It was an unlikely situation, this friendship between Dan Block and Dustin Diamond.
Block is a Rockford-area resident, a married father of four who owns a firm that specializes in low-cost automobile insurance.
Diamond was an actor of national note, mostly for his portrayal of Samuel Screech Powers in the 1980s-90s teen-geared television series Saved by the Bell.
More unlikely, perhaps, was that their friendship fortified in Peoria. Block and Diamond once shared a temporary residence while in town for work.
Peoria appeared to be a bit of a refuge for Diamond, whose past included a sex tape and a prison stint after he was accused of stabbing someone at a Wisconsin bar. His Saved by the Bell role brought him fame but also typecast him.
PEORIA It was an unlikely situation, this friendship between Dan Block and Dustin Diamond.
Block is a Rockford-area resident, a married father of four who owns a firm that specializes in low-cost automobile insurance.
Diamond was an actor of national note, mostly for his portrayal of Samuel Screech Powers in the 1980s-90s teen-geared television series Saved by the Bell.
More unlikely, perhaps, was that their friendship fortified in Peoria, where both men once shared a temporary residence while in town for work.
Peoria appeared to be a bit of a refuge for Diamond, whose past included a sex tape and a prison stint after he was accused of stabbing someone at a Wisconsin bar. His Saved by the Bell role brought him fame but also typecast him.
‘They deserve justice’: Families seek answers as Jefferson County ends 2020 with 74 unsolved murders
Updated Dec 31, 2020;
His mother, Nedra Smith, thinks about her first-born, just 15-years-old, every day and every night.
She thinks about how she was just beginning to know what it felt like to have a full-fledged teenager with his driver’s license just around the corner.
She thinks about him when his five younger siblings want to know why they can’t see him.
She thinks about how much help he was as the man of the family, and how that burden now rests on her 13-year-old.
“I don’t sleep because my mind is constantly racing, trying to put together the who and the why,’ Smith said. “I just don’t get what was so bad, so horrible for you to still have life and my child doesn’t. It’s like one of those movies where you are left hanging. I don’t have an ending.”