Cap City

If you think you’re too old, tired or busy to learn something new — think again. Lincoln Land Community College is making it easy for the overworked and overburdened to take one-time-only classes on things like umpiring, drumming and wood-furniture refinishing with its new Try It! program. This month’s classes — only $12 each — […]

The Springfield Overflow Shelter got a late Christmas present this week – a $15,000 donation from the United Way of Central Illinois to keep SOS open and fully-funded until the end of March. SOS provides overnight shelter to homeless individuals each winter at the former Methodist church on Fifth Street and Capitol Avenue. The Salvation […]

Newlyweds Dyke and Karen Rhoads were stabbed to death on July 6, 1986, as they slept in their Paris, Ill., home. Police had no leads for months, until two individuals — both admitted alcoholics who had seven DUI convictions between them — stepped forward to finger locals Randy Steidl and Herbert Whitlock for the murders. […]

OK, so they probably don’t care much about Christmas, but that still doesn’t mean we want neglected cats and dogs spending the most wonderful time of the year alone in a cage at the local animal shelter. Get in the spirit with Foster a Lonely Pet for the Holidays — a national program inspired by […]

Imagine Santa Claus on a sleek, sporty motorcycle, his bulging sack of toys overflowing from the rear seat. That’s the image evoked by Steve Unverzagt as he collects toys for disadvantaged kids across the city. Though he doesn’t look a thing like Santa, the motorcycle-loving Unverzagt has worked to bring holiday cheer to disadvantaged Springfield […]

Christmas stockings filled with goodies like travel-sized hot cocoa, instant soup and granola bars are now headed to troops serving in Iraq, Afghanistan and other countries overseas, thanks to the Peoria-based Operation Santa — one of the nation’s largest stocking drives. Volunteers from Illinois and other states create stockings year-round for Operation Santa and then […]

There’s finally some agreement on high-speed rail in Springfield, but it seems to be an agreement to disagree. The city, county and Illinois Department of Transportation announced Wednesday that an impact study would be conducted to measure the effects of a proposed high-speed rail expansion on Third Street and 10th Street. That follows a unanimous […]

We’re willing to bet our fruitcake that nowhere else in Springfield features a model train display quite like the one at the Korean War National Museum. This week, Lynn Raney, creator of Tis’ Trains!, unveils a 17-by-30-foot display showcasing two Garden Gauge, scale 1:29 model trains that chug along together on a bi-level platform. One […]

Imagine a toy store where everything is free. That’s exactly what Springfield Catholic Charities has provided at holiday hope for more than a decade, bringing Christmas to the less fortunate in the community. Each year, Catholic Charities holds its Christmas store and food basket giveaway, allowing parents to pick out free toys for their kids […]

Surprising and scary — that’s the only way to describe the latest statistics to come out of Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan’s office. Madigan recently surveyed 4,200 Illinois schoolchildren in third through 12th grade to see if the youngsters are using cell phones and Internet technology. Last week her office released the results, which show […]

You see his face on the penny, the $5 bill, Mount Rushmore and pretty much everywhere in Springfield, but have you ever really studied it? Brothers Phillip and Peter Kunhardt certainly have, and the result of that research is their new book,  Lincoln, Life-Size, in which photographs of the 16th president are enlarged to life-size […]

After sitting empty for eight years, the former On Broadway bar needed some serious cleaning, says Melody Hawn, the Springfield native who is reopening the bar with a new name and a well-versed partner. She and Al Travis, a Springfield transplant from Chicago, opened the new Broadway Nites bar at 210 Broadway St. on Oct. […]