The Peoria Riverfront Museum, as seen from its Sculpture Garden, is celebrating its fifth anniversary along with the establishment of the Caterpillar Visitors Center. The two were dedicated Oct. 20, 2012.

STATE

Decade sees teen driving deaths down by half

Fewer teens are dying behind the wheel in Illinois. And, Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White is crediting a graduated driver’s license law with the 51 percent drop in teenage-driver deaths in the past decade.

White cited Illinois Department of Transportation data that show there were 76 fatalities among motorists aged 16-19 in 2016. That’s down from 155 in 2007, the year before the Graduated Driver’s License program took effect.

The program gives teenagers more time to gain experience behind the wheel under a parent’s or guardian’s supervision. It limits in-car distractions and requires teens to earn their way from one stage of driving to the next.

White, a Democrat running for his sixth term as secretary of state in the 2018 elections, announced the numbers last week at the beginning of National Teen Driver Safety Week.

PEORIA

Community radio station to follow a new beat

An urban music format will replace Peoria’s community radio station’s talk/news programming, as the station attempts to solve its financial woes.

WAZU-FM 90.7 has provided a mixed bag of programming, both local and syndicated, since 2010. However, the station has been struggling financially since Illinois Central College dropped sponsorship of the station in 2015.

Station founder and license holder Jeremy Styninger has turned programming over to DeMarcus Hamilton. Hamilton was known as DJ Smooth when he hosted an evening hip-hop show on WAZU from 2010 to 2014.

Roger Monroe’s morning talk show, Molly Crusen Bishop’s “Tales from the Whiskey City,” news programs from the liberal Pacifica Network and various music programs will be dropped in favor of the new programming.

Museum, visitor’s center celebrate 5 years of growth

The Peoria Riverfront Museum and the Caterpillar Visitors Center are marking five years of successfully turning a dilapidated city block into a regional destination. The site was dedicated Oct. 20, 2012.

Doing so was the result of a long effort and a sometimes contentious referendum in which taxpayers in Peoria County narrowly approved a sales tax hike to build the building the privately run museum now occupies.

The museum side of the block now is a space focusing on art, science, history and achievement — with a planetarium and a Giant Screen Theater. The museum’s programs have attracted steadily increasing admissions, hitting a record 179,934 admissions. The Every School Initiative — a donor-funded program to bring thousands of schoolkids through the museum doors — has already brought several thousand students in, primarily from Peoria public schools.

The museum’s most popular exhibits, the 2013 Ansel Adams: Western Exposure, the 2014 The Science of Ripley’s Believe It or Not and the 2016-2017 Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition, each attracted approximately 42,000 visitors.

The number of higher-dollar donors has expanded — now more than 130 people annually are donating $1,000 or more. Annual membership rolls have just topped 4,000, from a 3,000 mark two years ago.

The Caterpillar Visitors Center, formally renamed last week after retired CEO Doug Oberhelman, has attracted about 350,000 visitors in the past five years.

Federal grant will help develop future builders

As an attempt to inspire a future generation of builders and makers, Peoria PlayHouse Children’s Museum will use a $87,567 federal grant to teach children how to use a hammer and saw.

The two-year grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services will help Peoria PlayHouse staff become more effective at teaching the next generation of builders and makers the basic skills of creation. The program fosters the theory that hand tools allow makers to turn an idea into reality, and children should learn how to use them at an early age. If basic skills are learned early on, children will be able to handle more difficult skills, like building circuits and creating objects with 3-D printing, by the time they are in middle school.

Basic carpentry and sewing skills were once routinely taught to youngsters by parents and in shop and home economics classes. Today, children’s museums are taking up the role of teaching those creative skills.

The grant is supporting a collaboration between Peoria PlayHouse and University of Illinois researchers who are trying to learn the best techniques for teaching children how to use their hands and imaginations to innovate.

The Peoria PlayHouse is looking for volunteers to help. Contact Kristin Vannatta at kvannatta@peoriaparks.org or (309) 323-6893.

Police will wear cameras while on patrol next spring

After seven months of testing, Peoria Police Department officers are expected to start wearing body cameras when on patrol next spring, likely either March or April, according to department officials. In the meantime, the city is working on policies regarding the use of body cameras, though much of that is governed by state law.

By next spring, the city will have 140 cameras, enough for those who are out on the street to have one, including supervisors and traffic officers. It’s not likely command staff or those who don’t interact with the public will be assigned a camera.

In addition to Peoria police, several area agencies, including the Peoria County Sheriff’s Office and police departments in Peoria Heights, Bartonville, Chillicothe, East Peoria and the Peoria Park District are participating in a two-year, $253,000 federal grant that will pay for 285 cameras and the storage needed to hold the archived footage.

All but Bartonville are still waiting to roll out their camera project. Peoria has had three officers, one for each shift, using a body camera as part of a pilot program. Those officers have recorded about 2,500 different incidents and so far, the reception has been good.

The Bartonville Police Department has had its officers using body cameras since January.

–Peoria Area News Briefs–