Part of County Highway 4, popularly known as the Morris Blacktop, is being renamed Jerry Hicks Rd. At this past week’s LaSalle County Board meeting, the last one held by the outgoing board, Chairman Jim Olson said that’s keeping with the tradition of naming county highways after board chairmen.
The part to get the Hicks name runs from Nate Fleming Rd. north of Marseilles to Illinois 71 at the northeast edge of Ottawa.
Hicks was the last appointed and the first elected LaSalle County Board Chairman. The board appointed him to the seat in 2006. Then the county switched to an elected chairman and he won the first such election in 2008. He resigned from the chairman’s job in early 2019. Having been allowed to keep a regular county board seat even while serving as the chairman, he returned to the members’ section of the meeting space and continues to serve on the board.
In case you thought differently, the county’s tradition does NOT require the road naming to be done posthumously. Board member Jerry Myers of Streator asked about that last Monday.
LaSalle County Board Chairman Jerry Hicks conducts a board meeting in October 2017