Cover Story
Changing lives in Ghana and Springfield
A “journey of faith” is how Dr. Edem and June Agamah of Springfield describe their 25 years of mission work in Ghana. Since 1996 they have led 38 mission trips to southeast Ghana. What began as a makeshift clinic under a mango tree is now a permanent hospital with over 100 staff who treat 30,000…
Planning to stay
I was born and raised in Springfield, as were my parents, and their parents before them. I know and love Springfield more than anything and have worked with various community organizations to make our city a more equitable, and overall better, place for people to live – and stay. As an urban studies student at…
Discovering the Gullah Geechee
It was a cold, windy morning as we took our 40-minute ferry ride from Hilton Head to Daufuskie Island off the South Carolina coast. Daufuskie is a remote and isolated island, inhabited by only 400 people, and accessible only by boat. I was on a mission to learn and write about the culinary traditions of…
Race in the world of sports
Tackling the issue of race in the world of sports is a difficult venture. On one side stand many political leaders and commentators, strong proponents of the “shut up and dribble” philosophy, who believe that athletes should simply silently perform in their respective sports. On the other side are those athletes at all levels who…
Boulevard of Broken Dreams
The Springfield Theatre Centre has given us an early holiday gift, a theatrical version of Green Day’s American Idiot, a powerful, courageous show that you must experience for yourself. Green Day’s American Idiot (at the Hoogland through Sunday) is a musical like no other. A vigorous reimagining of the seminal punk band’s 2004 album, which…
Len plus Two TikToks
Hello there. Won’t you come on into our mid-November, pre-Thanksgiving episode of Now Playing, covering the last weekend before the holiday rush of 2021. We have plenty going on in our live music world and some tidbits from those out there doing something out there. From festivals with all local bands to concerts by the…
Will Smith soars in Richard, Andrew Garfield drives Boom
Smith soars in Richard One of the things I appreciate about Reinaldo Marcus Green’s King Richard is that it doesn’t give us a sanitized version of its controversial titular character. Inspiring yet manipulative, determined yet self-destructive, Richard Williams, the father of tennis sensations Venus and Serena Williams, is all these things and they’re all on…
Building on Black history
The Judge John Taylor House, the long-planned anchor of a neighborhood development at 12th and Cass streets in Springfield, is getting emergency stabilization work this winter that should buy some time for organizers to raise the needed funds for its full restoration and adaptive reuse. The Springfield Economic Development Commission on Nov. 2 voted to…
Editor’s note 11-18-21
Many in this country seem to believe the three great enemies of the people are globalism, socialism and journalism. That sentiment, however, is more than matched by the idealism of the young journalists we’re interviewing this week for the UIS Public Affairs Reporting internship. They are in it to make a difference. To them we…
Dolly donates guitar to benefit books for kids
Dolly Parton is known for her singing, songwriting and generosity. Thanks to a local connection, she donated a signed guitar to the United Way of Central Illinois to benefit the Dolly Parton Imagination Library in Sangamon and Menard counties. Online bidding closes Nov. 30. United Way of Central Illinois partners with Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library…
City prepares to spend pandemic relief funding
Springfield will see $34 million in American Rescue Plan funding, federal dollars aimed at pandemic relief, which Mayor Jim Langfelder proposes to use for everything from sewer, water and broadband improvements to homeless initiatives. The plan followed citywide meetings in each of the 10 wards soliciting feedback from residents on how they feel the funding,…
Rod Blagojevich is not a changed man
They defied the odds and stayed married. When a married man enters prison, he almost always leaves it alone, particularly when he serves a lengthy sentence. But Rod and Patti Blagojevich held it together, not just through his almost eight years in prison but through two federal trials, seven elections, a years-long feud between Rod…
SliPPery SloPe Poem #1
SliPPery SloPe Poem #1 kids, ready for a sort of joke? and a reason why you don’t see many spelling bee champions in jail? an item from a british newspaper labeled “Fatal Slipp” reads “Local police had a surprise Wednesday for a suspect in the case of obscene letters. They rounded up a dozen possibilities…
Letters to the editor 11-18-21
DON’T DISCRIMINATE Regarding the subminimum wage, my thoughts are if you pay a non-disabled person $15 an hour to sort hangers, you should pay the disabled person the same (“Working for less than minimum wage,” Nov. 11). How is it that in 2021, some of us are still fighting for equal pay for equal work?…
Reflections last summer’s mission trip
Dr. Michael Fenner and two medical students from SIU School of Medicine, Theodore Agbemaple and Emma Fenner, joined the Agamahs on their 38th mission trip to Ghana last summer. The team took supplies with them and collectively saw 1,066 patients and performed 17 surgeries. Fenner is a general surgeon who has known Dr. Agamah since…
Statewide mask mandate in place for the foreseeable future
Gov. JB Pritzker told reporters not long ago that he was worried about the plateauing COVID-19 hospitalization rate and said he wouldn’t yet lift his statewide mask mandate. But the governor told me something around the same time during an interview that he hasn’t yet said publicly: He’s most concerned about what may happen in…
The missing middle
Just when it looked like things couldn’t get any worse for Democrats in rural areas, Virginia voters proved them wrong. This month, the Republican gubernatorial candidate captured more than 70% of the vote in 45 rural Virginia counties, compared to just four counties any of the GOP’s candidates carried by at least that margin in…
