And we're back. After a little hiatus, the Geneva High School and GTV304 lip dub video is back on YouTube, and you can find it here under the title "Vikings Lip Dub." As we've said before, it's something you have to see to believe. A lip dub is "a video with music, using one continuous shot, no edits" in which one student after another does a lip synch while the camera tours through the hallways of the school. More than 600 students and 40 clubs, sports teams and student organizations took part in the video. The lip dub was shot Nov. 11 and put up on YouTube sometime on or around Nov. 23. It …

Geneva' High School's Footloose lip dub is no longer on the Kane County Chronicle website, but it isn't back on YouTube yet—at least as far as this editor could find. The extremely cool student-made video was put together in one "take" on Nov. 11 with the help of about 600 Geneva students from 40-plus clubs, athletic teams and service groups, and it was posted to rave reviews on YouTube. But the video came down from YouTube unexpectedly on or before Saturday, Nov. 26, due to copyright issues. The Kane County Chronicle has posted an explanation of what happened. "Mike Van Der Harst, the …

Wednesday morning we will update our Geneva Patch homepage design to reflect feedback we've gotten from you, our fabulous unique visitors, since we launched last August. It's probably important to note right here in good old paragraph No. 2 that the basic content isn't changing. Geneva Patch is still going to be made from the same savory ingredients you've come to love—Geneva news and information, business listings, Patch Deals, volunteer opportunities, blog posts from your neighbors, photo galleries, videos, breaking news alerts, school news, polls and the occasional zany column or feature. …

The Geneva High School Footloose lip dub is loose, apparently—as in, gone missing, kaput, "Elvis has left the building." Geneva High School Principal Tom Rogers said this morning that he simply didn't know at this time why it was gone from YouTube. A reader said the YouTube video had more than 10,000 visits before it was taken down on Saturday or Sunday. If you click on the Geneva Patch link to the GHS YouTube video, you get a YouTube error message that says, "This message contains content from SME and EMI, one or more of whom have blocked it in your country on copyright grounds." A caller …

Actually, I shouldn't write any text at all because (a) it will skew the test results and (b) any sort of context might result in fewer page views and unique visits. I've been watching the numbers on the various Geneva Patch stories provided courteously by the Patch home office (which I believe is located in a #2 mayonnaise jar on Funk and Wagnall's porch since noon today) for more than a year now, and I'm still trying to figure out what stories resonate—which are successful and unsuccessful, and why. There have been more than a few articles—some of them pretty good stories—that have just …

Some media partner I turned out to be. Sure, Geneva Patch did a lot of cool stuff to help promote the 2011 Pumpkins for a Cure two-day event in downtown Geneva. We ran a number of announcements and events and columns and preview stories, and Jackie Lobdell had a Patch tent at the event on Oct. 1. But until now, I failed to follow up with the "finale" story, the wrap-up piece, the denouement, the coup de grace, the piece de resistance. We'll segue from French to sports cliches and sum it up this way. Final score: Cure 30,000, Juvenile Diabetes 0. The $30,000 is the amount raised for Juvenile …

It's a tour of Geneva High School, and it's a tour de force. Four stars from the reviewers. "I am so proud to be an alumni of this school! I wish we could've done stuff like this when I was there! I was part of the television program, and it just keeps getting better and better! WAY TO GO GENEVA! :) I actually am going to school now to be in the film industry ... " "I love the crow in the background at the beginning! Also the guy at 3:53 with the yugioh duel disk is totally awesome!" "Just one problem with this. I WASN'T IN IT! lol. Great Job GHS! LOVE YOU ALL!!!!!" We're talking about the …

We've got culture, yes we do,We've got culture, how 'bout YOU! There's a circa-1970s cheer, or variation thereof, that we chanted in sleepy, enchanting Geneva, IL, way back when I was in high school. Maybe Geneva's not quite as sleepy as it was back then, but it's still enchanting—at least I think so—and I hope you do, too. I also hope that living here (or that you came from here or that you passed through here at some point in time—you might be reading this is Guam, for all I know) is one of the things you're thankful for as you sit down to your turkey on Thursday. On the eve of this most-…

Michael Simon's father, Sol, opened the Merra-Lee in 1929 in a building that's right next to where Geneva Cleaners is today. Sol moved the business to its present location at what has to be considered the nexus of Geneva's downtown, the intersection of Third Street and State Street, and started expanding his businesses in 1963. For anyone who has lived here, the Merra-Lee is one of those stores that seemed like it always was and always will be. On Friday morning, on Veteran's Day 2011, Mike announced "the beginning of the last chapter of the Merra-Lee Shops." I talked to Mike late Friday …

When I started this Geneva Patch gig more than a year ago, I met and interviewed a number of community leaders, and I ended most of them with the question every reporter is supposed to ask: Is there anyone else you think I should talk to or might have missed? At least a half dozen times—probably more—the first answer was: "Have you met Joe Stanton?" That's because, as a landlord, business owner, volunteer, community activist, graphic designer, consultant, sponsor, philanthropist, client, Geneva cheerleader or friend, he has touched the lives of countless people who live and work here. Joe is—…

