Dedicated to the village
COAL GROVE — The Village of Coal Grove has lost one of its most committed public servants.
Bernard "Tom" McKnight, who served two stints as the village's mayor, as well as three years on council, died Saturday, May 17, at age 88.
First elected in 1976, McKnight served as mayor for 19 years, serving from 1976-1991 and from 2000-04.
Among his achievements as mayor was overseeing the rebuilding of the Coal Grove Village Hall, which was destroyed by fire prior to his election.
McKnight also started the annual Family Fun Days festival in the
village, led the building and naming of Paul Porter Park, secured money for the Coal Grove boat ramp, and secured more than $20 million for infrastructure.
The village's present mayor, Andy Holmes, said "Tom was very important to our community" and that his motto was "to serve the people of Coal Grove."
"And he truly did that, until the end," Holmes said.
He said that, until recent months, McKnight could be seen in his retirement driving around the village, accompanies by his dog, checking on things.
"He was always making the rounds and active," Holmes said.
Council member Denise Paulus was McKnight's neighbor, both at home, and when she began her time on council.
"He sat beside me at meetings," she said, stating he served as her mentor, when she was new on the body. "And I never learned more than during that time."
Paulus said the village passed a resolution in 2020, when McKnight resigned to name the town hall after him.
She said she recently came across it again, and realizing McKnight was ill, approached Holmes about revisiting the matter and making it happen.
"That was in April," she said, crediting Holmes for quick action. "It was God's timing."
A dedication ceremony took place on May 8, with McKnight and his wife, Linda, present, where a plaque was installed in his honor in the council chambers. Similar signage will be posted on the building's exterior.
McKnight thanked the mayor and council for the honor and spent an hour speaking with the public and reminiscing about his time in office.
Holmes spoke of McKnight's contributions at the ceremony.
"He believed in the power of community, and in the strength of listening," Holmes said. "He knew that leadership wasn't about being the loudest voice, but the most compassionate heart. And he never asked for recognition, only for the opportunity to make a difference. His legacy isn't just in the roads paved or the policies passed — it's in the lives he touched, the kindness he showed, and the hope he brought to this village."
McKnight, a lifelong resident of the village, was a member of Memorial Methodist Church of Coal Grove and was also a Little League coach in football, basketball and baseball.
He is survived by his wife, to whom he was married for 66 years, as well as his daughters, Tomi Blankenship, of Coal Grove, Shelli, of Tampa, Florida; and son, Kyle McKnight, of Coal Grove.
Visitation and funeral service for McKnight were Friday at the Memorial Methodist Church. Burial followed at Woodland Cemetery in Ironton.
You Might Like
Business
Blast from the past
Gallery
Prom season 2025 — Vol. 5
Education
Meet the Class: Mackenzie Wilds
News
Parade events kick off Thursday
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Atlantic
3 days ago
- Atlantic
The Birth of the Attention Economy
This is an edition of Time-Travel Thursdays, a journey through The Atlantic 's archives to contextualize the present. Sign up here. Early in the Civil War, Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. announced in The Atlantic that the necessities of life had been reduced to two things: bread and the newspaper. Trying to keep up with what Holmes called the 'excitements of the time,' civilians lived their days newspaper to newspaper, hanging on the latest reports. Reading anything else felt beside the point. The newspaper was an inescapable force, Holmes wrote; it ruled by 'divine right of its telegraphic dispatches.' Holmes didn't think he was describing some permanent modern condition—information dependency as a way of life. The newspaper's reign would end with the war, he thought. And when it did, he and others could return to more high-minded literary pursuits—such as the book by an 'illustrious author' that he'd put down when hostilities broke out. Nearly 40 years after Holmes wrote those words, newspapers were still on the march. Writing in 1900, Arthur Reed Kimball warned in The Atlantic of an ' Invasion of Journalism,' as newspapers' volume and influence grew only more intense. Their readers' intellect, Kimball argued, had been diminished. Coarse language was corrupting speech and writing, and miscellaneous news was making miscellaneous minds. The newspaper-ification of the American mind was complete. The rise of the cheap, daily newspaper in the 19th century created the first true attention economy—an endless churn of spectacle and sensation that remade how Americans engaged with the world. Although bound by the physical limits of print, early newspaper readers' habits were our habits: People craved novelty, skimmed for the latest, let their attention dart from story to story. And with the onset of this new way of being came its first critics. In our current moment, when readers need to