other times.

His last perfecto, and his second one since he moved to Sun City in 2003, occurred Dec. 6 at Bowl-Hi Lanes in Huntley, in the Sun City men’s league. He rolled the other one “five or six years ago at Bowl-Hi,” according to his wife, Sandra.

Performing his favorite sport perfectly is Tenggren’s reward for his outstanding work ethic. He has learned, practiced, and re-practiced every possible scenario and technique in the sport over and over until he feels comfortable that he is getting it right.
Tenggren has been bowling for 62 of his 71 years. He averages 218 in three different leagues in the Chicago area, and he is quietly modest and humble about his achievements.
“You don’t try to roll 300; it just happens,” he said. “If you stay focused on your technique and consistency, and you don’t get distracted when you miss a shot, you give yourself a good chance to succeed in bowling. I felt especially good on Dec. 6, the strikes started coming, and I just kept going frame by frame. On the perfect games, you learn to block out everything else and get into a zone where it’s just you and the pins.”

Tenggren actually is a renaissance man in sports. He bowls in the fall and winter, plays golf and softball in Sun City leagues all spring and summer, and plays bridge when time allows in the Sun City Bridge Club.

“I like golf, softball, and bowling because bowling ends in late winter when golf and softball start, and bowling starts up again in the fall when golf ends,” he said.

He actually rolled four 299 games about the time he got his first 300, he said. “I had two 299 games before I got my first 300, and then I rolled two more 299 games shortly after. I remember that I had pocket hits in the final ball in all of those games, but I just didn’t carry one or two pins. Luck plays a big part in bowling. I also remember that I didn’t get too upset about coming up one pin short. If you roll 299, you’re pretty happy.”

Tenggren has had conversations with friends about which is harder, getting a hole-in-one in golf or rolling a 300 in bowling.
“I really think a 300 game is harder because you have to hit 12 perfect or very good shots, as opposed to only one swing in golf,” he said.
Has he ever gotten a hole in one in golf? “No,” he laughed.

A native of Chicago, Ron and Sandra came to Sun City from Elgin.

“I started bowling in local youth leagues when I was nine and then in high school,” he said. “I got some instruction in the youth leagues and then from coaches in high school. At Steinmetz High School, I bowled on a travel team against teams from high schools all over the city. We bowled at Stratford and Manor Bowl, two of the most popular bowling places near Belmont and Central Avenues. I later bowled in college at ITT and then started in men’s leagues.”

In golf, Tenggren scores in the high 80s, and his best round ever was a 78. In softball, he said he can still run pretty well in spurts and is a better fielder than hitter. He is a recognized leader in the softball league and plans to manage a team this coming season.

A slim, six-foot tall retired computer programmer and project manager, Tenggren is not a fitness buff, but he keeps in shape with year-round athletic activities.

“I’ve had some knee problems, but I’ve luckily avoided serious health issues so far,” he said.

Has he ever considered turning pro in bowling?

“No, not close,” he said, “The competition on the pro tour is so intense and high, I’m just not good enough for that. The pressure to raise money and get sponsors is great; I’ve never considered that. I like to have a life outside bowling.”

Sandra also is an active bowler, maintaining an average in the high 160s. She also is a dance instructor at Sun City.

In case you want to catch a glimpse of Ron in action, he rolls at Bowl-Hi in the Sun City men’s league on Thursday afternoons, in the mixed league at Bowl-Hi on Wednesday evenings, and in a men’s league in Wooddale on Thursday evenings.

Trains…trains…trains. They transformed the wild west into the noisy west. They spawned songs, musicals, poems, and story after story. The Santa Fe, Canadian Pacific, Southern Pacific, Milwaukee Road, and Chattanooga Choo Choo became household names, and some folks made sure they rode on all of them in their lifetime. Dozens of Hollywood movie plots included trains, and Agatha Christie’s ride on the Orient Express is one of the all-time great films.

Trains have fascinated guys so much that model train sales once were one of the largest parts of the toy industry. Getting a train set for Christmas was a boy’s biggest thrill, and having a train city with miniature buildings, bridges, trestles, and towns made a kid the most popular in the neighborhood.

Displayed in Prairie Lodge, the holiday train display mea- sures about 7 feet tall at its highest point, 40 feet long, and 25 feet wide. (Photo by Rebecca Vazquez/Sun Day)

In the last generation or two, the expansion of organized sports and the development of electronic gadgets and videos have changed some of this, but not all of it.

