Du Quoin City Council will seat newly-appointed Commissioner Kunkel Monday

The face of the Du Quoin City Council changes for the second time in four weeks Monday when Mayor Rex Duncan, with the advice and consent of commissioners, appoints Don Kunkel, 67, as the new street commissioner.

Councilwoman Kathy West moves from street commissioner to finance commissioner, shouldering Duncan's former role.

Kunkel's appointment is down-to-earth. The son of Godfrey and the late Mildred Kunkel--raised in Old Du Quoin--brings the experience of 33 years of coal mining, 10 years as an electrician at SIU and six years as a partner in a once-thriving K & H Automotive to the council table.

In retirement he works alongside his brother for Kunkel Farms, stewards of acreage in the vicinity of Rts. 154 and Rt. 51 north of Du Quoin.

K & H Automotive is referred to as "once-thriving" only because the partnership ended with the death of the late and beloved Butch House of Du Quoin, whose recurrent cancer took his life Labor Day weekend in 1998.

Kunkel and House (K & H) operated the shop from 1982 to 1988. The shop not only set the standard for automotive repair in the city, but offered cooperative help to Du Quoin High School students in welding and building trades. It provided high quality welding to homeowners as well as mining companies and everyone in between.

"We were like brothers--closer than brothers," he said during an interview on Tuesday morning.

Kunkel didn't want to continue without Butch House and the shop closed. It now houses Burke Manufacturing on East Olive Street.

"I retired from SIU in 2011 after 10 years down there," he said. "It was time to let someone younger have the job."

Kunkel is a member of the Sacred Hearth Catholic Church in Du Quoin and is a member of the Du Quoin Elks. He has served as past exalted ruler. "I have done a lot of work for Sacred Heart," he says and "catches up" from not being a veteran by helping the Sons of the American Legion when he can.

Kunkel has been approached for the past "two or three years" about serving on the council. The timing is right and Kunkel would not face re-election for two more years.

Kunkel is very soft-spoken with a simplistic approach to how things should be done and he believes they should be done well.

His careers bear that out.

The City of Du Quoin pays its mayor a stipend of $6,000 and commissioners $4,500 annually. The salaries are broken down into weekly stipends and meeting attendance.

Mayor Duncan asked at the last council meeting that all mayoral appointees under the previous Rednour administration remain in city service.