I’m just going to say it: One of the first things anyone would notice about Bob Prichard had to be his hand. It was brutally mangled – some fingers missing, the rest unartfully rearranged. Honestly, I couldn’t bring myself to ask what had happened to him, and when Bob voluntarily told me, some years into […]
Dusty Rhodes
Posted inOpinion
Election integrity up close
I’ve always considered voting to be a process somewhat like an oil change – an occasional and mildly inconvenient task necessary to keep the engine of democracy humming. I’d never thought twice about the mechanics involved until a couple of years ago, when people stormed our nation’s Capitol screaming bloody murder about it. That horrific […]
Posted inOpinion
Hit and run
For April Poole and Paula Harris, Aug. 13 felt like any other Friday night. They attended Brothers & Sisters, a group of friends who gather for dinner each week at a different restaurant, and on this particular Friday, they dined somewhere on the west side. It was close to 9 when they headed home. As […]
Posted inOpinion
Far from home
Ted likes to say he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was 17, doing well at a college prep boarding school in Indiana, when a classmate went on a violent rampage while high on a combination of potent drugs. When cops searched that classmate’s phone, they found that Ted had fulfilled […]
Posted inOpinion
The Love U Give
Early this month, a Springfield teacher took a group of students to a movie theater to view a popular new teen drama based on a bestselling novel. It was a special screening just for students who had earned the right to be there by reading the book and writing a paper about it. Of course, […]
Posted inOpinion
One answer to the teacher shortage
Like most states, Illinois is struggling with a severe teacher shortage. And, also like most states, that shortage is felt most profoundly in the area of special education. There is, however, an army of teacher assistants already on the job. Could they help relieve this shortage? Decades ago, when these assistants were known as teachers’ […]
Posted inOpinion
When I lost my dog
There’s never a good time to lose your dog, but my dog chose the 11th hour of a 16-hour workday during the hellish heat wave that hit near the climax of the state budget impasse. I was at a committee hearing for a bill I’d been watching for more than two years when my son […]
Posted inArts & Culture
A force of nature
I got invited over for a cookout. We’re going to roast hot dogs over a bonfire, she said. Nothing fancy. Bring the kids. I’m not sure exactly what I expected; I just couldn’t imagine Julianne Glatz unzipping a plastic pouch of Oscar Meyer weiners and handing me a stretched out wire coat hanger to dangle […]
Posted inOpinion
Speaking out of school
Kelly Wickham Hurst spent about 20 years with Springfield School District 186. As guidance dean, she frequently took to her blog and social media to share stories of black students being treated unfairly, and her efforts to advocate on their behalf. Under her social media handle – MochaMomma (an homage to both her love of […]
Posted inOpinion
Home-grown virtuoso
T here must have been scores of kids who, like Clayton Penrose-Whitmore, found themselves enjoying a snack in the Ethnic Village at the Illinois State Fair, just as a group of Suzuki violin students took the stage. And there must have been several whose parents, like Clayton’s, figured, “Hey, my kid could do that,” and […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Inquiring mind wants to go
Just about seven years ago, I moved here from Texas to find out whether I could still do journalism. I had worked for major mainstream newspapers in Dallas and in Anchorage (yes, Alaska), but I had been out of the business for nearly a decade, working as an investigator for a civil rights attorney, when […]
Posted inArts & Culture
The plot sickens
The first time Renatta Frazier heard about massive grave robbing at an Alsip cemetery, she didn’t give it a second thought. A tiny village on the southwestern tip of Chicagoland, Alsip held no special meaning. It wasn’t until a childhood friend mentioned Burr Oak Cemetery that Frazier snapped. Burr Oak is one of a dozen […]