All of this leads us today to Sun City, where the model train culture is not only alive and well, but thriving.

Sun City itself is certainly well-known, but the Kishwaukee Valley & Eakin Creek Model Railroad Club is arguably the most prominent and best known group in the community to outsiders. It is not one of the largest charter clubs here, but it has created some of the most extensive, creative, and fascinating model displays. The club’s activities have drawn the attention of national model railroad groups, been inspected by persons from all over the world, and have been the subject of newspaper stories throughout the state.

“When the National Garden Railroad Association had a convention in St. Charles a few years ago, two busloads of their members came up here to take a look at our outdoor garden display at the woodshop,” said John Knych, club spokesperson. “There were people from all over the nation, and even England and New Zealand, and they were very impressed by it.”

The club’s display was completed about six years ago in cooperation with the Sunflower Garden Club. The landscaped area, complete with flowers, shrubbery, numerous buildings, miniature ponds, rivers, and bridges, covers the yard on the west side of the wood shop, where the club also has created a large indoor display.

“The visitors strolled the grounds and basement, and camera clicks competed with train whistles and horns as hundreds of them viewed our layouts,” Knych said. “Many of them were amazed at the size and scope of our layouts as well as the creativity of the scenery and attention to detail. Of special note by many of them was the use of tree bark to hide the pylons that control the track elevations on the outdoor layout.”

The club’s best known display at Christmas, however, is the multi-layered “train town” made out of sawhorses, plywood, boxes, and painted foam. It is put up every Christmas next to the central fireplace in the Prairie Lodge. It draws large crowds of fascinated grandchildren, young people, and residents from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. each day starting right after Thanksgiving.

“We’re proud of our display; it is one of the few we know of in the Chicago area that includes four gauges [sizes] of trains, ranging from G to O to HO and N,” said Earl Maha, a retired professional electrician who is one of the main builders of the display. “Our displays cover almost the entire history of trains, from the Lionel trains we all had as kids to the modern and tiny HO gauges of today.”

It takes three days and nearly a dozen members to get the display out of storage and set it up, and three more days to take it down a few days after Christmas, Maha said.

“We start the process in late October, because it takes at least 30 days to clean it up, repair any breakage, and prepare everything for the Christmas season. We started by setting it up on unstable tables and soon shifted to the use of sawhorses and plywood panels to make it more stable.”

The multi-level display is about seven feet tall at its highest point and is about 40 feet long and 25 wide.

“Some of the trains on it belong to the club, and some are personally owned by members,” Maha said.

“We raise money primarily through an annual raffle where we give away equipment to donors,” said Pete Walton. “Maintaining our equipment and layouts is a growing concern. We recently found out that a transformer that suddenly went down is going to cost $800 to fix or replace. It is getting more and more expensive to keep our equipment up properly, and raising funds to pay the costs is getting more difficult.”

The Christmas display came about because, like all train enthusiasts, the Sun City model railroaders knew that layouts are synonymous with Christmas.

“It all started with a small circle of track around my Christmas tree back in 1999,” said Harry Leopold, who was one of the originators of the holiday display idea. He also has a large layout in his basement and is a charter member of the club.

If you’ve gone to sleep listening to the night-time Union Pacific freight whistles as the trains pass through town, you may understand why model railroaders do what they do.

When they pay their $5 annual dues, they are promised a regular weekly schedule of opportunities to play their favorite card game. They also are informed that every four to six weeks, they will have a party featuring an impressive array of food and beverage options.

That’s more than 70 “parties” a year. They probably are one of the busiest and happiest, not to mention well-fed, charter groups in Sun City.

“We want to have fun, and we have goodies at all our events,” said president Linda French. “We put someone in charge of arranging for food and treats at all events, and we make sure that the first thing our members get when they show up is something to eat and drink.”

“This past year, we had an ice cream social, a hot dog and sloppy joe day, a pizza party, a fried chicken event, and even a hot cider and donuts night,” said Jane Schroeder, the club’s vice president and social chairman. “We are so active with treats each week that a lot of people come early to make sure they get in on the goodies. If you’re late, you might miss out on something.”

Karen Richardson, the group’s first president, started the club in the early years of Del Webb in Huntley. “She just invited a few people to her home to play, and the group grew pretty quickly to the required 25 to get a charter,” French said. Richardson remains an active member. Don Glasgow is current treasurer, and Sharon Elder is secretary.

