PAAR Turkey Drive sets record; tornado relief events successful

Peoria-area Realtors set another record in its annual Turkey Drive, with help from local partners and national suppliers while they keep finding ways to help victims of the Nov. 17 tornadoes.

The Peoria Area Association of Realtors said Monday that the annual fundraiser reached $23,600 this year, topping the previous record of $23,000 set last year. That will enable the association to provide Kroger meat vouchers to 25 area food pantries that are dealing with higher-than-normal needs this year.

This generosity comes on top of the overwhelming response to help victims of tornadoes that destroyed hundreds of homes in Washington, East Peoria and Pekin. PAAR members have raised thousands of dollars and delivered truckloads of supplies to help the victims; from around the state and country, individual Realtors, real estate offices and Realtor Associations donated more than $40,000 in gift cards and cash, in addition to supplies.

Dallas Hancock, PAAR CEO, expressed her gratitude at the number of gifts and the depth of caring from local, state and national Realtors.

"One of the great things about our business is that when a disaster strikes, Realtors swing into action and donate whatever they can to help community residents," said Hancock. "The response to the tornado disaster has been incredible, with not only cash and supplies locally, but also from Realtors traveling from around the state to delivery truckloads of requested items and to lend a hand wherever necessary.

"But with the annual Turkey Drive already in full swing and the deadline on the heels of the crisis, we were in danger of not reaching our goal for the first time in 27 years. Thankfully the PAAR Affiliate Partners, local business partners, friends, family and even several national vendors, stepped up to the plate with donations to make sure we could deliver the same level of assistance to local food pantries counting on our help."

Added PAAR President Tonya Burris, "In light of the overwhelming local disaster this year, everyone made a sacrifice, changed a tradition or reached a little deeper – from holiday luncheons that became tornado- or turkey-drive donations to our own holiday event, which was dramatically downsized – allowing us to help meet the incredible need to assist others through our Turkey Drive. When I look at all ways we've been able to help in a short time, I'm proud to be a Realtor."

Other assistance available through PAAR for tornado victims includes:

· To assist displaced homeowners, the association partnered with NestRent.com a database of available housing to help those who needed a central location to offer and look for rental housing. Landlords can register their properties directly.

· To assist those homeowners and renters with no or inadequate insurance, PAAR is assisting with the one-time grant application for mortgage or rent payments, available through the REALTOR® Relief Foundation. PAAR was at the Countryside Banquet Center on Wed., Nov. 11 with excellent response from local survivors.

· Two additional Housing Outreach Programs are scheduled at Pekin's Avanti's Dome and in East Peoria at the Fondulac Bank Clock Tower Building, both on Tuesday, Dec. 17 from 5 to 7 p.m. Residents who are not able to attend the Housing Outreach Program but still desiring assistance from the REALTOR® Relief Foundation may apply by downloading and filling out the form from PAAR's website or IAR's website.

PAAR began its annual Turkey Drive in 1987 with 100 donated frozen turkeys. Today, the turkeys are in the form of meat vouchers that can be redeemed for a turkey or another preferred meat item at a Kroger store. The vouchers are generally used by agencies in holiday food baskets, distributed as needed this winter, or used to provide a warm holiday meal.

To date the annual Turkey Drive has donated more than 25,000 turkeys to Peoria area agencies, food banks and churches and based on the needs reported by the food pantries, PAAR plans to continue the tradition for many years to come.

Other relief events results

The Peoria Symphony Orchestra raised more than $11,000, with proceeds going to the American Red Cross, in a benefit concert less than two weeks after the storms.

"This concert was a way the Peoria Symphony could join with others in the community to help and be responsive to the community. Not only was there a concert which would raise money for the relief effort, but it also provided an opportunity for the singers, musicians, staff and others to be part of the community healing process," said PSO Executive Director Susan Hoffman. "Our intent was to be very inclusive and allow everyone who wanted to participate to do so."

The call went out for musicians and singers and in just a few short days nearly 200 musicians and singers signed up to share their talent on the concert. This included several who were directly impacted by the tornado and had their lost homes. These participants represented over 20 various orchestras, choirs, choral groups and universities and from all over central Illinois.

