John Edgar Hoover

Experiences shape Pekin woman's life

The ’70s might not have been the most memorable of decades, but they did help shape Kari McMullen’s life in ways that others couldn’t possibly.

Take, for instance, women’s lib, equal rights, civil rights, Watergate, Deep Throat and the Vietnam War. The latest fads of the era included everything from leisure suits, platform shoes and elephant bells to shag haircuts, Afros, pea coats and peasant tops.

Little People and Cabbage Patch Dolls, pet rocks, mood rings, and “cruising” were popular fads in the decade that also brought disco dancing to the forefront, along with heavy metal rockers like Led Zeppelin and David Bowie. Everywhere you turned, there were hit songs by the Bee Gees (“You Should Be Dancin‘”), Three Dog Night (“Joy to the World”), Queen (“We are the Champions”), John Lennon (“Imagine”), and the list goes on.

Newspapers were never at a loss for top stories in those days. Imagine some of the headlines: “Apollo XIII explosion,” “Elvis dies,” “Beatles break up,” “Mother Theresa wins Nobel Peace Prize,” “First test tube baby born in 1978,” “4 students in war protest killed by National Guard at Kent State University,” “Star Wars movie released,” “President Nixon is reelected,” “John Edgar Hoover dies,” “Sears Tower built,” “Supreme Court overturns abortion laws,” and lots more.

Indeed, the ’70s wasn’t exactly a culture shock like the ’60s, with its hippies demanding to “make love not war.” Nor was it world-shaping like the ’40s, which brought us to the end of World War II.

It was, as McMullen puts it, “a stressful decade.”

Born in 1977 in Pekin, McMullen attended Willow Grade School, Broadmoor Junior High School, Pekin Community High School (1995 graduate), University of Illinois (4 years), and presently is in Bradley University’s MBA program. A member of St. Joseph Catholic Church, she is married to Jonathan McMullen. They have two children, Annika, 12, and Emily, 5. Today, McMullen is a telecommunications specialist at Morton Buildings.

She vividly recalls growing up in the ’70s and ’80s, and the music and events that helped shape their daily lives.

“Back in the ’70s we had a few channels — 19, 25, 31 and maybe an educational channel where we watched shows like ‘Sesame Street’ and ‘Reading Rainbow.’ Later on, when I was in junior high, Fox was introduced and it opened up a whole new world. Shows got racier, but nothing like today. I remember watching ‘Captain Kangaroo’ on Saturday mornings and ‘PeeWee Herman’s Playhouse’ ... but Michael Jackson was really big in the ’70s and ’80s, so I grew up with that.

FBI J Edgar Hoover | Cave of Knowledge

May 10 1924In perhaps the single worst mistake in the history of crime fighting, Attorney General Harlan Fiske Stone selects J. Edgar Hoover to head the Bureau of Investigation, later known as the FBI. He will remain at the post until his death 48 years later.

John Edgar Hoover (January 1, 1895 – May 2, 1972) was the first Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) of the United States. Appointed director of the Bureau of Investigation—predecessor to the FBI—in 1924, he was instrumental in founding the FBI in 1935, where he remained director until his death in 1972. Hoover is credited with building the FBI into a large and efficient crime-fighting agency, and with instituting a number of modern innovations to police technology, such as a centralized fingerprint file and forensic laboratories.Late in life, and after his death, Hoover became an increasingly controversial figure. His critics have accused him of exceeding the jurisdiction of the FBI. He used the FBI to harass political dissenters and activists, to amass secret files on political leaders, and to collect evidence using illegal methods. It is because of Hoover’s long and controversial tenure that FBI directors are now limited to 10-year terms.

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