All of this is not to say the game itself isn’t a big part of the fun. The game is a fast, up-tempo trick -taking game that makes it somewhat similar to bridge. But euchre is played with fewer cards (ace, kind,queen, two jacks, and 10s and 9s for 24 total)) and is less complicated and challenging. It is widely believed the game was invented in Germany in the 1960s. It may be closely related to the French game of Ecarte, that was popularized in the U..S. By the Cornish and Pennsylvania Dutch. Variations of the game include Knock Euchre and Bid Euchre, according to some differences in the rules and procedures.

“The game is quite easy to learn, except for one thing” French said. “The jack of the trump suit is the top card (called the right bower), and the jack of the same color (left bower) is the second ranking card. Then it’s the ace, king, queen, 10, and 9. Some people with 8s and 7s. Some players sometimes have trouble remembering that the jack is high in euchre, instead of the ace, as in many other games.”

“I’ve been playing the game for more than 50 years, since I was 16,” French said. My dad taught it to me, my parents played it a lot when I grew up. “It’s a midwestern game, and I think it originated in this area in Michigan, where I came from,” she added. “My parents played the game a lot when I was young, and I picked up my interest from them in the same way,” Schroeder said.

The club now has about 80 members, and 66 came to the group’s Christmas gathering last week. Members pay a dollar to play each week, and that money goes into that “treat” fund that helps generate the goodies that show up in generous amounts at every euchre game day. The group plays at 1 p.m. Thursdays in the multipurpose, or card, room in Prairie Lodge.

Let’s see now, what kind of food goes best with a fast game of euchre? What about a burger and fries day?

Two of the unsold home sites are located in Neighborhood 35 (across Sun City Boulevard from the Millgrove Woodshop) and the other is the model home on Farm Hill Road and Brookside Court that has been used as the Pulte Homes sales center for the past two years. According to the Pulte sales staff, inquiries and visits by prospective home buyers continue to take place regularly. Both of the N.35 lots have new homes built on them.

With only two homes remaining, the build-out is on verge of completion. (Photo by Mason Souza/Sun Day)

Pulte officials have not indicated that a public announcement or event upon build-out completion is planned. They will likely quietly close out their sales operation and depart, to concentrate on other home building projects throughout the nation. The completion of sales also will have no impact on Sun City residents or groups, because the transition from developer to residents for activities was completed a few years ago.

One Pulte employee did tell the Sun Day last week that it planned to vacate the Farm Hill sales center on Dec. 21, but this information was not confirmed by Pulte officials as of Dec. 10.

“Karen Palmer [the last remaining sales associate] will continue to sell until all the homes are sold,” Valerie Dolenga, a Pulte spokesperson, said late last week.

Dolenga added that Palmer will work out of the Buckingham model on Farm Hill until it is sold.

“We currently have three homes and lots left to sell, and we continue to actively market and sell to home shoppers,” Dolenga said. “Karen will remain at the community and continue to sell the remaining homes. While it is bittersweet nearing the completion of Sun City Huntley, we are extremely proud of this community.”

Del Webb opened Sun City Huntley to the public in late 1998, and the first closings took place in April, 1999. Today, more than 9,500 residents live in the community, swelling Huntley’s population to more than 24,000.

Del Webb and Pulte Homes merged in 2005, bringing Pulte’s financial resources together with Del Webb’s popular and well established active adult lifestyle and activities. Today, Sun City residents participate in activities and amenities sponsored by 45 charter groups, about 35 neighborhood groups, dozens of special interest organizations, and entertainment events sponsored by the Sun City Community Association.

Pulte’s build-out was originally scheduled to be completed in 2008, 10 years after Sun City opened. But the 2008 housing market downturn, banking crisis, and recession changed all that. Pulte’s departure has been extended by more than four years. Three years ago, when sales slowed dramatically, Pulte vacated its sales center in Prairie Lodge and moved scaled-down sales activities to a model home on Farm Hill Road.

Then came the Illinois Tollway Authority’s project to widen the roadway from Chicago to Rockford and Route 47 interchange work, and everything changed.

“We knew the roadway was there, but we didn’t know the noise would soon come into our backyards, patios, and inside our homes,” Diane Novak said.

