Our friend, Dave Clarke, co-host of Kewanee Back When, has been named Citizen of the Year by the Kewanee Chamber of Commerce. Speaking to WKEI, Dave spoke of the honor…
“I am honored that the Ambassador’s Club selected me as the 2024 Outstanding Citizen. It’s been almost 60 years since I walked into George Walker’s office and said I wanted to be a radio announcer and nearly 40 years since Rocky Stuffelbeam asked me to write a bi-weekly column for the Star Courier. Since then I have written about the people of Kewanee and surrounding communities and their lives for many years and still find that I am always looking for another good story.”
From the press release from the Kewanee Chamber of Commerce
The Kewanee Chamber of Commerce Ambassador Club has announced that longtime Kewanee newsman/columnist Dave Clarke has been selected as the 2024 Outstanding Citizen.
Ambassador Club member Steve Looney said “This year we are honoring Dave for his lifelong service to the community. Besides outstanding media coverage Dave has also been one of the go to people regarding Kewanee area history”
In addition to being a newsman, he kept busy with a variety of community projects – many agricultural. He’s been president of the Saxon Cemetery Association for over 40 years and was recently elected president of the Frank H. Craig Wethersfield Alumni Association. He was the first recipient of the Black Hawk East Agri-Business Club Alumni’s Friend of the Alumni Award, along with the Henry County Beef Association’s Friend of the Industry Award.
At the Methodist Church in Lafayette, he served on the administrative board, was a lay speaker, a Sunday School teacher and youth group leader. Named a Paul Harris Fellow by the Kewanee Rotary Club, he has also been inducted into the Wethersfield Academic Hall of Fame. At one time he served as publicity director for the Knights Junior Drum and Bugle Corps and is well remembered for his work as emcee and photographer for the Miss Henry County Fair Pageant.
Dave and his family put their fourth-generation Walnut Ridge Farm, which lies across from the East Campus of Black Hawk College, into a land trust for the college’s foundation. Eventually, the land will fall under the ownership of the Black Hawk East College Foundation, of which he is most proud. Currently, he serves on the Foundation’s property management committee and oversees the farmland and on-campus housing.
With no plans to slow down, he still shares his knowledge with the community as a columnist for The Kewanee Voice. You will also find Dave at Wethersfield Elementary, in Tonya Vincent’s third-grade class every Wednesday, listening to her students read their stories to him. For the past six years, his radio program on WKEI “Kewanee Back When” has brought him full circle back to the airwaves.
A community recognition banquet will be held, details of that event will be released at a later date.
