News Briefs from Rockton and Roscoe: 1/21/2022

Tomorrow Jean Seegers brings us a report on the planned Serenity Memorial Garden & Ashuary at Roscoe United Methodist Church, which will be open to the community.

Yesterday we learned that the pop-up COVID testing center near Schnucks will remain closed until further notice. They were only offering rapid tests, though. The SHIELD testing center at UIC Rockford at 1601 Parkview Avenue offers one of the area's best, fastest options for PCR tests, which are more reliable.

Our reporter Marianne Mueller will be at the Stateline Chamber Awards Gala on Thursday, Feb. 3, but she may not be able to cover it. That's because she'll be a finalist for the Cyndy Fogerty Lifetime Achievement Award. We're not sure about this "lifetime" stuff though - she still plans to live a long life. The other two nominees, former Hononegah principal Eric Flohr and school board president David Kurlinkus, have already had at least one successful career apiece before joining the Hononegah school board, but they seem to be going strong too.

Hononegah Community High School reports another sports victory:

On Jan. 18, the Boys Swimming and Diving team took on their second-to-last double dual meet of the season against Freeport and Jefferson. Hononegah swept all but one event as they took first place over both other teams. Event winners included Joe Lengjak, Jack Kitzman, Logan Johnson, Vito Skominas, Owen West, Cale Miles, Austin Anderson, Dylan Beilfuss and Michael Long. Additionally the 200 Medley Relay team of West, Skominas, Miles and Schreier set the Hononegah Sophomore team record for the event. Other personal best swims came from Ray Grommes, Collin Benkovich, Damian Harms, Aidan Paccagnini, Spencer Thoren, Reeve Franklin and Pablo Baguena. The Swim and Dive finishes their regular season on Thursday with their Senior night meet against Boylan and East at Boylan.

A little further from home, four undergraduate students from Rockton and Roscoe were named to the  University of Iowa dean's list for the 2021 fall semester.

• Brett Jones of Roscoe - Fourth Year, College of Engineering,  majoring in Industrial Engineering
• Kyle Dingus of Roscoe - Third Year, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, majoring in Political Science
  
• Cali Schmitz of Roscoe - Third Year, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, majoring in Health and Human Physiology
• Corey Haselton of Rockton - Third Year, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, majoring in Psychology

Even further from home, at the University of Alabama, where Sunday's high is expected to be 35 degrees warmer than here, six students from Rockton and Roscoe have been named to the dean's list.  Like most colleges, making the dean's list at UA requires grades of 3.5 or above. The following local students have been named to the dean's list:

• Ashlyn Dull of Rockton
• Mark Limke of Rockton
• Lauren Shelton of Rockton
• Trent Aldrich of Roscoe
• Zachary Newman of Roscoe

But Kaden Orendorff of Rockton was named to the UA Presidents List, which requires a grade point average of 4.0 (all A's).