be persuaded to read an article before they post about it online, 19th-century harrumphs over the risks of newspaper reading seem quaint. Each new technology since the newspaper—film, radio, television, computers, the internet, search engines, social media, artificial intelligence—has sparked the same anxieties about how our minds and souls will be changed. Mostly, we've endured. But these anxieties have always hinted at the possibility that one day, we'll reach the endgame—the point at which words and the work of the mind will have become redundant. Worries over journalism's invasive qualities are as old as the modern daily newspaper. In New York, where the American variant first took shape in the 1830s, enterprising editors found a formula for success; they covered fires, murders, swindles, scandals, steamboat explosions, and other acts in the city's daily circus. As James Gordon Bennett Sr., the editor of the New York Herald and the great pioneer of the cheap daily, said, the mission was 'to startle or amuse.' Small in size and packed with tiny type, the papers themselves didn't look particularly amusing, but the newsboys selling them in the street were startling enough. Even if you didn't buy a paper, a boy in rags was going to yell its contents at you. These cheap newspapers had relatively modest urban circulations, but they suggested a new mode of living, an acceleration of time rooted in an expectation of constant novelty. Henry David Thoreau and other contrarians saw the implications and counseled the careful conservation of attention. 'We should treat our minds,' Thoreau wrote in an essay posthumously published in The Atlantic, 'that is, ourselves, as innocent and ingenuous children, whose guardians we are, and be careful what objects and what subjects we thrust on their attention.' This included newspapers. 'Read not the Times,' he urged. 'Read the Eternities.' But the problem was only getting worse. The Eternities were steadily losing ground to the Times—and to the Posts, the Standards, the Gazettes, the Worlds, and the Examiners. In the last third of the 19th century, the volume of printed publications grew exponentially. Even as more 'serious' newspapers such as the New-York Tribune entered the marketplace, the cheap daily continued to sell thousands of copies each day. Newspapers, aided by faster methods of typesetting and by cheaper printing, became twice-daily behemoths, with Sunday editions that could be biblical in length. A British observer marveled at the turn of the century that Americans, 'the busiest people in the world,' had so much time to read each day. American commentators of high and furrowed brow worried less that newspapers were being left unread and more that they were actually being devoured. The evidence was everywhere—in snappier sermons on Sundays, in direct and terse orations at colleges, in colloquial expressions in everyday usage, in the declining influence of certain journals and magazines (including The Atlantic). If I may apply what Kimball deplored as 'newspaper directness,' people seemed to be getting dumber. Those who were reared on slop and swill wanted ever more slop and swill—and the newspapers were all too ready to administer twice-daily feedings. Writing in The Atlantic in 1891 on the subject of ' Journalism and Literature,' William James Stillman saw a broad and 'devastating influence of the daily paper' on Americans' 'mental development.' No less grave were the political implications of a populace marinating in half-truths, seeking the general confirmation of what it already believed. In such a market, journalists and their papers had an incentive to perpetuate falsehoods. Was all of this hand-wringing a little too much? Has not one generation predicted the doom of the next with each successive innovation? Socrates warned that writing would weaken thought and give only the appearance of wisdom. Eighteenth-century novels occasioned panic as critics worried that their readers would waste their days on vulgar fictions. And as for newspapers, didn't Ernest Hemingway famously take 'newspaper directness' and make it the basis for perhaps the most influential literary style of the 20th century? Each innovation, even those that risk dimming our broader mental capacity, can stimulate innovations of its own. But at the risk of sounding like those 19th-century critics, this time really does seem different. When machines can so agreeably perform all of our intellectual labors and even fulfill our emotional needs, we should wonder what will become of our minds. No one has to spend much time imagining what we might like to read or pretend to read; algorithms already know. Chatbots, meanwhile, can as readily make our emails sound like Hemingway as they can instruct us on how to perform devil worship and self-mutilation. Thoreau may have never divined the possibility of artificial intelligence, but he did fear minds smoothed out by triviality and ease. He imagined the intellect as a road being paved over—' macadamized,' in 19th-century parlance—'its foundation broken into fragments for the wheels of travel to roll over.' 'If I am to be a thoroughfare,' Thoreau wrote, 'I prefer that it be of the mountain-brooks, the Parnassian streams, and not the town-sewers.'
