Every drop counts
CWLP just announced their 2013 Water Conservation Poster Contest winners! Submissions were received from first through third grade students in Springfield schools. The theme was Every Drop Counts. Entries were to demonstrate water conservation in action, highlighting the need for everyone to conserve. Below is the top honor winner given to Dallas Crum of Laketown School.…
Champaign Hip-Hop artist 12K: Mixtape Release Party tonight!
12K Tonight, Champaign-based rapper / producer 12K will hold the release party for his new PSA mixtape as Torch Tuesday continues to diversify and bring in hip-hop artists from all around the region. Listen to his stuff here: Also appearing tonight will be Champaign’s Jay Moses, Woods G from Decatur, and Springfield’s well-loved NovelT. The show…
Spring Breakers: Great and Terrible
In The Wizard of Oz (1939), a young farm girl from Kansas wishes for excitement and gets more than she bargained for when a cyclone lands her in Oz, a bizarre alternate reality populated by odd, often hostile creatures. In Spring Breakers, currently playing in Springfield at AMC’s Parkway 8, four young college girls wish for…
Third Thursday Tonight: In Like a Lion, Out Like a Lamb
Flyer by Mary Brennen It’s the third Thursday of the month, which can only mean it’s time for Third Thursday, Springfield’s most reliable art and music event, 6pm-9pm at Donnie’s Homespun. Here’s an excerpt from my 2012 Illinois Times year end art scene wrap-up, describing what you might expect: As indicated by their name, on the third…
Rockin’ songster
Minneapolis’ Kevin Bowe and the Okemah Prophets will rock the Hoogland Center for the Arts March 22 for the next WUIS Bedrock 66 Series concert. Known as an accomplished songwriter, Bowe wrote for Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Jonny Lang, Etta James and many others. His songs have received numerous awards and been featured in “The Sopranos,”…
Out-of-sight superstar
The Springfield Art Association’s Molly Schlich Film Series continues with three screenings of the much talked about documentary Searching for Sugarman. The film, written and directed by Malik Bendjelloul and highlighted on the television series 60 Minutes, tells the story of two fans who go in search of 70s South African pop music icon Sixto…
Letters to the Editor 3/21/13
PARK PERKSThe article “Use it or get paid” by Bruce Rushton (March 7) was a real eye opener. Springfield Park District has paid former park district executive director Michael Stratton more than $28,000 for 725 hours of unused vacation time beginning in 2010 through 2012. January through November of 2012 alone Mr. Stratton was paid…
The music calling
After this wonderfully busy, gig-a-day week (with two on Friday and three on Saturday), including venues from first grade classrooms to high class social clubs, barrooms full of temporary drunken sailors and restaurants with happy, well-fed folks, I feel more qualified than ever to write a bit about the influence of music on the human…
Red flags aplenty
An accounting firm that conducted annual audits of the Springfield Park District repeatedly warned the park board about lax financial oversight, but the board didn’t quickly implement recommendations for improvement. Issues raised as long ago as 2007 by Perrino and Associates, a CPA firm that conducted annual audits, ran the gamut. Hundreds of dollars were…
Lobbying for local food
Consumers, farmers and other citizens traveled from across the state to Springfield last week to lobby for local food reforms. As a part of Local Food Awareness Day, the group wanted to spread the word to legislators about issues on urban and rural composting. The day was sponsored by the Illinois Stewardship Alliance, a group…
Fossil fuel and nuclear knock renewables
The makeup of the electric grid of the future is at stake as the fossil fuel industry continues to falsely lessen the impact of renewable energy. So it’s no wonder that the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) and the Solar Energy Industries Association have recently rescinded their membership in the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).…
Politics, politicians and pension reform, oh my
“Pardon me,” said Ty Fahner to a nearby microphone which he had accidentally bumped during testimony to the Illinois Senate Executive Committee last week. Fahner could probably be excused for apologizing to an inanimate object. The president of the Chicago-based, business-backed Civic Committee and self-styled pension expert had been forced to sit in the hearing…
The typewriter man
In February of 1949, at the age of 18, Ben Bushnell started working for Royal Typewriter Company in Springfield. He had no idea then that his job would lead to a lifelong hobby. Bushnell began his career as a delivery boy for Royal and eventually became a service technician, but in May of 1974 he…
Nurse! Nurse!
