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New Stamp Uses Photo by Rock Island Man

photo of the American Queen docked in Bettendorf in 2015, by David Sebben
David Sebben and the US Postal Service
photo of the American Queen docked in Bettendorf in 2015, by David Sebben

David Sebben, from Rock Island, says he took his picture of the American Queen in 2015, and posted it on the photo sharing website Flickr.

"It was a photo of the American Queen when it was docked at the Isle of Capri Casino in Bettendorf. It was early morning, the sun was just barely up, and there was a beautiful reflection in the river of the boat."

But it wasn't until 2020 that an agency working for the Postal Service contacted him about using the photo.

The Mississippi River stamp series was formally introduced Monday (5/23) at a ceremony in Memphis, alongside the American Queen riverboat.

Sebben says photography is just a hobby, and he took this picture on the way to work one morning, but he does have a phone app that alerts him when riverboats travel through the Quad Cities.

The Illinois stamp, by Walter Blackledge, shows a sailboat passing limestone bluffs adorned with fall foliage - the location is not specified.

A native of Detroit, Herb Trix began his radio career as a country-western disc jockey in Roswell, New Mexico (“KRSY, your superkicker in the Pecos Valley”), in 1978. After a stint at an oldies station in Topeka, Kansas (imagine getting paid to play “Louie Louie” and “Great Balls of Fire”), he wormed his way into news, first in Topeka, and then in Freeport Illinois. While a graduate student in the Public Affairs Reporting Program at the University of Illinois at Springfield (then known as Sangamon State University), he got his first taste of public radio, covering Illinois state government for WUIS. Here in the Quad Cities, Herb worked for WHBF Radio before coming to WVIK in 1987. Herb also produces the weekly public affairs feature Midwest Week – covering the news behind the news by interviewing reporters about the stories they cover.