As an aspiring candidate for mayor of this southern Illinois town, Joe A. Libbra has a few problems. Name recognition is not one of them.
“Mention his name anywhere in town and people will know who you are talking about,” said one resident, who did not wish to give her own name for reasons about to become obvious.
The problem with Libbra’s candidacy is that while most in Litchfield know his name, no one wants him to know theirs. Having Libbra latch onto your name is considered anathema in Litchfield because he is known for plastering unflattering comments about people on signs in his yard and all over town.
Libbra calls this “artwork.” Others call it character assassination.
“A lot of times the things he writes in his signs are not anywhere close to the truth and don’t even make sense, but people just driving through town don’t know that,” said the Litchfield resident.
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Libbra’s signs have accused public officials, neighbors and others of adultery, whore-mongering, drug dealing, sexual perversion and even cattle rustling, townspeople said.
“It’s not funny, not when he has hurt whole families,” said one Libbra target. “He has caused a lot of pain. And he lives for the notoriety.” Added another resident: “He’ll say anything to agitate people. Most of the time, he puts a question mark after his accusation so that nobody can come after him in court.”
But somebody did come after Libbra recently, and they got him, which explains why he probably won’t be on the ballot as a mayoral candidate when Election Day rolls around April 20.
Although name recognition is no obstacle, Libbra, 44, does have a fairly significant problem with the issue of eligibility for elective office, according to the local electoral board.
That board ruled a few weeks ago that Libbra could not run for mayor because he has been convicted of an “infamous crime.” Last October, he was convicted of intimidation, a Class 3 felony that state law defines as an “infamous crime,” which makes him ineligible for public office.
A self-described house-husband with three children, Libbra was convicted of taking a photograph of a tombstone at a local cemetery and, on the back of it, writing the phone number of a local woman. The photograph was sent to a business managed by the woman’s son last January.
In addition to criminal charges, which Libbra is appealing, that bit of work brought a $2 million civil suit filed against Libbra by the son and his wife, both of whom have also been Libbra targets.
Their lawsuit alleges that Libbra has waged a relentless campaign against them. In painted and printed material, Libbra has publicly accused the son’s wife of posing nude for a local photographer, and the son of being a fool, a coward, an adulterer and a sex pervert, the lawsuit charges.
Libbra said his assault-sign business began innocently enough a couple of years ago when he put a few wooden geese in the yard. “People stopped to look at them, so we started adding more geese,” he said. “Then somebody said we should put signs saying `Happy Anniversary’ or `Happy Birthday,’ and then the gulf war started, so I put up signs about that and eventually that led to signs that attack people.
“I call it my `Mike Royko-type thing.’ “
Libbra plans a court challenge to the ban on his mayoral campaign, but he won’t be posting any signs to tell his side. He was sentenced to 30 months’ probation on the intimidation conviction and was ordered to do 480 hours of community service-not to include sign painting.
“They got me on a trumped-up charge, and as part of my probation they’ve got me where I can’t put up signs,” he said. “It’s a conspiracy to silence me.
“The locals have tried to paint the picture that I’m crazy. I consider myself the Robin Hood of Montgomery County,” he said. “I tell the truth.”
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A Quincy woman who married a suspected “Love Bandit” bigamist has been making the rounds of national TV talk shows describing her woes. But in an interview with the Quincy Herald-Whig, she suggested that perhaps it was the Bandit who got buffaloed.
Belinda Osborne, 29, said she met the man now identified as Steven Gloger, 45, after he responded to a magazine ad her mother had placed to find Osborne a husband. Osborne told the newspaper that Gloger claimed to be a wealthy New York dentist before moving to Quincy to marry her in 1989. The two were married just six months when Gloger was arrested and charged with writing bad checks. It was then discovered that he was married to several other women around the U.S.
Osborne told the newspaper that, though Gloger lied to her, she was not an innocent victim. “I didn’t love him, actually love him,” she is quoted as saying. “It was more like an infatuation.”
She said that in truth, she married him “for greed.”
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Speaking of dallying for dollars:
“Derek’s passionate kisses left me limp. I felt as if I would suffocate in his arms. Surely he really DID care about me! . . . My friends had scolded me often, warning me that Derek was an insensitive cad. I didn’t care! Defiantly, I reached into the pocket of my Dockers and pulled out the exquisite cuff links, handcrafted at Carson Jewelers for Derek’s birthday. . . .”
That passage isn’t from some heaving-bosom romance novel. It’s from the heaving-bosom news pages of the Decatur Herald & Review newspaper. As a promotion, the 45,000-circulation paper owned by Lee Enterprises is running a serialized soap opera titled “Love on the Run.”
Boxed off from news stories and marked as a product of the advertising department, the romantic saga chronicles the tormented love life of Danielle, a fictional Decatur bank teller. It is set in Decatur’s shopping malls, night spots and other local environs.
“Love on the Run” has had a “tremendous impact,” according to its creator and author, Carol Alexander, the newspaper’s director of special ad projects.
Alexander launched the promotion last summer in a free advertising sheet distributed by the newspaper. The steamy soap goosed the ad sheet’s failing revenues by 20 percent and brought an invitation from the head of the paper’s circulation department for Danielle to appear in the daily paper’s pages during slow advertising periods.
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“It ran every day in the month of July, and single-copy sales hit an all-time high,” Alexander said. “When it stopped, single-copy sales plummeted.”
“Love on the Run” is now running through February, and it may continue beyond, according to Alexander, who said several other papers in the Lee Enterprise chain plan to run their own versions of her column.
Businesses whose names or products appear in the column do not pay for mention, she said. “I don’t gear it to advertising, I just gear it to places around town and local hot spots-places that a single young woman like Danielle would go. It should not be construed as a commercial vehicle. It is fantasy. We do it for our readers and everybody looking for love.”
Her creation has already brought a measure of celebrity to Alexander, who clearly relishes it even though she gets no extra pay for writing it.
“It has been fabulous; the local bar where Danielle hangs out in the column is going to name a drink after her. And I’ve been invited to talk about Danielle at a Valentine’s dinner for the Shelbyville Lion’s Club.”
The only negative comments about the column have come from the Herald & Review’s own newsroom, Alexander said. “Publicly, the newsroom people all say they hate it, but they can recite every plot line and nuance.”
The newspaper’s editor, George Althoff, said that though he was skeptical at first, he has come to view Alexander’s soap opera column as a promotional feature that “gives our readers something they want.”
Other sources at the paper reported that a parody version of the column has been appearing daily in the newsroom computer under the title “Love With the Runs.”