SUNRISE SERVICE SET NEAR BALD KNOB CROSS

ALTO PASS, Ill. -- When worshipers visit the Bald Knob Cross for Easter Sunrise service Sunday, it will mark the 59th annual sunrise service atop Bald Knob Mountain near Alto Pass, Ill.

The visitor's center at the site will be open tonight, and breakfast will be available Sunday, starting at 2 a.m.

Free coffee and donuts will be served in the welcome center following the services, which will be conducted from 6:30 to 7:30.

The Rev. Steve Lirely, of Waukesha, Wis., will deliver the Sunday sermon.

It was more 59 years ago that about 250 people gathered for the first Bald Knob Easter sunrise service.

A cross, assembled from railroad ties by a Civilian Conservation Corps, greeting the worshipers to the then obscure mountain. Later, three wooden crosses, built by a Sunday school class, were placed on the mountain.

A towering, 111-foot cross, which can been seen over an area of more than 7,000 square miles, was completed in 1962. It was funded by contributions from people in Southern Illinois and across the nation.

Today, maintenance of the cross is still accomplished through contributions from visitors and by the volunteer work of local residents.

One of the heartwarming stories that emerged from building the cross was that of a Cobden widow, her pigs and a mongrel dog.

Early on in the fund-raising campaign, Myra Clutts pledged $100 to help purchase the land for the cross. She didn't have the money, but was confident she would somehow get it.

Soon, one of her sows, "Old Betsy," farrowed 21 pigs. The mother was unable to care for all the pigs, so Clutts' mongrel dog, which had lost her newborn puppies, nursed five of the pigs and stayed with them until the pigs were sent to market.

The rest is history.

A postman in the area, the late Waymen Presley, took the females of the litter, built a hog barn on the widow's hillside farm, and started raising pigs, with the proceeds designated for the cross.

Presley soon had 100 brood sows, which produced 1,500 pigs. Presley distributed these to other farmers in Southern Illinois, who raised them and sent the proceeds to the cross fund as the pigs were marketed.

In three years, sales of the pigs brought more than $30,000 for the cross.

Presley later appeared on the "This is Your Life" television program, and viewers were asked to contribute to the cross. About $100,000 was raised from the television program to help speed completion of the cross.