The concert included the performance of portions of Handel's Messiah and a welcome from Mayor Jim Ardis of Peoria, who introduced the mayors of three surrounding communities hardest hit by the tornado - Gary Manier of Washington, Laurie Barra of Pekin and Dave Mingus of East Peoria. A reading by the former Secretary of Transportation and local resident Ray LaHood, an invocation by Reverend John Blossom and a video showing the strength of the communities rising out of the destruction were also part of the event.

The Dec. 4 Rock to the Rescue concert at U.S. Cellular Coliseum in Bloomington, which featured well-known artists who donated proceeds to the relief efforts, raised more than $400,000 through ticket sales, donations and the auction of items that included autographed guitars, posters and other memorabilia.

Promoted by Jay Goldberg Events and Entertainment, that concert featured REO Speedwagon, Styx, Ted Nugent, Suvivor, Head East, Richard Marx and Brushville. It was emceed by Larry the Cable Guy.

'The Nutcracker' tradition continues

A Christmas tradition will take place again this weekend in the Peoria area when "The Nutcracker" ballet is performed.

This year, however, it will be performed in two different venues by two different dance companies, but at the same time on Saturday and Sunday in Peoria and Morton.

The Peoria Ballet will present the classic, with the score by Tchaikovsky, at the Peoria Civic Center Theatre. It will be the 36th year the group has performed "The Nutcracker," with most of them at the Civic Center.

The Peoria Ballet performance this year will mark the third to be directed by Servy Gallardo, artistic director for Peoria Ballet.

Music will be performed by the Heartland Festival Orchestra, directed by David Commanday.

Tickets are on sale and prices range from $10 to $45. For more information visit www.peoriaballet.com.

"The Nutcracker" is the chief event for the Peoria Ballet each year. The company also performs a spring show at Five Points in Washington.

Across the river and up the road a piece, Cornerstone Academy of Fine Arts will perform "The Nutcracker" at the Bertha Franks Performing Arts Center in Morton. It will be Cornerstone's second time doing the ballet; it performed it at The Orpheum in Galesburg in 2012.

Rebekah von Rathonyi, artistic director at Cornerstone who once had the same position at Peoria Ballet, told the Peoria Journal Star that "The Nutcracker" may become an annual tradition in Morton, as well. It is being performed in partnership with the Morton Fine Arts Association.

Tickets for the Cornerstone performance range from $12 to $26. For more information visit www.cornerstoneballet.com.

Both companies will perform "The Nutcracker" three times, but at the same time: at 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. on Saturday and at 2 p.m. on Sunday.

"The Nutcracker" tells the story of Clara and the Nutcracker, with spectacular costumes and sets. The ballet is based on the story "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King," written by E.T.A. Hoffman. It was originally performed in 1892 in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Kevin Reads Stuff So You Don't Have To: "An Appetite For Wonder: A Memoir" by Richard Dawkins

“An Appetite for Wonder: The Making of a Scientist: A Memoir”
By Richard Dawkins
Ecco/Harper Collins

As someone who is well familiar with the works of Dr. Dawkins, this memoir made me realize that most Peorians – nay, most Americans – who may be familiar with the genteel doctor may only know of him for his Atheistic stance. After all, that’s what gets ratings and readers these days.

But he’s so much more than “just” a free thinker.

Dawkins is an emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford. For over 40 years he has been at the forefront Ethology – the study of animal behavior – as well as Evolutionary Biology (the two kind of go hand in hand).

If a scientist can “burst” onto the public scene, Dawkins did just that when his first book, “The Selfish Gene,” was published in 1976. The book became an instant (and ongoing) best seller thanks in part to Dawkins’s approach to genetically based evolution, a position which has become universally accepted.

He also introduced a word that has also been universally accepted as well. But first, to the cricket research.

In the late ‘60s, along with his research in Ethology, Dawkins found himself taken with computers. More specifically, computer programming. Over the years, Dawkins became addicted to creating programs and languages, which he would use in aid of his ethology experiments.

One of those experiments involved the mating songs of crickets (long story, don’t ask) in 1973. Dawkins created a computer language (STRIDUL-8) that made his PDP-8 computer “sing” like a cricket. He used these computer-generated courtship songs in his tests.

But then tragedy struck. Or, more accurately, power outages struck. A power cut was instituted throughout England due to a nationwide coal miner strike.

