Yes, as the town sign (on US-34)states as you enter Neponset, IL,
their high school was the "Home of the Zephyrs".
My grandparents retired to Neponset after farming at various
locations around Kewanee and Buda. The mainline is visible from
their dining room window. Grandpa's side of the family was from
Neponset and he was a graduate of Neponset High School in the 1920s
(probably adopted that name on or after 1934). My folks live in
Princeton and in the mid 1990s picked up for me a free key ring with
the "D.A.R.E." anti-drug program logo on one side and the NHS' PZ on
the other from the Bureau County Sheriff Dept.
I also have a 1996 book of Neponset history titled "Neponset on the Q
(CB&Q)". There is even a Carl Sandburg poem "Pods" that
mentions "Neponset clinging to the Burlington mainline like pea pods
to the stem" (or something like that).
Whnever I get around to building my layout, I plan to letter my
Lionel Industrial Water Tower (looks just like the old water tower in
Wyanet) "NEPONSET - Home of the Zephyrs", based on the signes
mentioned above.
Bill H.
--- In BRHSlist@y..., atsf3460@a... wrote:
> Absolutely correct. Galesburg High still goes by the
nickname "Silver
> Streaks". Last season's football team's schedule had the team
posed in front
> of BN 1 and 2. The herald on the top of the schedule (which I
thought was
> pure genius!) was the famous picture of Zephyrus as used in "Q"
promotional
> literature. Instead of pointing the way west or whatever he
normally does he
> had his arm out to stiff-arm a defender and had a football tucked
under his
> other arm!
>
> There is also a town furthur up the line (Neponset maybe or
Annawan??) whose
> team went by the name "Zephyrs". That town's high school closed a
few years
> ago due to consolidation.
>
> Mike Martin / Peoria Heights, IL
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