Good News Sunday: Happy 50th to Twirlers Square Dance Club

Box the gnat. Roll away to a half sashay. Weave the ring.

Any of these sound familiar?

For Cliff Benson, these are everyday phrases in his everyday life. He has been a square dance caller for 50 years, and spent the past five as a member of the Happy Twirlers Square Dance Club in Des Plaines, which is celebrating 50 years.

"I have been a caller since I was 14," said Benson, who is co-president of the Happy Twirlers along with Leslie Williams. "My parents were dancers, so I grew up around it."

Now he spends time dancing and occasionally calling for the Des Plaines club, which was founded by Charles and Lee Weiler in September 1969 with 16 members.

While the coronavirus has forced the suspension of activity for now, the club meets at Trinity Lutheran Church from May to September.

"Square dancing is done in English no matter where you go," he said. "You can walk into any club in the world and participate, but they will assume you know how to dance."

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Local 3-D printers making face masks

As a STEM teacher at Palatine's Quest Academy, Steve Dembo is more than comfortable working in a lab environment. But he's finding his new lab to be a bit disorienting, mostly because the four 3-D printers he has in constant operation compete for space with his washer and dryer.

By day, he churns out plastic face shields that are seeing increasing demand from local hospitals. By night, his printers (three of them borrowed from his school) craft surgical masks. On his most productive days, he cranks out 40 face shields and seven masks.

"This actually feels like I'm doing something to help," he said. "Pure and simple, if it comes to protecting the doctors from contracting the virus, whether the design is approved or not, a nonapproved design is still better than not having anything at all."

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Vernon Hills principal makes tribute to seniors

If the coronavirus outbreak keeps Vernon Hills High School closed to students, there is a real possibility that seniors' final in-school memories will be from March 13. That's the day Principal Jon Guillaume got on the school's public address system and told everyone that learning-from-home procedures would begin the following Monday.

"It was very abrupt," Guillaume said. "Not only did we close, but there was really no closure for them at all."

With that in mind, Guillaume published a video tribute to the senior class morning that has been viewed and shared thousands of times.

"They are a great group of kids, an awesome class. They have an abundance of skill and ability," Guillaume said. "I have a sense this could become about me, which is not what I was gunning for. This is really about the 350 seniors at VHHS."

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'We stand together through this crisis'

Terrance "Duke" Seward wants to ease the pain of Dundee-area bar and restaurant employees suddenly out of work because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The past few weeks, he's heard stories of workers and their families struggling to cover rent or pay their bills as they wait for unemployment benefits to come through. As fellow members of the business community, Seward and his wife, Rhiannon, felt it was their duty to help their neighbors make ends meet.

"I couldn't sit back and watch people hurting," said Seward, who owns Duke's Blues-n-BBQ in East Dundee.

Setting a goal of $10,000, the couple started a Facebook fundraiser that collected more than $9,000 for local industry workers in less than a week.

The money will be evenly distributed among 55 employees from 13 East and West Dundee establishments.

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The pancake house and its VIP customers

They're the regulars at Mapleberry Pancake House in Carol Stream - the folks who started their Sunday mornings with flapjacks or stuffed French toast, coffee and a glance at that "enter as strangers, leave as friends" sign.

"Without them, there would be no Mapleberry," owner Sylvia Masters says.

The people she treats like family are now stepping up the way family does in a crisis. They've helped her stay in business during the dining shutdown. Masters says she would be lost without them.

"I'm not going to lie, I'm trying to stay as strong as I can," she said.

They continue to support her, and she's been returning the favor. She has donated meals to families of sick children at the Ronald McDonald House in Winfield. And she's been bringing food to her parents' neighbors.

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