Nine Cub Scouts—eight from St. Peter School in Geneva and one from Munhall School in St. Charles—met with Geneva Patch Editor Rick Nagel on Monday to learn a little bit about news and to become a story themselves. William Huber, Conor Tomak, Mark Ruscitti, Ryan Gallagher, Benjamin Robertson, Nico Caria, Devin Wise, Nicholas White and Patrick Ashbrook—all members of Heather Wise's den—got together to talk news and reporting in the Information Age. "I learned about how to go to the news online, and how news reporters do their jobs," Devin Wise said. Geneva Patch Editor Rick Nagel, self-…

Just wanted to wish a warm Geneva Patch welcome to a couple new bloggers! On Friday, we got a treat in the form of Shawn Touney's Kane County Cougars blog! This one was about how well some former Cougars did in the Major Leagues this year—the most notable being a little thing called a Golden Glove, won by a couple former Cougars, Boston first baseman Adrian Gonzalez and Los Angeles Dodgers right fielder Andre Ethier. On Sunday, we've got another great sports-related read coming from Dr. Pete Temple, former Geneva quarterback and member of the Geneva High School Sports Hall of Fame Committee. …

As I watched Thursday night's roundtable discussion at the Geneva History Center, I couldn't help thinking how cool it would be if they could take this show on the road. Inside Geneva schools. The topic was Geneva during the '30s and '40s, and the four panelists simply told what it was like to live here during the Depression and war years. About 35 people attended, so it was a good-sized and rapt audience, but it's not hard to imagine a similar presentation as a school assembly at Harrison or GMS South or the high school. The four panelists—Gene Jaeger, Caroline Simplson, Merritt King and …

This particular Flat-Bottom Odyssey began, for me, last April when I receive an e-mail from Bob Wilson. "Does Patch.com ever run book reviews?" he asked. "Almost a year ago, Gene Jaeger, a long-time Genevan with roots on both sides of the mighty Fox, published a WWII memoir of his time as exec officer of an LST through D-Day, as well as during the Italian and Sicilian campaigns. "His manuscript was accepted by a publisher (Kent State University Press), but they couldn't promise publication before 2012. So instead of waiting for Kent State, he created the Prairie Ocean Press, out of Henry, IL…

Editor's note: Patch has a new "contributions" article template, which makes it easier for you to add photos to this article.  We often celebrate the most intricate and interesting Christmas decorations but rarely does Halloween get its due. So, we're asking: Who has the best Halloween decorations in Geneva? Take a photo of the home you like best and attach it to this article. I'll update the story if and when photos come in. For caption information, just enter the street name and hundred-block number by the address. (For example, 730 Downing Place would be the 700 block of Downing Place.) To…

For the record, I just love Sports Illustrated's "Faces in the Crowd" feature. I've been reading it since I was a wee lad growing up in Geneva, when my best friend Ken Rivera pointed it out to me. (It was always Ken's Sports Illustrated I was reading.) Anyway, we have a reason to love it even more here in Geneva. Geneva's very own Lauren Wicinski is in the Oct. 24 issue of Sports Illustrated's "Faces in the Crowd." It's on newsstands now, and here's a link. Lauren is of course the daughter of Geneva football coach Rob Wicinski and is competing in her sophomore year on the Northern Illinois …

I never got to have Mr. Johnson as a teacher. And it's still one of the big (but very few) disappointments of my grade-school days at Harrison Street School in Geneva. I read in the Kane County Chronicle that Bill Johnson died at the age of 87. (Really nice story by Ashley Rhodebeck, datelined St. Charles.) God bless him and his family, because Mr. Johnson was one of those people who build a life around helping kids learn, grow and develop into better people and adults. There's no better calling or achievement in life, when you stop to think about it. Everyone at Harrison Street School looked…

Geneva will be on TV again, this time on WTTW Channel 11. I got an e-mail from a WTTW intern a few weeks back asking about the cottages because of some previous stories we've published on Geneva Patch. I put her in contact with some good folks from Good Templar Park and the Geneva History Center. Apparently, one kindness earns another because I received this e-mail from Christen: Hi Rick!I wanted to inform you that the question relating to the Good Templar Park’s cottages is scheduled for Oct 20, 2011. I have to warn you that sometimes they do run out of time and can’t get to every question …

Just for fun, I checked out what Geneva Patch posted for last year's Homecoming parade was not terribly surprised to find I wrote something schmaltzy about how the kids from the Class of 2010 who participated in the parade will never forget it, yadda yadda, bla bla bla. Guess what? It's still saccharin sentimentality, but it's also sweetly true. I talked with people last year who were celebrating their 50th reunion—including my beautiful sister, Tinya (Hi, Sis!)—and they all still remember the parade as if it were yesterday. I also fondly recall some of the slides of my siblings' Homecoming …

Here are four words I never thought I'd string together: Powder. Puff. Flash. Mob. And yet, here it is. At Geneva's Homecoming Pep Rally, Oct. 6, 2011. Tonight's pep rally saw a reprise of the flash mob dance that tipped off last night's best Powder Puff football game ever. Which the seniors won. Let's go to the videotape ...