Residents meet with representatives from the Tollway Authority to discuss noise disturbance from I-90 traffic. (Photo by Mason Souza/Sun Day)

Novak is the neighborhood representative for 35 and has become the unofficial leader of a frustrated group of residents. They have asked the Tollway Authority to erect sound barriers between the tollway and their homes, which are located on the southern-most edge of Sun City, along the north side of James Dhamer Road.

Residents say the noise increased significantly when the widening of I-90 began earlier this year. One resident complained that construction removed natural barriers, making the sounds worse, turning their back patios and sunrooms into noisy environments.

“The noise has become a constant topic of conversation in our neighborhood and some nearby, and it often is so loud it interrupts normal conversations,” Novak said.

She spoke to a group of about 60 residents, most of them from Neighborhood 35, who attended a meeting in Drendel Ballroom on Thursday, Dec. 13. Representatives of the Tollway Authority and two of its consulting firms were on hand to explain the Tollway’s methods of dealing with noise abatement.

After close to 90 minutes of discussion, the residents went home without a sound barrier approved, but were determined to continue pursuing their cause. They were told that a noise abatement study this past summer revealed that Sun City is too far away from the I-90 roadway to qualify for any noise barriers, such as walls or berms.

“I appreciate that they came to talk to us, and I understand what their standards are for approval of noise abatement, but this isn’t the end of it; this isn’t going to stop here,” Novak said.

Shelly Goldberg, another N.35 rep, said a letter will be sent to the executive director of the Tollway Authority, a move that was suggested by Bryan Wagner, an ITA representative at the meeting.

Jamie Bents of Huff & Huff, an ITA consulting firm, outlined the engineering and scientific standards used to measure traffic noise on roadways and the criteria used to approve the erection of barriers. She said a study done by her firm this past summer of 17 locations along the tollway in and around Huntley revealed only one qualifying home, a farmhouse located within 200 feet of the roadway and about 700 feet south of the nearest Sun City homes.

“I’m sorry. I know how you feel, but our analysis used federal and recognized industry standards to measure noise levels,” she said. “Locations within 200 feet usually qualify because the noise is higher than 66 decibels, the threshold we use for determining harmful noise. Sun City homes are about 900 feet back from the roadway, and the noise there measures 61 to 63 decibels, and that puts them beyond the range to qualify for sound abatement.”

Bents added that barriers also must be cost-effective (maximum cost per location is about $30,000) and reasonable. Factors such as traffic volume, the composition of traffic (trucks, buses, etc.) and topography in the area are all taken into consideration.

Many residents criticized the ITA for making only one test, and they asked if additional tests could be conducted.

“It offends me that you made only one test; you should make several tests over time and under various weather and wind conditions,” said one resident, who said she moved in just two weeks ago.

“The noise is different now than it was last summer, when berms and vegetation [were present],” a resident said.

Another resident asked ITA officials to actually come to the area and listen to the traffic sounds.

“You have to be there to understand our problem,” he said. “It’s only going to get worse.”

Another resident asked if an independent test could be conducted by residents and submitted to the ITA.

“You’re welcome to do that,” Wagner said. But he did not say how much weight it would carry to ITA officials.

Another consultant, William Barbel, said that the noise levels are measured into the future based on anticipated growth of traffic levels.

“We look at what it will be like in 2040, as well as what is going on today,” he said.

A resident responded to this by saying, “Very few of us will be here in 2040, so we care primarily about what is going on now.”

A different resident asked if the area between the tollway and N.35 will be developed soon to create barriers to the noise.

“You have to speak with your village about that,” Wagner said. “The area is zoned commercial, and they control what use is made of it.”

It’s her way of describing how much of a sports fanatic I am.

I reflected on this at the recent Thanksgiving celebration with my family. The conversation turned eventually to what we’re all thankful for, and I thought about my career, my passion for sports and athletic competition, and the competitive spirit built into all of our personalities.

I’m thankful, I decided, for sports itself, and for how much they show us how to live a good life.

Yes, athletics have provided me with an opportunity to earn a modest living writing about sports, from the lively and competitive clubs at Sun City, to the more intense competition on high school playing fields and gyms.

But there’s more to it than just economic opportunity. I’m talking about sports on a broad scale, from t-ball little league to the World Series, from the dreary, broken down urban basketball courts to the NBA finals, from recreational frisbee-throwing and family touch football games to international marathons and Olympic gold medals, from YMCA pickup games to grinding rehab sessions in fitness centers, to the after-work run on the lakefront before dinner.