Business Wire
07-07-2025
- Business Wire
Power in Action: Delta Sigma Theta Hosts 57th National Convention
WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--More than a century of sisterhood, scholarship, service, and social action will take center stage as Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated convenes its 57th National Convention, bringing together attendees from across the globe to celebrate its legacy and shape its path forward. 'It is my honor to welcome our dynamic sisterhood to the 57th National Convention of Delta Sigma Theta,' said International President Elsie Cooke-Holmes. 'During the coming days, we will be inspired by our legacy and energized by the possibilities ahead." Share At capacity, 20,000 members of the storied organization will convene July 8-13, 2025, at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in the nation's capital, joined by an additional 13,000 tuning in virtually. From empowering communities to elevating its impact, the Sorority is moving forward with fortitude to meet this pivotal moment with purpose, power, and unity. 'It is my honor to welcome our dynamic sisterhood to the 57th National Convention of Delta Sigma Theta,' said International President Elsie Cooke-Holmes. 'Our Sorority was founded 112 years ago on the campus of Howard University by 22 young women. We honor our origin and our future through our theme 'Forward with Fortitude: A Homecoming of Strength and Purpose.' During the coming days, we will be inspired by our legacy and energized by the possibilities ahead, as we exchange ideas and information, hear from experts, and learn about best practices to actively engage our sisterhood, empower our communities, and elevate our impact.' The Sorority's tradition of activism on the frontlines dates back to just weeks after its inception, when its Founders boldly marched in the 1913 Women's Suffrage Parade—the only Black women's organization to do so. The power-packed 2025 convention week will feature a series of meaningful sessions and events that speak to our sisterhood, scholarship, service, and social action. SCHEDULE OF EVENTS SISTERHOOD Golf Tournament Tuesday, July 8, 2025 9:00 am University of Maryland Golf Course 3800 Golf Course Road, College Park, MD 20742 OPEN TO PRESS Helen Webb Harris, a pioneering educator, advocate, and sports leader, will be recognized at Deltas on the Fairway National Golf Tournament, which is the kickoff to the 57 th National Convention. This tribute celebrates Harris' profound contributions to education, community service, and golf. SCHOLARSHIP Award Presentation at Public Meeting Thursday, July 10, 2025 6:00 pm – 8:30 pm Walter E. Washington Convention Center - Halls D&E OPEN TO PRESS The 2025 recipient of The Dr. Thelma T. Daley Distinguished Professor Endowed Chair will be announced at this meeting. Since 1977, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority's Distinguished Professor Endowed Chair Award—affectionately known as DPEC—has been awarded to a Historically Black College or University (HBCU) to provide research support for a distinguished professor in residence. Now named in honor of Delta Sigma Theta's 16th National President, Dr. Thelma T. Daley, who established the award, DPEC has provided over $2 million to more than 20 institutions. The award supports the research agendas of African American faculty whose work enhances the quality of life for African American families and communities. SERVICE Impact Day Tuesday, July 8, 2025 9:00 am – 1:00 pm Walter E. Washington Convention Center - Room 150 AB OPEN TO PRESS To combat period poverty and promote menstrual equity worldwide, volunteers will pack menstrual hygiene supplies for donation as part of the Sorority's R.E.D. (Restoring Equity and Dignity) Circle of Compassion initiative. The Sorority has a history of giving back to the city in which its convention is held, as part of its global service initiatives. Nearly 3,000 items are being packed and donated to support Washington, D.C. nonprofits, including Covenant House Washington, Harriet Tubman Women's Shelter (Catholic Charities), and Dolls & Dreams. The initiative's global impact can be seen both through donations of supplies to Mombasa Relief in Kenya, as well as a financial contribution of $10,000 to support menstrual health and education programs