Byron School District and Nuclear Power

I thought this was interesting only as the budgets of schools that have a power plant are concerned.

https://www.ilnews.org/news/statewide/rural-illinois-power-plant-has-one-of-the-highest-tax/article_87a39784-732e-11e8-8c82-73729e2aeeab.html

i knew they got a lot of $$$ from the nuke plant, but damn!

perhaps "center" can confirm or deny this - i remember 20 years ago or so i was told the byron football team rented a live tiger and a handler to walk the sidelines during football games...because they could afford the cost.

Interesting article. Checking on the live tiger story as we speak.

For those not familiar with Byron school and park district facilities just imagine a wealthy suburban school like Matea Valley dropped into a cornfield.

Growing up in Wilmington and seeing the facilities that Reed-Custer had were eye opening. Sounds like Byron takes it to the next level with their personal assessor

center wrote:Interesting article. Checking on the live tiger story as we speak.

For those not familiar with Byron school and park district facilities just imagine a wealthy suburban school like Matea Valley dropped into a cornfield.

love the analogy. +1.

The Nuke Plant changed Byron from a sleepy little river town, with questionable financial stability and so-so athletics, to a community on the rise/ With all the monies flooding into that school district, families who desired better academic and athletic opportunities for their children began arriving in the 1980s and the result has been lots of state titles over the decades in both boys and girls sports.
Surrounding communities, such as the one the I live in (Oregon) began to develop a bit of resentment over all the riches of the Byron school district. Fortunately, that ill will has simmered down.

Byron's enrollment peaked in the early 1990s, just as the Nuc was gaining steam. However, like many other Ogle County communities, enrollment has dropped - and I believe by over 13% since.

I remember riding in my family car as a young boy to Rockford maybe once a season for mall shopping. We would drive through Byron to get there. My recollection of Byron as I grew up is it was as big as from the cemetary west of town to Lake Louise northeast of town, both along Rt. 2. Even when I started covering some of their sports events some 15 years ago, I had assumed mostly that subdivisions (along Rt. 2, River Road, and Marill Rd) had helped boost their enrollment to what it was.

Only in the past few months did I realize that there is more town on the other end of the train tracks than there was on the end I am most familiar with. I have never driven on Colfax Drive north of the high school itself, because there has never been any reason for me to do so (no businesses, I believe). Once I saw an air-view image on Google Maps, I was mindblown.

BTW - Observer, center, or any other Ogle County guy, what is the name of that small plat on River Road where I'm slowing down to 30 mph? I've never known and I've always been curious, especially since it has a "Main Street".

Always heard that they had heated sidewalks at the school so they didn't have to shovel snow. And that they bought brand-new school buses every year.

That small plat is called the "Terrace", primarily of large grouping of houses overlooking the Rock River, all if which were there prior to the Nuke plant.