Plank Road to close for work

Construction on Plank Road in Peru could have you driving out of your way.  Starting Monday the road will be closed because of work taking place at the entrance to Illinois Valley Regional Airport or Ed Urban Drive.

          If you need to visit the airport or one of the businesses on that road, you’ll have to come from the north, not from Shooting Park Road.  The work is expected to last all week.

Crowd comes out to see new La Salle Rotary Park

          The LP Marching Band played as a crowd of people and a few dogs got familiar with the new La Salle Rotary Park.  Rotary members and volunteers stood in front of each of the park’s features and cut a red ribbon signifying the grand opening Saturday.

          La Salle Mayor Jeff Grove was happy to see that everything was coming together.  A playground, dog park and pond are in place.  A shelter is under construction.

In addition to money and donations from area Rotary Clubs and volunteers, La Salle has been contributing money for the park and using grants from the Illinois Department of Natural Resources. 

What you see at the park so far is considered phase one and was included in the first grant.  The city and La Salle Rotary Club are still taking donations to match a second state grant. 

          Eventually the park will have several baseball fields, more shelters and a disc golf course.

Phelps criticizes Governor Quinn on “C + C” legislation

The sponsor of legislation to allow the concealed carry of firearms in Illinois says Governor Pat Quinn’s efforts to make the measure more restrictive could backfire and lead to “mayhem.” Representative Brandon Phelps is a Democrat from Harrisburg. He says Quinn is trying to appeal to voters in Cook County and is ignoring the rest of the state. A federal court has set Tuesday as the deadline for Illinois to end its last-in-the-nation ban on the public possession of guns.

Streator’s 4th wraps up

Streator’s 4^th of July weekend celebration wraps up today with a long list of things to do.  The carnival opens back up at noon. The holiday parade begins at 1 in downtown Streator. Later this afternoon there will be a cardboard boat race and the Lion’s Club Duckie Race.  The festival wraps up this evening with live music from “Ray’s Rockets” and a car drawing. 99-3 WAJK concluded its 23rd annual “Lip Sync” contest Saturday night at the high school football field before broadcasting  music to the city’s fireworks.

Fair time arrives in Ottawa and Henry

After a kickoff this Wednesday night with the “Big Hat Rodeo” , the LaSalle County 4-H show and Junior Fair will be up and running Thursday thru Sunday in South Ottawa. Projects from livestock to cooking will be judged. Nightly entertainment from Illini State pullers truck and tractor Thur and Friday night and a Demo Derby Saturday night. Admission nightly is ten dollars and a season pass is twenty.  Marshall Putnam Fair will run the same dates at the fairgrounds in Henry.  More judging of livestock, cooking and more. Nightly entertainment and fun contests during the fair’s run.

McGraw Concert rocks Peru’s audience

Thousands went crazy during Tim McGraw’s two hour long concert last night at the Illinois Valley Regional Airport. The country star took the stage in Peru shortly after 9 and belted out one of his bigger hits “Where the Green Grass Grows”. After a couple more songs McGraw told the crowd the louder they were, they longer they’d play. He lived up to his promise playing past 11 o’clock with four encore songs including “Indian Outlaw”, “I Like It, I Love It” and “Truck Yeah!”Up and coming country act Love and Theft was the opening act. They played for around 45 minutes.   Although there’s no official attendance figure, last night’s crowd was similar in size to last year’s “Concert for a Cause” show with Kid Rock. That crowd was estimated to be around 10 thousand.  A portion of the concert proceeds will go to the March of Dimes.