Volunteers will help clean the city’s historic downtown when Pekin holds a community clean-up day, Picking Up Pekin, from 9 a.m.-1 p.m. May 5. Supplies will be provided.

CENTRAL ILLINOIS

Marines plan May 12 reunion

A May 12 reunion will be held of Marine Corps veterans who served with Company C, 6^th Engineer Support Battalion while the Peoria County-based unit was deployed to Kuwait or Iraq. The Marine reserve unit was deployed in January 2003, and then again in August 2004, as an entire group as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Smaller groups of the unit, which is based at the Naval and Marine Corps Reserve Center near Bellevue, have gone overseas more than a dozen times since 2003.

The reunion will be held in Morton. For more information, email companyc2018reunion@gmail.com

College selects Reagan Leadership Fellows

Four incoming freshmen of the Eureka College Class of 2022 are new fellows in the Ronald W. Reagan Leadership Program.

The Reagan Fellows are Katherine Germann of Sunbury, Ohio; Jackson Nannie of East Peoria; Emmalyn Paul of Eureka and Zachary Walter of Sherman, Ill. The award, based on leadership, service and academic excellence, includes a four-year full scholarship and global travel and professional mentorship opportunities.

Germann will graduate from Big Walnut High School in Sunbury where she was a member of the National Honor Society. She plans to continue debate activities and major in chemistry.

Nannie will graduate from Metamora Township High School next month. He was one of 30 students selected nationwide to serve as a U.S. Senate Page during the 2016-2017 school year. A decorated honors student, he was also heavily involved in Key Club and a member of the MTHS speech team and MTHS student council. At Eureka, Nannie plans to participate on speech team and pursue community service as well as political internships and fellowships.

Paul will graduate from Eureka High School, where she is a National Honor Society member. Paul was also captain of EHS color guard, a member of the dance team and selected as a delegate to attend Capitol Forum, an Illinois Humanities program. She plans to continue her involvement in chorale and the dance team and also intends to pursue musical theatre.

Walter will be a 2018 graduate of Williamsville High School. At Eureka, he intends to participate in debate and other academic endeavors.

Reagan Fellows participate in workshops and retreats throughout the school year. During the summers of their sophomore and junior years, they participate in mentorships in the United States and abroad.

PEKIN

Clean-up effort to help city

Pekin will hold a community clean-up day, Picking Up Pekin, from 9 a.m.-1 p.m. May 5, when volunteers will help beautify the city’s historic downtown. Help to sweep streets, pull weeds and pick up litter is still needed. Those interest in participating should meet at City Hall at 9 a.m. Supplies will be provided, and a limited amount of tools will be available.

City officials urge residents who cannot join the cleanup to spend some of the day tidying up their lawns,  neighborhoods, local park or businesses.

For more information, contact Katy Shackelford, Pekin city planner, klshackelford@ci.pekin.il.us

WASHINGTON

Chorale to perform favorite American music

The Peoria Area Civic Chorale will present its spring concert, “Celebrating 35 Years of Music,” at 7:30 p.m. May 4 and May 5 at Five Points Washington. 

The concert will feature America’s favorite songs, hymns and anthems.

Inspiring arrangements of favorite hymns anthems, favorite fold and opo tunes will be performed. The performance also features medleys of songs by Steven Foster and Irving Berlin. Chorale director Joseph D. Henry has chosen music for its beauty, inspiration, kindness, humor and optimism.

The Peoria Area Civic Chorale Youth Chorus also will perform a set nightly and will join the adult singers for “America the Beautiful.”

Classical tenor and jazz trumpet player Michael Jones is the featured soloist. Jones, a 2008 graduate of Peoria High School’s Preparatory School for the Arts, studied locally under Bradley University faculty members Shirley Salazar and Todd Kelly before attending the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music as an undergraduate and Northwestern University for a master’s in jazz studies.

Jones has performed jazz trumpet regularly in Chicago at The Green Mill and has recorded an album with J-Livi and the Party. Jones will perform four vocal and instrumental solos. He will also accompany the chorale for “People” from “Funny Girl” on the flugelhorn and play jazz trumpet during the audience singalong “Down by the Riverside.”

Special to Friday night’s performance will be a festival chorus of nearly 75 children from local community schools.

Saturday night’s performance will conclude with a cake reception in honor of Barth Dowling, the chorale’s director from 1982 to 1994, who died in 2017.

Tickets are $20 for adults and $8 for students, and are available by calling (309) 693-6725, online at peoriacivicchorale.org and at the door.

MORTON

School district to honor retirees

Morton Unit School District 709 will honor new retirees Mark Cox, Kathy Funkhouser, Jan Martin, Mary Mills, Mary Jo Proctor, Lynn Rudin and Dan Sutter at a retirement reception May 9. The public is invited to the event that will be held 3:30-5 p.m. at the Bertha Frank Performing Arts Center at Morton High School, 350 N. Illinois Ave.

–Tazewell County News Briefs–