The Boeing B-17 was the world’s first long-range, strategic heavy bomber, deployed to England in 1942 to help retake western Europe from the German war machine that had invaded in 1940. Before the war a newspaper reporter, commenting about machine guns protruding from almost everywhere on an early version, described it as an impregnable “flying […]
Job Conger
Posted inNews
How Springfield ‘landed’ the National Museum of Surveying
The official grand opening of the National Museum of Surveying, 521 E. Washington, at 10 a.m., Saturday, March 19, marks the end of a birthing long in labor. Admission on the special day is free to all comers. Otherwise adult individuals pay $5 a person, families $10 and there are discounts for students, active duty […]
Posted inArts & Culture
A fictional wartime journey from Carbondale to Cambodia and back
The third book in Mike Shepherd’s historical fiction trilogy of Mick Scott’s adventures as a soldier and a spy has an Illinois flavor, like the others, though it ranges to distant Cambodia, Vietnam and even New York City. Who in Springfield, doesn’t have friends who attended Southern Illinois University, Carbondale? Shepherd, who today resides in […]
Posted inSpecial Issues
Fall classical fare
Classical music is reaping rewards for listeners and practitioners alike in the 21st century, thanks to ease of accessibility provided to concert planners and fans. Increasingly part of “classical” concerts are selections of “global music,” which merits listeners for its variety and diversity, compared with works composed in ancient days when Marie Antoinette still possessed […]
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Young swimmer makes big splash for Haitian orphans
Raegan Koebler, a soon-to-be fourth-grade student at Vachel Lindsay Elementary School, is one of 12 Illinois $1,000 Regional Scholarship winners in Kohl’s Department Stores’ 2010 Kids Who Care program. The award recognizes her 50-lap swim at Eisenhower Pool last January and efforts since which have raised about $70,000 for a Haitian orphanage, once home of […]
Posted inArts & Culture
History of Springfield’s signature building
There was a time in this town when Second Street was today’s Koke Mill Road, at the western edge of the city. Back then the Industrial Age, nurtured for decades on the east coast, was sweeping west like wildfire, riding steel rails and embracing Illinois’ new capital city, the third town to hold the honor. […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Springfield’s Music Man meets Our American Cousin
Mark E. Gifford is known throughout the Midwest as a keyboard virtuoso whose concerts at Springfield High School’s restored Orpheum Theater pipe organ are always well attended. But through Feb. 15, at Hoogland Center for the Arts, he plays a piano role as composer and musician in the Springfield Theatre Centre production of Our American […]
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Au revoir, Air Rendezvous
Untitled Document On Oct. 30, Kim Curry packed up her office at the airport and carried out the last remnants of the Springfield Air Rendezvous. The popular capital-city air show had been permanently grounded, and, after 14 years as coordinator, Curry’s job was over. All that remained were three boxes of plastic name-badge holders, a […]
Posted inArts & Culture
His secret reasons
Untitled Document Politics beats a big drum in Springfield, and those disinclined to march to that drum often seek more harmonious cadences elsewhere. This was true for Mark Foutch. The Springfield native grew up on Whittier Avenue, went for his first airplane ride at age 4, made a name for himself as a musician before […]
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Straight shooter
Untitled Document As a little boy growing up in Elkhart, Bob McCue didn’t know that he was related to anybody famous until organizers of a local pageant — part of the village’s centennial celebrations in 1955 — came to see his mother. The visitors were looking for photographs of prominent residents, including Capt. Adam H. […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Where the art meets the road
Paintings by Springfield’s Mary Ellen Strack and photographs by Carlinville’s Karl Warma are featured, along with works by other area artists, at Prairie Art Alliance’s current show 6×6, timed to coincide with the city’s annual Route 66 Festival. “We wanted to take advantage of being in our downtown location and tie in with the festival,” […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Thirty-four winners
Springfield Art Association’s new exhibit of two-dimensional art, organized around the single theme of The Modern Landscape, represents a first for the organization: a show dedicated to Illinois artists. Amanda Lampert, SAA’s curator of collections, credits former executive director Erika Fitzgerald with the idea. “She wasn’t here to see the exhibit through, but I think […]
