Road mural in place and area fundraisers flourishing

It's been forever since I've written a column.

I have reasons: I was filling in on the courts beat for another reporter for a couple of weeks, I had a couple weeks of vacation myself, and there were those pesky daily deadlines for news stories.

But now, no more excuses. Time to get back to the tidbits of the Tri-Cities and Kaneland area.

Road art: The Illinois Lincoln Highway Coalition unveiled one of its 16 interpretive murals in North Aurora. It is at 1 N. Lincolnway, and it showcases Exposition Park.

Exposition Park was an amusement park that opened in North Aurora in the early 1920s.

The $10,000 mural was paid for by the state and the Federal Highway Administration.

Murals are due to be installed in Batavia and Geneva; one is already up in St. Charles.

The Lincoln Highway was the first paved transcontinental highway in the United States. In the Tri-Cities it was along what is now Route 31, and headed west on Route 38 in Geneva.

For more information, visit drivelincolnhighway.com.

Money, money: Let's catch up on a couple of fund-raisers:

• The Concert for a Cure Aug. 28 raised more than $100,000 for research into Parkinson's disease, organizers report.

The event was held at Tanna Farms Golf Club. It is organized by the Paul Ruby Foundation. Paul Ruby is a Geneva resident who was diagnosed with Parkinson's several years ago. The money is given to projects overseen by the Parkinson Disease and Movement Disorders Center at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University.

For more information about the foundation, contact Dawn Vogelsberg at dawn@paulrubyfoundation.org or call (630) 232-1122. The website is paulrubyfoundation.org.

• The Geneva Kiwanis say they had a big turnout for their annual Orthokids raffle, and was able to donate $3,000 to the program, which provides water therapy for disabled children in the warm-water pool at the Delnor Health and Wellness Center in Geneva.

• The Friends of the Messenger Public Library gave $2,000 to sponsor the library's summer reading program. The money was raised at its 2009 annual used book sale.

For more information about the Friends group and library programs, visit messengerpl.org, or call the library at (630) 896-0240.