News Briefs 1/5/2024: new gas station, trees to mulch

The Kwik Star at 16040 Oakfield Parkway, South Beloit, IL will open on Jan. 18, 2024. They will hold an open house from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. on Jan. 23, with a ribbon cutting at 11 a.m. The store is on the north side of IL-75/Manchester Road, across from McDonalds and Fas Fuel, east of Interstate 90.

The company, which goes by the name Kwik Trip in its native Wisconsin, has one Illinois store in Rochelle, but many locations in Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, and South Dakota.

The trucker friendly travel center will be open 24 hours. It will have ten fuel dispensers and for the truckers, ten side diesel pumps.

Ben Leibl, a corporate spokesperson for Kwik Trip/Kwik Star, told us that their new stores have two self-checkout registers.  

Keep Northern Illinois Beautiful (KNIB) has organized Christmas tree recycling (and free mulch) from January 1-15, 2024. In Rockton, you can bring your tree to the Rockton Boat Ramp, with parking opposite the ballfield. In Roscoe, you can bring it to Valley View Farms, 6440 Belvidere Road. In South Beloit, there is no official drop off location for a tree. You can leave it on the curb for pickup. If you know any goats, they might eat your tree for you. Make sure you leave only the tree - no flocking, ornaments, tinsel, chains, or stand. Harwick Tree Service provides onsite mulching.

Micah VanRavenswaay of Rockton and Drew Boyd of Roscoe have been named to the Fall 2023 President's List at Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU). To receive the honor, students must have earned a minimum grade-point average of 3.7 on a 4.0 scale. The university serves 225,000 students worldwide - most of them remotely, obviously.

As her project for National Junior Honor Society service, Jordan Helgerson, an 8th grader at Stephen Mack Middle School, has chosen to collect items for patients going through cancer treatment.  She's calling her project "Cancer Care Totes." The UW Health Carbone Cancer Center gave her a list of items and she came up with a few added ideas herself. She created an Amazon wish list and set up a Venmo account (@CareTotes100) for money donations. Her mother, Rachel Helgerson, says, "The items will be delivered to our home so she can put the cancer care totes together. If you cannot purchase any of the wish list items, but would like to donate funds to help, any amount would be appreciated." Jordan hopes to have all the totes delivered by early March.