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State Stix



How big is the state rock?

The state rock is no pebble. It is a four-foot by two-foot by two-foot block of Silurian dolomite, weighing about 1.25 tons. It has a good record: 420 million years in the state without incident. And it is good looking: light gray, fine-grained, dense and even-textured, weathering to a very pale brown. Hailing from McCook Quarry in Cook County, it was chosen from over 1,000 other native slabs of Illinois rock. Its destiny is Philadelphia, where it will be cemented with 49 other state rocks in a monument right next to the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall.
    Source: Illinois Geological Survey


Time to give credit where credit is due

Most rocks in Illinois lead a buried existence. And when they do surface, they just get ground up into little bits for chat. That is a big comedown for Silurian dolomites. They were well-known in Chicago architectural circles in the 1800s. Had names like Joliet and Athens marble. What's more, whether you notice or not, they are still quietly supporting a good part of the Midwest and providing uplift for fancy eastern structures like Niagara Falls.
    Source: Ibid.


Why are all those people at Moraine Valley Community College smiling so broadly?

On January 12, Moraine Valley Community College got $4 million from a former student. That's the largest private donation ever received by an Illinois community college and the second largest among community colleges nationwide. (The largest was to Miami-Dade Community College in Florida.)

The gift was given by William J. Stoecker, who took a welding class at Moraine Valley in 1976 when he was only 17 years old. At that time he was rehabbing houses in the southwest suburbs. Now an old man of 30, he is the founder, president and chairman of Grabill Corporation in Oak Forest, which earns about $750 million a year from metal manufacturing, retail and construction. His gift will be used to provide an operating endowment fund for a $16 million Fine and Performing Arts Center to be completed in 1991. Stoecker said, "The people who have made Grabill a success are all from the southwest side. I feel compelled to put something back into the area that has given me so much.
    Source: Moraine Valley Community College.


'Hot' counties

According to Jack Lessinger, a professor emeritus of real estate and urban development, swarms of people will move to small towns and rural counties over the next 20 years. They will be fleeing the suburbs in search of trees, fields, rivers and cheap five-acre lots. They will also be what Lessinger calls "caring conservators" who put a high value on land, water, air, old buildings and people.

Counties in Illinois and all up and down the Mississippi valley as well as huge swaths of Utah and Nevada and sizable hunks of eastern Texas will be desirable destinations for these new migrants and are likely to enjoy long-term growth and prosperity. If your county grew faster than average between 1790 and 1850, hit a plateau until 1910, decelerated until 1970 and then began to grow rapidly again, exceeding the national growth rate between 1980 and 1985 — it may mean that you're living in one of those hot rural counties Lessinger is talking about. Or it may mean that you got a new state prison.
    Source: Jack Lessinger, "The emerging region of opportunity," American Demographics. June 1987.


Cold streets

Homeless youth are defined as persons under 20 who can't be reunited with their families, lack housing and do not have the skills to legitimately support themselves. In Illinois, 4,335 homeless young people have some contact with community agencies. Based on previous federal and independent research on their reluctance to make themselves known, the best estimate is that there are about 21,535 homeless young people in Illinois. Of these, it is likely that 7,900 have been rejected by their parents, 9,000 are sexually exploited while on the streets, and over 7,000 become pregnant or are already teenage mothers.
    Source: Department of Children and Family Services. The Final Report of the Governor's Task Force on Homeless Youth, 1985.


If money weren't a consideration. . . .

In Christian County in central Illinois, the Taylorville school district's 1987 teacher of the year and winner of a statewide "Those Who Excel Award" quit this year to sell insurance. Gary McCullough, who taught sixth grade at West Elementary school, is 40 years old. He loves teaching. He has three children. He wants them to go to college. His annual salary as a teacher was $22,000.
    Source: Source: The State-Journal Register, January 19, 1988.


Exact demographic center of the membership of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America

Just outside of DeKalb.
    Source: American Demographics. June 1987.


Building up the balance

The general funds end-of-month balance in January was $90,480 million. The average daily available balance was $157,703 million. The balance was built up to pay back a $100 million short-term loan.
    Source: Office of the Comptroller.


Employment up by 82,000

January's national seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 5.8 percent, the same as in December. In Illinois the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate dropped to 6.7 percent — from 7.5 percent in December.

There were 5.795 million people in the state's work force; 5.407 million had jobs and 388,000 were looking for work. The number of people employed was a record for the month, and there were 38,000 fewer people looking for work. Demand for workers increased in many sectors of the economy; schools resumed their classes and there was added need for snow removal and pretax inventories. Manufacturing jobs were expected to decline in January, as they have over the last several years, but instead they stabilized.

Final November unemployment rates in the state's metro areas were:

    Aurora-Elgin. 4.4 percent.
    Bloomington-Normal, 4.6 percent.
    Champaign-Urbana-Rantoul, 3.9 percent.
    Chicago, 5.8 percent.
    Davenport, Rock Island, Moline (Illinois sector), 7.2 percent.
    Decatur, 8.6 percent.
    Joliet, 6.4 percent.
    Kankakee. 8.9 percent.
    Lake County, 3.8 percent.
    Peoria, 6.7 percent.
    Rockford, 7.7 percent.
    Springfield, 5.3 percent.
    St. Louis (Illinois sector), 7.5 percent.
        Source: Department of Employment Security.

Margaret S. Knoepfle


March 1988 | Illinois Issues | 28



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