at I Can Fly High School in Kenya and the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. Elementary School in Ch'erette, Haiti. This large-scale effort will make a direct and measurable difference, since millions of girls around the world are still forced to miss school or face shame simply because they lack access to basic menstrual supplies. Blood Drive Tuesday, July 8, 2025 9:00 am – 6:00 pm Walter E. Washington Convention Center - Floor 2, Room 208AB Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. and the American Red Cross are partnering to host a blood drive during the convention. One in three Black donors are a match for someone with sickle cell disease – an enduring and often invisible condition. The disease disproportionately affects individuals of African descent, many of whom rely on routine blood transfusions as an essential treatment to prevent life-threatening complications. Red Tank Pitch Competition Tuesday, July 8, 2025 4:00 pm – 6:00 pm Walter E. Washington Convention Center - Room 144 ABC OPEN TO PRESS The third iteration of the Delta Red Tank Pitch Competition for aspiring and established 'Deltapreneurs' will culminate with a live grand finale during the 57th National Convention. Collegiate and alumnae members representing all seven regions have successfully advanced through two rounds of competition, vying for the opportunity to present their elevator pitch in person to a review panel. The six Red Tank finalists will receive mentoring, business guidance, and monetary awards ranging from $10,000 to $25,000 to support their business, products, or services. Under the National Program Planning and Development Committee's Economic Development Subcommittee, this initiative advances the Women's Small Business Entrepreneurship Program and supports the Sorority's Financial Fortitude initiative. Public Meeting Thursday, July 10, 2025 6:00 pm – 8:30 pm Walter E. Washington Convention Center - Halls D&E OPEN TO PRESS As a signature event of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated's National Convention, the Public Meeting—led by the International President—welcomes community leaders, public officials, and convention guests for an evening of celebration and recognition. This open-to-the-public gathering honors individuals and organizations for their outstanding service, leadership, and contributions to civic life, the arts, and the humanities. Dignitaries offering remarks often include national and local elected officials, corporate sponsors, and leaders of fellow Divine Nine organizations. This year's event will be hosted by WUSA 9's Lesli Foster. SOCIAL ACTION Social Action Luncheon Friday, July 11, 2025 1:00 pm – 3:00 pm Walter E. Washington Convention Center - Halls A&B A cornerstone of the national convention, the Social Action Luncheon reflects Delta Sigma Theta's legacy of driving change, influencing policy, and empowering communities through sustained civic involvement. This year's keynote address will be delivered by U.S. Senator Cory Booker, whose presence affirms the power of civic participation and the urgency of collective action. His message will speak directly to the critical issues shaping our communities and the nation at large. ABOUT DELTA SIGMA THETA Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated was founded on January 13, 1913, on the campus of Howard University to promote academic excellence; to provide scholarships; to provide support to the underserved; educate and stimulate participation in the establishment of positive public policy; and to highlight issues and provide solutions for problems in their communities. Since its founding, more than 350,000 women have joined the organization, making it one of the largest predominantly Black women's organizations in the country. Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated has over 1,000 collegiate and alumnae chapters located in the United States, the Arabian Gulf, the Bahamas, Bermuda, Canada, Germany, Jamaica, Japan, the Republic of Korea, West Africa, the United Kingdom, and the Virgin Islands. The Sorority utilizes its Five-Point Programmatic Thrust of economic development, educational development, international awareness and involvement, physical and mental health, and political awareness and involvement to guide national programs, initiatives, and strategic partnerships. To learn more about Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated, visit
