Happy Hog Days To All. And To All...GOOD NIGHT!!

A well-intended plan that put a life-sized plastic pig on top of a 40-foot Christmas tree in the heart of downtown Kewanee to brighten the spirits of holiday shoppers, went horribly wrong in November of 2000. 

Then Civil Defense Director Pete Cali and Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Mark Mikenas had been searching for two years for something different to spruce up the annual holiday tree attraction in the middle of Second and Tremont Streets when they finally found a place that could make a three-by-four-and-a-half-foot, hollow hog which made sense (to them) because Kewanee has long been known as the "Hog Capital of the World." 

As crews from Ratliff Bros. and Illinois Power gathered at the intersection of Second and Tremont streets to raise the tall fir on Tuesday, Nov. 21, 2000 onlookers were told there would be a "big surprise." One of the workers even commented, "This'll make the Associated Press!" He had no idea how prophetic his words actually were. 

Once the tree was in place and firmly anchored, the crane began to lift a large, pink pig. Up and up it went, all the way to the top of the tree then lowered onto the point which was inserted into a hole cut into the belly of the barrow. A light had been placed inside as an added holiday touch.

The reaction was so swift to the "Swine on a pine" that it could make a pig spin! Before a story by the Star Courier's Susan DeVilder with the headline "Happy Hogidays" and a photo of the pig perched atop the Christmas tree even appeared the next afternoon, the day before Thanksgiving, calls had been received by the Chamber, radio station and newspaper which also received several letters to the editor all expressing outrage at the sacrilege of placing anything atop a Christmas tree other than an angel, star or other symbol of Christ's birth. Quad City TV stations had heard of the "pig in the east" and "followed it" to Kewanee, which some thought gave the city negative publicity. 

Caught completely off guard, the Chamber promptly removed the pig less than 24 hours after it was put up, being lighted and in place for only one night.

That Saturday, November 25, 2000, Star Courier columnist Dave Clarke, under the headline "One Pig Over the Line," said "I can't recall EVER seeing people in Kewanee react so fast in such a negative way to ANYTHING. It usually takes a couple of days for us, as a community, to see something new, kick it around a while, then either accept it, tolerate it, or do away with it." Not this time! Calls and letters made the point that in a season that gets more and more commercialized every year, it was totally inappropriate to place a pig even one that is a symbol of the community on top of a Christmas tree, replacing the "Heavenly King" with King Hog. Those who had worked long and paid money to get the pig were absolutely stunned. What they intended to be a holiday surprise for the community, in the end, turned out to be a complete surprise for them.

Two weeks later, Clarke wrote a second column on how far news of the Christmas pig's brief reign had spread. The story did, after all, put Kewanee on the national map for a few news cycles. Local residents received word from friends and relatives as far away as Germany and the Cayman Islands and points around the U.S. including Arizona and Florida about Kewanee's quickly scuttled pine swine. It had even grabbed the headlines, briefly, away from the Bush vs. Gore presidential election recount still going on at the time.

Clarke's closing observation was that "The Christmas tree pig topper made many stop and think about what Christmas really means to us and that some things we often take for granted like the star of Bethlehem or an angel shining from the top of a Christmas tree are a bigger part of the season than we may have thought."

The next summer, as legend has it, hogidays pig, with knapsack in hoof, tried to leave town over hog days weekend on one of BNSF s passing trains. It was not only unsuccessful but nearly came to a bad end as the air currents generated by the fast moving train blew the plastic oinker snout over hooves down the tracks. Recovered from an almost bad end, it went into storage. 

We checked and learned that 2000's pink plastic Christmas pig is still in Kewanee. It remains the property of the Kewanee Chamber of Commerce and, as of this writing (2019), was last seen at Cookie's Gaming Parlor & Bar on North Burr Boulevard going from the peak of a pine to a seat at the slots.