Illinois faces two challenges in providing decent medical care for the many among us who stubbornly refuse to follow the example of our social betters by getting rich. One, endlessly “debated,” is the cost. In February, the Illinois Senate took a step toward dealing with that by handily approving the expansion of Medicaid called for…
obitpoem #1
a recent obit in the state j-r istoo good to pass up who wrote itnephew maybe niece the accountis of an ordinary life if such bebirth education job etc etc then“she became adventuresome inher old age” at 80 sky-dived 81got a butterfly tattoo other daringexploits follow punctuated withmore butterflies then at 84 shezip lined and…
Paw prints
Always wanted a high quality portrait of the family dog? Now you can at Dog Days of Spring and session fees go to a good cause – the Animal Protective League. Terry Farmer Photography is raising awareness and funds for the APL by donating each pet portrait session to the APL. Just phone TFP and…
Ice theater
The Springfield Figure Skating Club presents an ice show on March 23-24 at Nelson Center Ice Arena. Over 75 Springfield Figure Skating members will perform musical ice versions of “Seussical,” “Alice in Wonderland,” “Gypsy” and “Follies Parisienne.” Special guest skaters will be Canadian dance Silver Medalists Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier. Tickets are available in…
Wonderstone encourages us to be amazed
My obsession with film began at an early age, and I got my hands on every book I could find on the subject at the local library. It was my father’s fault that I had gotten hooked on cinema, and while he had no objections to my mania, he warned that if I learned how…
Group pressing school board candidates on CCPA closure
A group of Springfield parents and educators is hoping to prevent the closure of a popular middle school, despite two unfavorable votes by the Springfield School Board. Their main tactic? Elect a different school board. Shelley Tulipana of Springfield spearheads the effort to keep Capital College Preparatory Academy open. Tulipana leads a group of about…
‘The Dow’ versus ‘The Doug’
“It’s a sign,” exclaims a February Associated Press story – a sign that our economy is “healing.” “It signals that things are getting back to normal,” added a delighted market analyst. And a March 4 New York Times report heralded it as “a golden age.” The “it” they’re hailing is the Dow, that mystical force…
THIS OLD PARTY HOUSE
After a $36,000 workover, the dining room at Edwards Place is restored and ready to come alive like it did on Feb. 10, 1863. Anna Ridgely described in her diary the party that night at the home of Mrs. B. S. Edwards: “I enjoyed the evening quite well. The entertainment was delightful. The supper room…
FREE AT LAST
Locked up for 14 years in a southern Illinois prison, Chicago native Anthony Murray made a difficult choice: he took responsibility for a murder he says he didn’t commit in order to secure his release from prison on Oct. 31, 2012. It was a bittersweet day for Murray and the Illinois Innocence Project, based at…
Soul food staples
Southern-style music and soul food are inseparable – Springfield’s own Blues & BBQs festival attests to that. The legendary Thelonious Monk, who hailed from North Carolina, wore a collard leaf in his lapel when playing in New York’s smoky jazz clubs. Sunday afternoon, March 24, Springfieldians will have another chance to enjoy the melding of…
More to Admission
About 15 minutes into Paul Weitz’s fine new film Admission, Princeton admissions officer Portia Nathan (Tina Fey) is put through the ringer by a group of exceptionally smart high schoolers who question the need for higher education and wonder why the esteemed institution she works for remains behind the times in its stance on certain…
Family Groove Company
This Chicago-based quartet keeps making the rounds and stirring the pot with festival appearances at the Midwest’s finest, including Summerfest, Summer Camp and 10,000 Lakes. Family Groove Company employs Adam Lewis (guitar), Janis Wallin (bass, vocals), Jordan Wilkow (Fender Rhodes, keyboards, lead vocals) and Mattias Blanck (drum, percussion, vocals) as the providers of the music,…
Buyer beware
An appraiser hired to verify the value of a $23 million purchase of Abraham Lincoln artifacts, including a stovepipe hat, noted concerns about the authenticity of the hat and two other artifacts before the deal went through. Appraiser Seth Kaller, a dealer in historic documents and artifacts from White Plains, N.Y., predicted that questions would…
Splendid performance
The Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra and Chorale present, “A Golden Collaboration” sponsored by Jim and Fran Ringle. Mozart’s Coronation Mass includes special guests Illinois College Choir and Millikin University Choir 2013 along with the 2003 Talent Among Us grand prize winners oboist Juliana Georges and violinist Clayton Penrose-Whitmore (pictured). Clayton Penrose-Whitmore, originally from Springfield, will be play…
Gus’s new gig
“At a certain point I realized I was a clone,” says Gus Gordon of his 22-year tenure as chief meteorologist at WICS-TV Channel 20. His tone is more amused than bemused, and entirely without rancor. “There was a middle-aged white guy like me at pretty much every local TV station in America. There are really…
