WEST PEORIA (25News Now) – Jimmy’s Bar on West Farmington Road hosted a Super Bowl party on Sunday where all proceeds went to a college scholarship honoring two people who died very young.
The $10,000 scholarship will go to a graduating senior from Peoria’s Notre Dame High School in memory of Mike McLaughlin and Kelly Needham.
McLaughlin was a football player at Northern Illinois University who worked at the bar. He was only 19 when he died from cancer in 1982.
Needham was a Notre Dame alum and a bartender who died in 2012. She was just 21.
Bar manager Grace Spears said many people knew both young men as kind, hard workers.
“You look around today and see everyone that’s impacted by both of those two guys,” said Spears. “You see the community here, and just the turnout alone, and it speaks volumes of both who they were as people.”
Several auctions were held to raise money. Workers also donated their tips to the scholarship fund.
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