By allowing ads to appear on this site, you support the local businesses who, in turn, support great journalism.
Kilby patrol
new slt kilby-thacker
Billy Widiger from Marks Custom Signs installs additional pieces to complete the donor listings of those who helped pay for the Jack Kilby Monument, which was set in place two years earlier and commemorated with Jack Kilby Day on April 28, 2012. - photo by Susan Thacker/Great Bend Tribune

Editor's note: These photos update the following story, which was originally posted on April 17.

Members of the Jack Kilby Committee brought signage for the project up to date last Friday when they added another bronze plaque recognizing donors to the Kilby Plaza, located on the west side of the Barton County Courthouse Square.
The plaque features the names of donors who originally planned to purchase memorial bricks in the plaza. The committee and an installer from Mark's Custom Signs also be added some bronze donor name strips for existing plaques.
“This will complete the plaza,” committee member Don Halbower said.
Jack Kilby (1923 - 2005), the inventor of the integrated circuit, grew up in Great Bend. In 2000 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics. The integrated circuit that Kilby designed shortly after arriving at Texas Instruments in 1958 served as the basis for modern micro-electronics.
Local artist Chet Cale created “The Gift,” a bronze sculpture of Kilby and two other figures, as the inventor is shown handing his gift of knowledge to future generations. It is the centerpiece of the plaza, which was unveiled in 2012.
No tax dollars have been used to pay for construction or maintenance of this community project.