Sports are the highest level of professional competition all the way down to the workout in the bedroom before the end of the day. Sports are exercise, staying active, getting up off the couch, and moving your body around, like your doctor keeps urging you to do. It’s teamwork, cooperating for a common cause, trusting a teammate, learning how to overcome adversity, and how to win or lose with dignity, humility, and patience. In our schools and colleges, sports and athletics are much more than a gym class. Playing fields are classrooms just as much as science labs and lecture halls.

Yes, sports are often controversial and sometimes downright ugly. The press reminds us every day of drug abuse, work stoppages, criminal behavior, out-of-control egos, and the too-frequent hypocrisy in the definition of the difference between professional and amateur. This column recognizes the dark side, but we aren’t talking perfection here. Sports reflects society in many good and bad ways. That’s the nature of things.

Sports give us role models. It took me two minutes to jot down the names of 20 heroes to all of us – Walter Payton, Lou Gehrig, Hank Aaron, Chris Evert, Floyd Patterson, Sugar Ray Leonard, Ron Santo, Jesse Owens, Brooks Robinson, Sandy Koufax, Ryan Dempster, Michael Jordan, Gabby Douglas, Wayne Gretzky, Jack Nicklaus, Ara Parseghian, Herb Brooks, Jackie Robinson, Branch Rickey, Arnold Palmer – talented, exciting athletes and entrepreneurs who graced the world of sport with class and dignity.

Sports are exercise, the most important factor leading to good physical and mental health. Sports teach us about teamwork and provide so many opportunities to learn to get along with others and work toward a common goal. I’ve lost count of the number of high school athletes who have said team sports taught them skills that helped them in their careers, marriages, families, and relationships.

Winning a championship is fun for a while, isn’t it? But taking that achievement with you into life’s challenges is even better and is the whole point.

Sports are about discipline and training, teaching us to be the best we can be in our homes, jobs, and communities.

At Sun City, sports are about aging residents like Pete Karembalas in softball, Richard Christie in tennis, and Wes Anderson in golf and bocce ball, overcoming their disabilities and ages, staying fit to make senior living enjoyable and inspirational to others, and truly living golden years. How? Through sports and friendly competition, as well as grandchildren and friends.

Yeah, I like sports. I feel infinitely blessed that, even though I’m not an athlete and can’t play the games anymore, I can write about them and mingle with those who compete.

God gave each of us a competitive urge, whether it’s for Parcheesi or the seventh game of the World Series.

The question is, how much do most of us get off the couch and, like Nike says, just do it?

In early 1962, President John F. Kennedy visited Vandenberg Air Force Base in California during the height of the Cold War and the missile race with Russia. Richard Holman was there.

Richard Holman looks over his newspaper clippings and photos documenting the fire at Our Lady of the Angels in 1958. Holman, then a photographer for the Northwest Times in Chicago, also had experiences meeting President John F. Kennedy and Soviet Premier Nikita Khruschev. (Photo by Hannah Sturtecky/Sun Day)

In September, 1959, former Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev visited San Luis Obispo and San Francisco, California. Richard Holman was there, and shook the premier’s hand.

Years later, on the expressways and streets of Chicago, citizens were injured in accidents or violated traffic laws. Richard Holman was there, saving lives and issuing tickets.

Today, in his home in Sun City, Holman is a 76-year-old retiree who looks and acts years younger. During an interview with this writer, he repeatedly stood up and pantomimed as he told story after story about his experiences as a news photographer, journalist, and cop. His fascinating life gives new meaning to the term “great memories.”

This Friday, Dec. 1, is the 54th anniversary of the Our Lady of the Angels catholic school fire, one of the worst school disasters in American history. It made headlines around the world and led to sweeping nationwide changes in school fire safety standards and regulations. The changes have undoubtedly saved countless lives in subsequent years.

“It also was the only time in my hectic life of covering major events and protecting lives that I cried,” Holman said.

Hearing about the fire on his two-way fire radio while he was on another assignment for the former Northwest Times weekly newspaper in Chicago, Holman, then 22 years old, arrived at the former Walther Memorial Hospital. He wrote a story about his experiences that day, which became a memorable record of the tragedy.

