Happy birthday, Ronald Reagan Trail

Illinois' Ronald Reagan Trail was dedicated 11 years ago today in Dutch's boyhood home of Dixon. C-SPAN was there to record the proceedings. Maureen Reagan, who would die of cancer the following year, was the featured speaker. "[I]t all started in Illinois for Ronald Reagan and his life," Maureen said. "It all started in Illinois for what we were able to achieve in world peace."

The 40th president's daughter explained how that came to be in her speech.

The 1987 nuclear arms reduction agreement between the United States and the Soviet Union known as START had its beginning five years earlier when Ronald Reagan gave the commencement address at his alma mater, Eureka College. Several locations were proposed by aides--Maureen recalled that her father, in a typical Reaganesque way, declared, "And I'm going to speak at Eureka."

Also speaking at the ceremony was Jim Burke, Dixon's mayor, and Michael Oecknigk, the burgermeister of Herzberg. The eastern Germany town is one of Dixon's sister cities. Oecknigk grew up behind the Iron Curtain and he discussed his struggles against Communism in German and English.

A big hat tip to my friend Curt Mercadante for finding the C-SPAN video. At the end of the segment, the Lee County courthouse square can be seen in the background. Abraham Lincoln spoke there in 1856.

Related posts:

• Marathon Pundit's Ronald Reagan Trail
• Report from Tampico, Illinois on Reagan's 100th birthday
• Midwestern Presidential Pathway: Dixon, a shining city upon a hill
• Midwestern Presidential Pathway: Ronald Reagan's Dixon, Illinois
• Ike, the military truck convoy, the Lincoln Highway, and Dixon, Illinois
• The only statue of Lincoln in military dress is in Dixon, Illinois
• New Reagan statue in Dixon, Illinois
• On this day 155 years ago: Lincoln campaigns for Frémont in Dixon, IL