Generations return to Kewanee for Model T & Model A Rally

By Dave Clarke September 4, 2023

Three generations of the descendants of the late Howard O’Neill gather around two of his three cars family members entered in the Ray Behnke Memorial Model T and Model A Rally Sunday. [Photo by Dave Clarke]

The Kewanee Hog Festival’s Model T & Model A Rally has always been a family affair with names like Cernovich, Tomsic, O’Neill, and, of course, Behnke and Scott, taking part over the years, all inspired by the late Ray Behnke. Behnke, a Kewanee mailman, fell in love with Henry Ford’s “everyman’s car,” the Model T, and organized the first gathering of Model T owners for a race in 1968. Now a rally, the event has been a staple of the Hog Festival ever since.

Behnke got many local car buffs “hooked” on Henry Ford’s basic automotive invention and they became lifelong Model T enthusiasts and restorationists themselves, and annual participants in the Hog Days event. It’s a tradition many of their children and grandchildren continue today.

This photo of the late Howard O’Neill was printed on the backs of t-shirts worn by more than 30 of his descendants who entered three cars he once owned in the Model T & A Rally Sunday. [Photo by Dave Clarke]

One of those early men was Howard O’Neill, who died in 2017 at 81, but his memory has been preserved by his descendants who gather every Hog Days to drive his cars in the rally. This year saw the largest family turnout, 34 members — from Portland, Ore., to Richmond, Va., and Denver, Colo. to Dunlap, Ill. They included the three adult children of Howard and his wife, Kay, now a resident of Hillcrest Nursing Home — Mike O’Neill and Carrie Wakefield, both of Kewanee, and Liz DeSmit, of Richmond, Va., along with their children and grandchildren all wearing, for the first time, specially-made ”Team Howard” t-shirts with a photo of O’Neill seated behind the wheel of one of his cars on the back.

Helen (Behnke) Scott and Dave Bystry, right, hold back traffic and direct a Model T driven by Coast Guard Officer Adam Cernovich, of St. Louis, Mo., and family members, from the Illinois Department of Public Health parking lot onto West South Street to begin their first lap of the rally. [Photo by Dave Clarke]

When O’Neill died he left his three cars — two Model T’s and one Model A — to each of his children hoping they would carry on the interest in the vintage cars he inherited from his father, Clem O’Neill. Families of descendants represented Sunday, in addition to the O’Neill’s, Wakefields and DeSmits, were the Slovers, Fuestes’ and Pervas. All three cars were entered in the rally with family members driving and riding along in each.

Like a scene from days gone by, four of the nearly 20 vintage Fords from the 1920s and 30s chug west on West South Street headed for Galva, Bishop Hill and a return to Kewanee in the two-lap, 80 mile, poker-run-style rally. [Photo by Dave Clarke]

The family has another connection to Hog Days. Kay (Johnson) O’Neill was one of four princesses selected to reign with the queen of Kewanee’s Centennial in July of 1954. The celebration included what was billed as the “world’s largest outdoor pork barbecue” after Henry County had been declared “Hog Capital of the World” by the Illinois General Assembly in 1949. The pork promotion went over so well, organizers decided to create a Hog Capital of the World Festival which was held for the first time the following year and was the official beginning of today’s celebration.