Amanda Robert

For victims of sexual assault, the pain and invasion of privacy doesn’t end with their attack. If victims seek help from an Illinois hospital, they’re subjected to four-to-six-hours of evidence collection. Trained staff swab vaginal and anal orifices, comb for loose hairs and scrape under fingernails. They draw blood, check for bite marks and collect […]

Celeste Tanner, a 30-year-old nurse, had never known anyone who had a baby in a hospital – or anyone who used drugs to dull the pain – until a month ago. The third child and first daughter of a midwife, Tanner grew up around women who had their babies at home. She was taught that […]

Maureen Maple speaks from experience when she speaks about the benefits that exercise brings to breast cancer survivors. She’s faced breast cancer both personally and professionally, as a 14-year survivor of the disease and as a research nurse for breast and ovarian cancer. Soon after moving to Springfield with her husband four years ago, Maple […]

This weekend, as Jim Naumovich returns to his hometown, he’ll bring the Great Lakes Valley Conference men’s and women’s basketball tournaments along with him. Springfield native Naumovich is the commissioner of the GLVC, one of the country’s largest National Collegiate Athletic Association Division II conferences with 16 members in five Midwest states. The University of […]

Instead of becoming a college student, Fallon Rowl became a single mom. She got pregnant right after she graduated from Southeast High School, and for the next three years worked several office jobs to support her daughter. In October 2005, she was hired as a special education attendant at Grant Middle School. That’s when everything […]