“I walked into a three-bedroom on the third floor,” he wrote, “after visiting rooms whose beds were occupied by burned, blackened, charred children who clung desperately to life, trying to breathe in oxygen tents. When I got to one little girl’s bedside, I stood rooted, frozen with shock, then burst into tears.

I have seen many things as a news photographer, but never such a sight as this. Even the nurse was crying.”

He expressed his emotional, personal, human reaction to the tragedy eloquently in a front page story in the Dec. 3 issue of the Times. The page also displayed nine pictures Holman took of firefighters battling the blaze, grieving parents, and city and Chicago Archdiocesan officials.

A photograph of the front page of the Northwest Times documenting the fire at Our Lady of the Angels in 1958. (Photo by Hannah Sturtecky/Sun Day)

Holman has covered mission trips in Venezuela, where he survived a crash landing. “We flew into some of the most remote areas of the country, and we usually landed on bumpy, grassy fields,” he recalled. “I also took pictures of medical surgeries for doctors.”

But that isn’t the end of Holman’s story, which took a major turn a few years later.

“I freelanced as a news photographer for several papers in Chicago for a few months, and then I got a call from the Santa Maria Times, a daily paper on the California coast,” he said. “I spent four years there, during which I covered President Kennedy’s visit to Vandenberg Air Force Base, and Nikita Khrushchev’s visit to San Luis Obispo. On one occasion, a missile flew out of control, and they destroyed it; it exploded near us, and we had to run for cover while huge pieces of debris, some as big as a truck, fell around us. I also did a number of stories about the missile activities at Vandenberg and covered several Atlas missile launches. I also rode along several times with members of the California Highway Patrol and became well acquainted with how they do their jobs. I often gave a set of pictures of incidents to the police for their investigations and another set to the cops for their personal use,” he said.

“Since my family was in Chicago, I returned here and worked a year for the Chicago Tribune. I talked to a friend who suggested we apply for the Chicago Police Academy. I thought, ‘Why not?’ and I soon became a cop. For the next 31 years, I was a patrolman, worked traffic on the Kennedy Expressway, processed accident scenes, and patrolled the streets of the northwest side of Chicago,” Holman explained.

Like most cops, he has many serious and humorous “war stories” he loves to tell.

“I was called to an accident scene where a motorcycle had collided with the open door of a car,” he said. “The ambulance came and took the motorcycle driver to the hospital. I got a call a few minutes later asking me to search the area for the guy’s foot. I found it under the car driver’s vehicle, and I raced frantically to the hospital to deliver it. I found out later the guy survived. About 18 months later, I stopped a car making an illegal left turn in the same area, and it turned out to be the same motorcycle driver. After I discovered who he was, I decided not to ticket him.

“In a more serious vein, a man who said he was a physician and committed a driving violation swore at me repeatedly and threatened to harm me if I ever encountered him as a patient. Over the years, I got a wide variety of reactions from traffic violators,” he added.

On another occasion, Holman said he was writing a ticket to a woman who made an illegal turn right in front of him and almost caused an accident.

“She asked me, ‘Did God tell you to give me a ticket?’ several times, and finally I responded that ‘No, the devil made me do it,’” he said. “Later, in court, the judge nearly choked on his coffee when she recounted our conversation. He declared her not guilty as he laughed.”

Memories – Holman has a bucketful of them.

Cars park along a temporary line in the parking lot in front of Prairie Lodge. Plans for the parking lot include changing diagonal spaces in front of Jameson’s and Whisper Creek’s pro shop to perpendicular spaces to create more room. (Photo by Chris LaPelusa/Sun Day)

This is the “light at the end of the tunnel” promise made by the Sun City association staff as the first and largest phase of the project moved toward completion this fall. Curbs and sidewalk areas are being upgraded, landscaped islands are being relocated, and underground drainage facilities are being renovated. The entire lot will also be resurfaced and re-striped.

The association is using reserve funds for this work. Cost of the project has been estimated at about $1.1 million, but it is expected to come in under budget, according to Bill Pennock, executive director of the Sun City Community Association.

“We have $500,000 set aside annually for 2012, 2013, and 2014,” he said. “We have an opportunity to complete the work all at once. It is not known what the exact cost will be until it is complete. Another benefit to completing the work all at once is to minimize the impact to the membership by getting in and doing 100 percent of the work and not spreading it out over a three-year period.”

