Monday, Sep. 28, 2009

Answer Man: Cardinal player, KSDK anchor not related

Q. I'm wondering: Is there a family connection between Troy Glaus of the St. Louis Cardinals and Heidi Glaus of KSDK-TV?

-- M. Going

A. "I wish!" Heidi Glaus laughed good-naturedly when she called me back last week, perhaps thinking of the millions her family will not be sharing.

"No, I am not," the local Emmy winner and Channel 5 morning star said. "But we do joke about it. Often when we're at a game, my father gets out his driver's license, and he'll kind of show it to people. But then he has to tell them that, no, there is no relation."

Perhaps it's their natural athletic looks that helps spark such a mistaken assumption. Troy Glaus, 33, who hails from Tarzana, Calif., has been a major leaguer for 12 years now, with a career .256 average and 304 home runs. Heidi, 35, of New Madrid, Mo., went to William Woods University in Fulton, Mo., on a basketball and softball scholarship.

In fact, she was aiming for a career as a sports journalist when she earned a KSDK internship in 1996.

"But about three days before I started, I began to panic," she said. "I personally think that a woman in sports should know about three to five times what the average guy does. But I was like, you know, I don't have Sports Illustrateds lying around. I don't have ESPN on constantly. I'm more of a people person."

Fortunately, she was coming in at the same time the station was getting its local weekday feature program "Show Me St. Louis" off the ground.

"So, I made that switch, and the rest has been history," she said. "It could not have happened any better, but I think God knows what he's doing."

She says she could have stayed with that show her entire career, but felt a need for growth, so she joined Art Holliday and Jennifer Blome on "Today in St. Louis."

"They've been like my TV parents since my internship," Glaus said. "They don't get any better. They're great."

So now Glaus rises and shines (more or less) at 3 a.m. to make the 3-minute trip to the station from her place in St. Louis' Lafayette Square neighborhood. The one benefit: Quitting time is 1 p.m., so she has lots of time to pursue her golf game now that she's given up basketball and slow-pitch softball.

"When you get to the point where all of a sudden you start turning your head because you're afraid you're going to knock out a tooth, I just thought I had to retire," said Glaus, who is becoming a familiar face around Clinton Hill Country Club and Stone Wolf on the East Side.

And while Troy Glaus could find himself anywhere after this season, you'll most likely see Heidi staying right here in St. Lou with her only real sibling, a sister who has a doctorate in psychology. Aunt Heidi has work to do.

"I hope so," she said. "You know with my sister having two children -- because I have no plans of having my own -- that has locked me in for a while. They're only 3 and 1, but we're already into soccer and the 3-year-old has his golf clubs, so I plan on being right there with them."

Q. While traveling through northern Illinois, I see many barns with what looks to be an outhouse on the roof midway between the ends. I am guessing that they could have a pulley in them for lifting hay, etc. Can you clear up this mystery?

-- James Ryan, of Belleville

A. Turns out you're a pretty good agricultural Sherlock. What you've been noticing are old-fashioned corn cribs and that "outhouse" contains part of the mechanism that enables farmers to move the corn up into the crib.

However, since I'm more like Oliver Wendell Douglas than John Deere when it comes to farming, I'll let Ryan Keltner, of Keltner Farms near Freeport, give you a better explanation:

"The thing on the top houses part of a bucket elevator," he told me. "There's a big, long chain that has buckets bolted to it. It goes from under the floor and then it goes up into that cupola-looking thing. That allows the buckets to tip over upside down and dump the corn out."

Then, the empty buckets descend through the building for a refill. Often, such elevators could be powered by tractors so that the crib could easily be filled from the top, according to www.butternutridgefarm.com, which has a good shot of one of its old cribs and elevators.

"Originally, the corn crib had wooden slat siding, which allowed air to circulate through and dry the corn," the site says.

These cribs, however, are rapidly disappearing because the slat siding also allows rain inside the building, thus rotting it.

"Modern farming practices have also made this type of corn storage building obsolete because modern combines shell each ear of corn as it is picked instead of leaving the whole ear of corn intact like the old-style pickers did."

Q. I found your name online while I was researching the Christopher Columbus half-dollar coin. What is its value? I have seen everything from $12 to $55.

-- J.Z.

A. Like stamps, comic books and so many other things, value depends on what shape that coin is in. Without knowing that, I, too, can only give you a range -- and a much wider one.

If it's in peak condition, an 1892 edition (950,000 were minted for the Columbian Exposition in Chicago) could fetch $710 while an 1893 coin might go for $850, according to the 2008 Red Book of coin valuations. On the other hand, such coins in rough shape could get you as little as $17 or less. (An Isabella quarter -- of which only 24,000 were minted -- ranges from $600 to $4,000.)

My only suggestion as usual: Show it to a number of reputable coin dealers and see if they come up with roughly the same estimate.

Send your questions to Roger Schlueter, Belleville News-Democrat, 120 S. Illinois St., P.O. Box 427, Belleville, IL 62222-0427 or rschlueter@bnd.com