David Blanchette

You need to be really good at what you do. You’ve got to be an innovator while respecting tradition. An inspirational leader and a public servant. A mechanic, conservationist, lobbyist, financial planner, gambler, philanthropist and working-class hero. Four people have what it takes this year to be selected as Master Farmers by Prairie Farmer magazine: […]

He’s been doing Lincoln almost as long as Lincoln did Lincoln. “Lincoln died at 56, and how long has it been since I’ve been 56?” asked 69-year-old Fritz Klein of Jerome, one of the nation’s premier Abraham Lincoln interpreters, who’s been portraying the 16th president for nearly 42 years. It’s no surprise that Klein’s full-time […]

  I first met Pat Quinn when I was a radio news reporter nearly 38 years ago, and interviewed him in person regarding his drive to reduce the size of the Illinois House of Representatives by one-third. At that time I thought the intense, 30-something Quinn was well-informed but a bit crazy. I never had […]

Everything old is new again in Jacksonville, even the annual New Year’s Day celebration in the west central Illinois city of nearly 19,000. “I would say it started in the 1970s. It was in the early 1980s when I started doing it, then it slowly progressed, and all of a sudden the other bars recognized […]

Is there a doctor in the house? Not as many in the Springfield area, thanks to the state of Illinois’ budget woes. Uncertainty over the state’s fiscal situation, fueled by Illinois’ record-setting budget battle and huge backlog of unpaid bills, is having a noticeable impact on the sale of high-end homes in the area. These […]

Bram Stoker would have liked this school. “Just drive by at night,” said Benedictine University Springfield Campus Director Janet Kirby. “It has taken time for the community to understand that we are still here, we are teaching students, we are alive and creating great stories.” Kirby was among the 25 of Benedictine’s 100 employees who […]

The fountain is gone. You can tell because a wide treeless dirt path, accented by a large mound of gravel, offers an unimpeded view of the empty space where it once stood. The north entrance is a stark vision of exposed steel beams, plywood construction doors, broken concrete and huge recycling bins brimming with discarded […]

The Annual Illinois Performance Tested Bull Sale on Feb. 23 during the 29th Illinois Beef Expo was pretty predictable. And the genetic testing that made that predictability possible was good news for those buying or selling animals during the event. The Illinois Beef Expo took place Feb. 24-28 at the Illinois State Fairgrounds. “This absolutely […]