By the time residents read this report, normal access to Jameson’s restaurant and the Whisper Creek golf pro shop should be restored.

Asphalt resurfacing and striping will be done next spring, and the timetable depends on the weather, Pennock said.

“We have tried to get as much done this fall to minimize the impact for next year. The weather is the caveat for the project to start again in the spring,” Pennock said. “If we have another favorable spring like last year, the work will be done well in advance of June; if the weather does not cooperate, it could go into June. Either way, the project should be completed by mid-June.”

Spaces will be changed to perpendicular in front of Jameson’s and the golf shop, but will remain angled in other areas of the lot, Pennock added.

While traffic patterns will be changed throughout the project, access to the lot will never be totally shut down, Pennock said.

“Traffic patterns will be established next spring in advance of the initiation of the work, and the membership will be given advance notice of any closures,” he said. “The mission is to get the work completed as quickly and safely as possible with minimal impact to residents.”

Site plans showing the improvements planned for this project are on display in the Fountain View Center and near the former CAM desk location in Prairie Lodge.

An acute leadership crisis developed in the club after the group’s first president, Herm Faubl, resigned for personal reasons in May after serving for the first seven years of the eight-year-old club’s existence. No one volunteered to take on the role of president. An interim president was appointed, but soon the group found itself in trouble with association rules that say every charter club must have a president.

“We knew there was a probability of us going under if we didn’t take some action about our leadership,” said John Banasek, N.27. “Our first president was very dedicated and productive for us, but we didn’t develop a leadership-succession activity, and when there was an unanticipated vacancy in the president’s position, we had no one to turn to.”

The fact that the president’s main job is to work to find and invite historians and experts to speak at the group’s meetings didn’t help.

Two months ago, Banasek sat down to dinner with Fred Leznek, a close friend and active member of the group. At that meeting, the two decided they needed to develop a new approach for their organization. Banasek may not have planned it this way, but he came out of that meeting as the club’s new president.

“We agreed we didn’t want to simply try and recruit one man to do a lot of work; we decided we needed to build a new organization,” Banasek said. “We needed to build future officers and leaders, to create a stream of leadership for the future.”

The Historians new leadership team is Banasek as president, Leznek as vice president, Mary Grzeskowiak as treasurer, and Marita Komp as secretary. Two additional resource researchers, as Banasek calls them, are Lynn McCarthy and Carol Cederberg. Carl Hupert, the group’s interim president since May, has agreed to be available as an advisor.

“I see myself as a CEO and oversight leader, delegating and spreading the workload around in this group,” Banasek said. “Lynn and Carol are helping us develop a systematic program of researching guest speaker data and speaker’s bureaus from places like Argonne Labs, where I have a contact, McHenry County and Elgin Community Colleges, Harper College, Judson College, and other places in the area. We now have guest speakers lined up for programs through next June.

“We also know people in the Polish Roman Catholic Union and at the Elgin Symphony, and we hope to mine those resources for speakers and participants at our events in the future. Maybe the symphony can help us develop some presentations about composers like Chopin, Mozart, or Beethoven,” he added.

The group also hopes to host presentations coinciding with the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg from the Civil War next summer. They are also planning presentations on anniversaries of the Columbian Exposition and events from World War II.

Hupert also has begun polling club members to determine their historical interests.

“We are open to suggestions from anyone, inside and outside our membership,” Banasek said. “We want to make our programs as interesting and timely as possible.”

The group has about 90 dues-paying members and averages about 60-70 people in attendance at its monthly sessions, which are held on the third Friday of each month at 1 p.m. in the Oak-Elm Room in Meadow View Lodge.

“We are a different group now,” Banasek said. “We have set up different ways to communicate with each other, and we believe we are genuinely revitalized and headed in a good direction.”

A retired businessman with extensive experience in the financial banking and trust field, Banasek operates in the club much the same way he did during his career.

“My wife and I spend four months in Florida each year, but that doesn’t mean I drop all Historians activity during that time,” he said. “From long range, I send emails to our members and communicate regularly with my fellow officers.”

Banasek also is taking full advantage of Sun City’s many activity opportunities. He is active in the Current Events, Symposium, and Computer Clubs in addition to the Historians.

“I got involved in the Historians because I have a special interest in World War II,” he said. “I make sure we include that period in our planning, but we are interested in all periods of history and historical subjects.”