Chicago Tribune
19-06-2025
- Chicago Tribune
Flossmoor Juneteenth celebration continues to grow in fifth year
Richton Park's Destiny Watson is a person who likes to look ahead. Watson, 27, is the founder and CEO of You Matter 2 and one of the goals is to make the future better for youths in the Southland with programs and initiatives. But on Thursday morning, she had a chance to look back both figuratively and literally. You Matter 2 is the group that does the heavy lifting for the Juneteenth celebration in Flossmoor. Watson and You Matter 2 held its fifth celebration overall and fourth parade through the village. It was a chance for people to look back as Juneteenth celebrated June 19, 1865, when Union troops arrived in Galveston, Texas, announcing the end of the Civil War and reading the Emancipation Proclamation that President Abraham Lincoln signed two years earlier. Watson appreciates looking back on the history but as she marched at the front with the You Matter 2 group, she couldn't help but feel good about looking back and seeing 19 more groups and 450 people behind her as more than 1,000 people lined Flossmoor Road to cheer them on. 'To look back and see the line and groups of people — it was huge,' Watson said. 'The parade keeps growing every year. This was definitely our biggest one.' The parade stepped off at the Western Avenue Elementary School and went along Flossmoor Road until it reached Parker Middle School, where a block party continued the celebration. The parade featured dancers, cheerleaders and drums as well as groups coming out to celebrate and distribute candy to the younger parade watchers. Toward the end of the route, Calumet City's Deneen Holmes held a sign celebrating the holiday. 'It's a happy thing,' Holmes said. 'I love being Black and it's a celebration of freedom and a celebration of culture and we love that we can have this in the south suburbs for everyone to support and celebrate.' Holmes said she came last year with her family and loved the parade and the dancers. 'I love seeing the kids dance and the younger people get involved. It was a pleasure to watch,' she said. One of the groups marching was the Alpha Phi Alpha Theta Mu Lambda organization. Its members didn't dance or cheer, but it has been a presence in the south suburbs. Like You Matter 2, Alpha Phi Alpha promotes academic excellence and service in the area. Andre Sutton, the corresponding secretary for the chapter, sits on the executive board and said it benefits young people from Homewood, Flossmoor, Harvey, South Holland and other areas. 'We develop leaders and have a mentorship program where we mentor young African American men,' he said. 'We have members as young as 18 to members who are in their 60s and 70s.' Sutton said the Flossmoor Juneteenth celebration keeps growing. 'It's good to see families and it's good to see local people out here,' he said. 'It's great to see children out here having a great time and doing something positive in the community.' Watson helped get the ball rolling in 2021 with a festival in the parking lot at Homewood-Flossmoor High School days after Gov. J.B. Pritzker declared June 19 a state holiday and then-President Joe Biden signed legislation to make it a national holiday. 'It started with a vision, honestly, to bring our community together and celebrate Juneteenth,' Watson said. 'To see it grow every year and to see the turnout, it's a good feeling to see that people still want to come out and support it.' Watson, Kalyn Victor, Matthew Hill and Nicholas Amuh are the four running the show for You Matter 2 and put in a lot of work with the celebration. Watson said it's worth it to make people aware of the past plight of African Americans. 'I think there is more learning but with us having this presence, it gives people a chance to ask questions and learn more,' she said. 'And it gives us a bigger platform to reach the community.' Holmes said progress is being made with the holiday. 'I definitely think that it's more widespread,' Holmes said. 'A lot of Black culture is not necessarily celebrated nationally, but it's celebrated within our homes and within our families. 'So, it's nice to see that we can come and connect with the community.'