Since his work required electricity, he decided to set his cricket research aside to start writing a book he had been noodling with since his days delivering undergraduate lectures.

He wrote the first chapter of “The Selfish Gene” and then promptly set it aside. Why? The industrial unrest had subsided and the lights were back on – back to his crickets.

Of course by 1976, with his cricket research concluded, Dawkins would complete “The Selfish Gene,” which introduced the world to the concept of a meme:

The new (primordial) soup is the soup of human culture. We need a name for the new replicator, a noun which conveys the idea of a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation. ‘Mimeme’ comes from a suitable Greek root, but I want a monosyllable that sounds a bit like ‘gene’. I hope my classicist friends will forgive me if I abbreviate mimeme to meme…

Examples of memes are tunes, ideas, catchphrases, clothes fashions, ways of making pots or of building arches. Just as genes propagate themselves in the gene pool by leaping from body to body via sperm or eggs, so memes propagate themselves in the meme pool by leaping from brain to brain, via a process which, in the broad sense, can be called imitation.

In his memoir you will find very little about Dr. Dawkins’s atheistic ways because, as I said, he is a scientist first and foremost. He grew up in what many would call a typical manner of someone whose father was employed in the British colonial service. Which meant a life in either India or Africa. In Richard’s case, it was Africa. He was born in Kenya where his father was working, and spent his early youth tromping the African jungles with his younger sister and mother.

At the age of 13, he was shipped off to school in England, while his father inherited an English country estate, which he turned into a commercial farm. Dawkins toyed with the idea of becoming a gentleman farmer and was always very interested in animal behavior – not surprising for a childhood in the jungles and on the Cotswolds – which led to his lifelong dedication to Ethology and Evolutionary Biology.

Dawkins has been widely praised for being able to make science interesting to the non-scientific reader – and this memoir underscores that mastery. He knows when to dive in deeply into a scientific subject as well as when to skim the surface so as not to confuse the common reader.

While I heartily stand in Dawkins’s corner in terms of freethinking, I was very glad to see the good doctor avoid the subject in his memoir. It would undoubtedly have softened the focus on his groundbreaking scientific work in animal behavior and evolutionary biology.

Case in point: In a recent interview with Bill Maher promoting the memoir, the primary topic Maher was interested in discussing was Dawkins’s life in the Anglican Church before he became an atheist – all of which had passed by the time Dawkins was a teenager.

Trust me, there’s a lot more to Richard Dawkins than just his youth spent as a believer – what Dawkins himself calls a “typical Anglican upbringing.” And page after page of this memoir provides evidence of just that.

Caterpillar maintains dividend rate

Caterpillar Inc, announced it will maintain its quarterly cash dividend rate of 60 a share for the fourth quarter.

Caterpillar's board of directors voted Wednesday to maintain the rate, which will be payable Feb. 20, 2014 to shareholders of record at the close of business on Jan. 21, 2014, the company said.

"Following the 15-percent increase in our quarterly dividend announced in June and $2 billion in stock repurchase completed this year, this action is another demonstration of how we are taking advantage of our strong balance sheet and cash flow to return capital to stockholders," said Caterpillar Chairman and CEO Doug Oberhelman, in a news release.

Caterpillar has paid higher dividends to its stockholders for 20 consecutive years and since 1998, the company's cash dividend has more than tripled. Including this announcement, Caterpillar has paid a cash dividend every year since the company was formed and has paid a quarterly dividend since 1933.

Also on Wednesday, three directors announced their plans to retire from the board. David R. Goode, Charles D. Powell, and Joshua I. Smith announced their retirement would be effective Dec. 31.

Goode is chairman of the Compensation Committee, Powell is chairman of the Public Policy Committee, and Smith is a member of the Compensation Committee. The retirements are the result of these individuals reaching the Company's mandatory retirement age for directors as provided in the company's Guidelines on Corporate Governance Issues. That age is 72.

Caterpillar has had an up-and-down year financially as world economics continue to keep sales and revenues below earlier expectations, particularly in the mining industry. Still, it has been a profitable year for the company, which had a profit of $2.786 billion, or $4.21 a share, through the first nine months of 2013. That was about 43 percent below a year earlier, however.

The company is scheduled to make its 2013 year-end earnings report on Jan. 27, 2014.