The city council meeting room at Pekin City Hall has a new $3,200 podium.
It's a gift from the family of the late Bill Jansen, who served as Pekin's city clerk from 1939 to 1979.
The walnut podium and a plaque attached to it were presented to the city recently by Jansen's 90-year-old son William Jansen, a Pekin native who now lives in Las Vegas.
"This will probably be my last trip back to Pekin, so I wanted to do something to honor my father," said William Jansen, who was joined by family members including his wife Nora and children Bill and Marilyn for a presentation ceremony.
Nora was the organist at the Congregational United Church of Christ in Pekin for many years. The Jansen family also had a gift for the church when they visited Pekin, paying for a renovation of the organ.
Pekin Mayor Mary Burress said William Jansen first contacted the city about a year ago to talk about he wanted to do for his father. The podium idea sprang from further discussions.
Paige Anderson, executive assistant to Pekin City Manager John Dossey, designed the Pekin logo that adorns the front of the new podium, which was built by Executive Wood Products of Sullivan, Mo.
The podium is used during public comment and for presentations during city council and other meetings.
William Jansen said his father was close friends with eventual U.S. Sen. Everett Dirksen while they attended Pekin Community High School.
His father took his job as city clerk very seriously, William Jansen said, rarely missing a council meeting.
He had an encyclopedic memory of the city, he said. City staff often went to him to get an answer to a question.
And he was transparent and honest, he said, one time immediately shipping back an innocuous gift that was sent to him.
William Jansen is still working. He's been a judge in Las Vegas for nearly 30 years after a 23-year career as an FBI special agent.
While with the FBI, he participated in the investigation into the brutal murders of Frances Murphy, 47, Mildred Lindquist, 50, and Lillian Oetting, 50, wives of prominent Chicago businessmen, in Starved Rock State Park in 1960.
The case made national news. Chester Weger, a dishwasher at the Starved Rock Lounge, was convicted of murder in 1961 and sentenced to life in prison. Weger, who maintained his innocence, was released on parole in 2020 and died in 2025 at age 86.
