Jan. 12--CHAMPAIGN -- Awful is the word for a year in which the average stock price dropped 30 to 40 percent.

And if the average stock was down that much in 2008, just imagine the plight of companies whose stock price dropped by 80, 90, even 97 percent.

You don't have to go far to find such companies. For example, take:

--General Growth Properties, owner of Champaign's Market Place Shopping Center, down 96.9 percent in 2008.

--Nexstar Broadcasting, owner of WCIA-TV in Champaign, down 94.4 percent.

--Bon-Ton Stores, owner of the Bergner's store in Champaign and the Elder-Beerman stores in Danville and Mattoon, down 89.1 percent.

--THQ, the parent company of Champaign-based video game developer Volition Inc., down 85.1 percent.

To be sure, there were other publicly traded companies with a local presence that got pummeled last year. Borders Group, which has a bookstore in Champaign, saw its stock price fall by 96.2 percent.

National City, the Cleveland-based bank that recently sold to PNC Financial Services Group, was down 89 percent. And Sprint Nextel dropped 86.1 percent for the year.

By comparison, major market indices were down by less than half that. The Dow Jones industrial average, for example, was down 33.8 percent and the Standard & Poor's 500 index was down 38.5 percent.

Here's a closer look at some of the publicly traded companies that were thrashed in the markets this year:

--Bon-Ton Stores

Bon-Ton Stores, based in York, Pa., has about 280 department stores, predominantly in the Northeast and Midwest. Its stores include Bergner's, Carson Pirie Scott, Elder-Beerman, Bon-Ton, Herbergers, Younkers, Boston Store and Parisian.

In December, the company reported a $14.3 million net loss for the quarter that ended Nov. 1, 2008, and a cumulative loss of $82.2 million for the first 39 weeks of its fiscal year.

That amounted to an 85-cent loss per share for the third quarter and a cumulative $4.90 loss per share for the first three quarters of the fiscal year.

At year's end, Bon-Ton's stock was trading for only $1.03 a share, down from $9.49 a year earlier. However, by the middle of last week, the stock had rebounded, trading in the $1.50 range.

In its quarterly report to shareholders issued Dec. 10, Bon-Ton said it expects the economic environment to remain "challenging" in the near term, with same-store sales declines of 6.5 percent to 7.5 percent projected for the fiscal year.

Furniture and certain types of women's clothing petites, better sportswear and misses performed worst, while coats and children's apparel sold best, the company said.

Bon-Ton made no mention of impending store closings, nor did it mention anything about consolidating its multitude of store names.