Archive for June 29th, 2009
June 29th, 2009
A 20-year-old Rockfordian, one of seven competitors in a country singing competition in a Chicago suburb on Saturday, plans to take to a Nashville stage soon with hopes of being discovered for her vocals or songwriting.
Amanda Torp-Pedersen didn’t win the Colgate Country Showdown at the Orland Square Mall in Orland Park, but said the experience gave her another chance to hone her performance skills. “I am learning how to be more comfortable on stage,” she told me today. For the competition, she sang, “All of Me,” a piece she penned, and Faith Hill’s “Red Umbrella.”
(Amanda Torp-Pedersen performing Saturday in Orland Park. Photo provided.)
Torp-Pederson is 2007 graduate of Rockford Christian High School and attends Belmont University in Nashville. She has performed in Rockford for sports teams including the Ice Hogs, RiverHawks and Raptors and has won a vocal competition at On the Waterfront.
She plans to attend a writers night in Nashville, where she’ll perform three original songs on stage. Such audiences typically include music scouts, she said.
June 29th, 2009
Talk about dodging bullets, and infamous ones at that.
Al Petzke of Rockford was 7 years old when he narrowly missed being shot up by — who he believes then and still does — was John Dillinger and his gang in South Bend, Ind.
(Al Petzke, photo provided)
Dillinger, the subject of “Public Enemies” starring Johnny Depp and opening Wednesday, and his gang had allegedly just robbed the Merchants National Bank on June 30, 1934. It was less than a month before Dillinger was shot dead in Chicago by police.
Petzke and his father had just entered the Cloud Brothers appliance store to buy a replacement part for the family’s wringer washing machine. Al’s mom washed clothes to make money during the Depression.
They heard sirens, exited the store, then quickly went back inside the vestibule of the store when they saw the gang driving Studebakers and the cops rounding the corner. “They went by in a hurry,” Petzke, 82, told me after reading my June 25 column about a car housed at Historic Auto Attractions in Roscoe used by the Dillinger gang in a robbery. The Studebaker is expected to be seen in “Public Enemies.”
“We kept hearing this ‘pop, pop, pop,’” Petzke said. “We just wanted to make sure they did not hit us. I just hung on to my dad.”
When the shooting was over, father and son and store staff gathered outside. Bullet holes were found in a sign outside the store. The story about the bank robbery allegedly by the Dillinger crew was a big deal the next day in the South Bend Tribune, he said.
“I’m lucky I didn’t pee in my pants,” said Petzke, who moved to Rockford in 1953 and was an engineering director for WTVO-17 for 44 years.
June 29th, 2009
Wow, 150 years for Ponzi-scheme mastermind Barry Madoff. That surprises me. Last I heard, pundits were predicting between 15 and 25 years.
Are you surprised by Madoff's 150-year sentence?
June 29th, 2009
Two professional wrestling shows will be taped live at the Rockford MetroCentre on Tuesday, Sept. 8, back-to-back for later TV broadcasting.
WWE’s SmackDown stars expected to be here include Jeff Hardy, Edge, Rey Mysterio, Chris Jerico, John Morrison and The Divas. ECW’s stars expected to be here include Christian, Mark Henry, Jack Swagger, Finlay, Evan Bourne and Tommy Dreamer. The ECW show will start at 6:30 p.m. followed by SmackDown.
(Rey Mysterio, photo provided)
Tickets cost $50, $40, $30, $22 and $15. They go on sale at 10 a.m. Saturday, July 11, at metrocentre.com, 815-968-5222 and the MetroCentre box office at 300 Elm St.
The ECW shos is expected to air at 9 p.m. the night of the taping on the SciFi Channel (Comcast 156). The WWE show is expected to air at 7 p.m. Friday, Sept. 11 on myNetworkTV (Comast 16).
