R. L. Nave

Just north of the Willard Ice Building, blocks away from Memorial Medical Center and Douglas School, and just a few feet from homes, sits a little coal power plant that most people probably don’t know exists. One of the main reasons the plant at Madison and Rutledge goes unnoticed is because, unlike the City Water, […]

For a city where neighborhoods are often pitted against each other in battles for resources – or against various development projects — an uncharacteristically broad and diverse chorus of opposition is growing over a plan to run up to 40 additional freight and high-speed passenger trains that would require several overpasses for cars through center […]

After four days off, Mike Williams was relaxed and feeling pretty good when he showed up for his shift at the City Water, Light and Power water treatment plant at 2 p.m. on Sunday, July 26. As with the start of every workday, the 46-year old assistant water works operator entered the main control room […]

Patty Meyer made her way through the crowd gathered at city hall calling for an end to racism in Springfield to give Mike Williams a big hug and offered him a piece of advice. “Watch your back,” she said. “I know, girl,” Williams replied. Both of them know too well what Williams is up against […]

On what should have been a routine visit a local driver’s license station, Huong V. Nguyen unwittingly found himself in the middle of an international criminal conspiracy On June 30, Nguyen, a Springfield resident who was born in Vietnam, entered the office to update his driver’s license and get his yearly sticker. He took along […]

As far as government workers in Springfield go, Mike Williams has been surprisingly candid. He has described the gamut of emotions raised in him when he returned from vacation to find a noose hanging near his shared workstation at City Water, Light and Power’s water purification facility in late July. And he has described a […]

There are all kinds of scholarships just for having an interest in an obscure field or merely being something unusual — tall, a little person, left-handed, or being named Gatling, Van Valkenburg, or Zolp. Ryne Poelker of Petersburg actually did something to earn his unique scholarship. The Vegetarian Resource Group, a Baltimore-based nonprofit that promotes […]

Being laid off didn’t stop Linda Norbut Suits from doing what she and her husband, Duston, felt was necessary. After a tornado three years ago ripped through Loami, where the couple lives with their two daughters, and destroyed their barn, Linda and Duston decided renewable energy should be part of the rebuild. Solar was very […]

John Black, a correctional officer at Logan Correctional Facility in Lincoln, says he can sum up the morale among his fellow prison workers in just one word. “Sucks,” says Black, a member of American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees Local 2073. For the past several years, under the strain of the state’s ever-present […]