Georgia Rae
This young woman, who won seven state fiddle championship titles (Wisconsin, Illinois and Minnesota), five state twin fiddle champion titles (Minnesota and Colorado) and is the 2016 National Twin Fiddle Champion, now comes to play for you. Georgia Rae often performs in the “family band” with her sister and others, but this performance showcases her…
The Mother Road is a mother
It is, at once, the world’s most famous road and our most mysterious. Lesser thoroughfares such as Bourbon Street or the Champs Elysees are easy to find. But Route 66 is more like the Silk Road, an ancient path that hasn’t existed, at least officially in Illinois, since 1977, the year that Elvis died and…
Bad timing for Pritzker
There’s probably never a good time for a news story about how a source claims you, your wife and your brother-in-law are under federal investigation. But when that report is aired just days before what is likely the most consequential five weeks of your entire governorship, that’s definitely not an opportune moment. Chicago’s public radio…
Letters to the Editor
COLLEGE ATHLETES NOT ENTITLED TO PLAYAs one of Brian Holzgrafe’s former players, who is now an NCAA D-I coach, I can see where Mr. Lozier could have it out for Coach Holzgrafe (“Tennis, anyone?,” April 25). The atmosphere in college athletics and vibe is now that anyone and everyone is entitled to four years of…
Editor’s Note
One of the benefits of being a small-town newspaper editor is you get to know important people. I was pleased to get a letter last week from U. S. Sen. Richard Durbin, wishing me a happy birthday. “Dear Bud,” it read. (He calls me Bud. I call him Dick.) “It is a pleasure to wish…
Too many people in prison
Four decades ago, we began to create a new problem: mass incarceration. In 1974, Illinois had 6,000 people in prison. Now, Illinois has more than 40,000 people in prison. In the same period, other states and the federal government also grew their prisons at similar rates, so that our country now has more people imprisoned,…
Standing on Her Shoulders
In 1919, Congress passed the 19th amendment which forbade states to deny the right to vote on the basis of sex and sent it to the states for ratification. Illinois was one of the first three states, along with Michigan and Wisconsin, to ratify the amendment just six days after it was passed. The Lincoln Land Community…
Autism Support of Central Illinois
Part of the mission of Autism Support of Central Illinois (ASCI) is to provide sensory-friendly events, grants, access to resources, support and educational programming for children with autism and their families. The services provided by ASCI are made possible by fundraising efforts and through donations. The hallmark of their educational programming is Camp ASPIRE, a…
Deadly encounters
In Sangamon County, just three people have been charged with drug-induced homicide since Illinois passed a law in 1988 allowing criminal charges for distributing a substance that proves fatal to the person receiving it. However, the law makes no distinction between someone who is selling narcotics or provides a fellow user with what proves to…
Five presidents and a funeral
“If you want this job, there’s something deeply wrong with you.” – Ronald Reagan in Five Presidents When former president Richard M. Nixon died in 1994, his funeral brought together the four living ex-presidents, along with current commander-in-chief Bill Clinton to attend the funeral. When writer Rick Cleveland, who has contributed scripts to politically themed…
Illinois is ‘one big pothole’
A high-profile Republican gave his support to an increase to the state’s gas tax April 29 during a meeting of a special Senate capital committee. Ray LaHood, a Peoria Republican who served from 1995 to 2009 in Illinois’ 18th congressional district before serving as secretary of transportation under President Barack Obama, said an infrastructure bill…
State grants to park districts turned back on
Residents of the northern part of Hoffman Estates, a Cook County suburb northwest of Chicago, were thrilled when they heard a local park would be renovated. It had been 20 years since a playground, a few sports fields and a small parking lot were added to the acres surrounding South Ridge Park. Meanwhile, parks in…
THROWING GOOD SHADE
When Phil and Imogene Rebbe opened Rebbe’s Restaurant and Tavern in Petersburg in 1975, they didn’t know their first fundraising benefit for Brother James Court, a housing facility in Springfield for developmentally disabled men, would turn into an annual event. Janet Connor, one of the Rebbes’ nine children, estimates the family has raised more than…
Unlikely duo Theron and Rogen score in Long Shot
I have a feeling that Charlize Theron and Seth Rogen will not go down in cinematic history as this generation’s Hepburn and Tracy. Yet based on their recent collaboration, Long Shot, I’d be willing to watch another film or two with them. These seeming opposites have a genuine chemistry between them that makes you believe…
Maybe fun in May
Here we go heading into the merry month of May, busting headlong into music adventures at every turn. First, let’s give shout outs to two guys in the local music scene making a splash in the well-received Blood Brothers musical that debuted last weekend at the Hoogland. Casey Cantrall, songwriter, guitarist and consistent performer around…
Green garlic
Before garlic matures into the pungent dried bulb we buy at the grocery store, it spends its childhood as a delicate, lightly perfumed stalk known as green garlic or spring garlic. Garlic cloves are planted in the fall, hibernate over the winter, and emerge in the spring. Early in its life, garlic is mostly green…
archival find #16
My mother wrote this poem to my fatherI think in their courting days. It seems suitable for our spring now springing. Inevitable A stream is singing lullabyes, Its song has reached my ear; And though I’m far and far away How can I but hear? Violets are blossoming, Their hue has come to…
