Dixon Honors Its Favorite Son

CBS 2 Chicago ^ | June 10, 2004 | CBS 2 Chicago

[Land_of_Lincoln_John]

Hundreds of people gathered Thursday in this central Illinois town where Ronald Reagan grew up, played ball and spent summers as a lifeguard to remember the life of the nation's only president born in Illinois.

"He was the leader of the most powerful nation on earth but he never forgot his small-town roots," said the Rev. Bob Jones of St. Patrick's Catholic Church.

At the First Christian Church, where Reagan was baptized at age 11 on June 21, 1922, more than 100 invited guests jammed into the pews, including dignitaries such as U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert and Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

Across the street, about 400 people packed into the Methodist Church to watch the proceedings on closed-circuit television. A few people huddled under umbrellas outside.

Jones called Reagan, who died Saturday at 93 after a long battle with Alzheimer's disease, a man who made a positive difference in the world and "more importantly made all of us believe we could make a positive difference."

The late president's state funeral was scheduled for Friday in Washington, with burial in a sunset ceremony on the grounds of his presidential library in southern California.

Reagan, known as "Dutch," moved to Dixon when he was 9 years old and graduated from high school in this northern Illinois city of about 15,000 people. He played football and became a local legend by saving dozens of lives as a teenage lifeguard on the Rock River.

"The community had a very strong attachment to him and likewise he had a very strong attachment to the community," said Dixon Mayor Jim Burke. "He once said everybody needs a place to come back to and for him that place was Dixon. And he meant it."

A 21-gun salute and Air National Guard flyover at Reagan's restored boyhood home were to follow the memorial service at First Christian Church, where Reagan and his family were members.

Memorial services also are planned this weekend in two other small Illinois towns that Reagan passed through on his way to Hollywood and the White House.

At 1 p.m. Saturday, a service is scheduled at Eureka College, where Reagan graduated in 1932 and first outlined his vision for nuclear arms reduction during a 1982 speech.

Another service is planned for 2:30 p.m. Sunday at the middle school in Tampico, where the second-story apartment where Reagan was born in 1911 has been restored as a museum.