From: The Register Mail (Galesburg, IL)
James Naismith, who devised the game of basketball in 1891, [spoke at] the Knox College basketball banquet held on the campus at Seymour Hall during late March 1927. Knox College Athletic Director Earl Jackson and first year basketball coach Dean Trevor were credited with enticing Naismith to visit Galesburg…
Knox College President Albert Britt served as toastmaster and introduced Naismith, [who] told how he is often amused about how basketball had changed since its infancy. He shared that he first tried variations of football, soccer and even lacrosse before suggesting a sport that initially featured a peach-type basket… Read more…
From: Pasadena Art Beat (Pasadena, CA)
If the recent feature film “Lincoln” has given you the history bug, the “History’s Mysteries” episode on Abraham Lincoln a good start. “Lincoln: The Untold Stories” features several Lincoln historians and actors narrating actual documents. The historians include the co-directors of the Lincoln Studies Center at Knox College: Rodney Davis and Douglas Wilson… Read more…
From: The Register Mail (Galesburg, IL)
Tom Wilson writes about the Knox-Monmouth football game 85 years ago, one year prior to the creation of the now-famous Bronze Turkey Trophy: On Thanksgiving Day 1927… it appeared that the game was doomed to possibly end in a scoreless tie until a very unexpected defensive play by Knox occurred when Monmouth was approaching scoring territory in the final stanza. Monmouth quarterback Walker attempted a lateral pass to his tight end Mohlenbrock near the Knox 25-yard line. Out of nowhere streaked Knox husky defensive end Will Massie who grabbed the pass with one hand and raced 75-yards down the field for the only score of the game… The famed Bronze Turkey [trophy] was not introduced until one year later… Read more…
From: The Register Mail (Galesburg, IL)
A recent Knox College News Team poll showed 59 percent of 213 registered voters [in Galesburg] interviewed said they would choose Obama [for President]… The Knox College journalism class published their findings of Obama’s 57-27 lead over Romney in The Register-Mail on Oct. 28… Since 1992, the Democrat to receive the lowest percentage of the overall Galesburg vote was President Bill Clinton, with 53 percent of the working-class city’s vote when he unseated incumbent President George Bush in 1992… Read more…
From: St. Louis Post-Dispatch (St. Louis, MO)
Columnist Bill McClellan writes: Edward W. Bilhorn was born in April 1918. He was raised in Webster Groves. He attended the University of Illinois and majored in mechanical engineering. He was in the ROTC… In April 1942, before shipping overseas, he married a young woman he had met on a blind date at a fraternity party. Elizabeth was from the south side of Chicago. At the time she met at Edward, she was a student at Knox College in Galesburg. She graduated from Knox in 1941…
Edward died in June 1973. His death came at a busy time for the family. Here is the way that week broke down: Saturday, Terry graduated from Knox College. Tuesday, Edward died. His body was cremated. In the hectic week after Edward’s death, nobody picked up his ashes… The unclaimed ashes came to the attention of a project called Missing in America… So on Thursday [October 25, 2012] the children of Edward Bilhorn [including James, Knox Class of 1969 and Terry, Knox Class of 1973] gathered in the chapel at Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery… It was a nice service in a lovely setting… Read more…
From: The Register Mail (Galesburg, IL)
Area newspapers in print during [1800s] included the Knox Republican, which was first published in 1856 and was credited with one of the best written stories covering the famed Lincoln-Douglas Debate in Galesburg… The Galesburg Free Press began publishing in the 1850s and also covered the Lincoln-Douglas Debate on the Knox College campus…
On Sept. 24, 1935, one of longest serving newspaper editors in Illinois was at his Register-Mail desk before 7 a.m. [Even though it was the day before his 81st birthday,] that was not unusual for Fred R. Jelliff, who used the exact routine for more than 50 consecutive years… During Jelliff’s half century at the helm of local newspapers he produced thousands of editorials pertaining to area town topics. Besides his endless newspaper duties [the 1878 Knox College graduate and honorary degree recipient] miraculously made time to participate in practically every worthwhile civic affair in the city… Read more…
