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DYIDOESITHERSELF “There’s more to Springfield than just
corn and Lincoln — there has to be,” says Dyi Kinney. Sometimes we’re
not so sure. A graduate of the Southern Illinois University School of
Medicine, Kinney is hoping to prove us wrong. Kinney wants to capitalize on the capital
city’s youthful brain juice with her cable-access show, airing
sometime in early March, Springfield’s
Urban Edge. She’ll be filming a segment
named “Confections, Coffee, & Commentary” at 7 a.m. Friday,
Feb. 22, at Café Moxo. The restaurant, located at 411 E. Adams St., has agreed to
sponsor the show. Kinney says she wants young people and “the
young at heart” to come, sip java, and just talk about what’s
going on around town. “It’s just something to do,” Kinney
says, “and if you’re young and vibrant in Springfield then you
need to get involved.”
PUT ‘EMONDOUBLE-SECRETPROBATION! As far as school misconduct goes, there’s
almost nothing less dignified than stealing others’ ideas and calling
them your own. Guilty students are punished accordingly with glaring red
zeroes on lifted assignments or even an hour or two of detention. Now that
the shoe’s on the other foot, we’re guessing that School
District 186 would beg for such a paltry penalty. After a four-year civil standoff, U.S. District Judge
Richard Mills ruled
earlier this month against the district and The Miller Group, the
district’s local computer programmers, for copying recordkeeping
software designed by New Jersey-based Century Consultants. Because the
district was receiving a cut of the bootlegged software’s revenues,
it looks as if Century is going to run away with much more than the school
system’s reputation.
EVERYBODYSTILLLOVESDORALEE Last year at this time, our cover girl was DoraLee Durham, a NASCAR fan,
award-winning go-kart driver, seamstress, pastor, and gospel singer who had
just added a national title in a plus-size over-40 beauty pageant to her
résumé. Whew! Last week we received word that DoraLee’s done
it again: She was recently crowned American Beauties Plus Ambassador and
Spokesmodel. Congratulations, DoraLee!
IT’SPEACHYBEINGGREEN Downtown Springfield’s Mexican petunias and
pink dragonwing begonias — well, those, along with other such
“go green” initiatives as City Water, Light & Power’s
ongoing efforts to purchase wind power from northern Iowa —
catapulted the capital city onto the list of America’s 50 Greenest
Cities.
Springfield, ranked No. 29 in a study by Popular Science magazine, came
in behind No. 9 Chicago but ahead of No. 31 St. Louis in categories that
weighed each city’s achievements in electricity, transportation,
green living, and recycling and green perspective. Despite what we heard during last fall’s
lengthy trash-reform discussions, the magazine named the city’s
recycling program one of Springfield’s crowning achievements, handing
up a 4.2 of 5 possible points.
OK, HE’SNOTEXACTLYDEEPTHROAT Is it just us, or does anybody else find it odd that
every e-mail from Ray Serati warns: “THIS MESSAGE MAY
CONTAIN CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION OF THE CITY OF SPRINGFIELD, IL.
UNAUTHORIZED USE OR DISCLOSURE IS PROBHIBITED.”
Serati, see, is the public-information officer for
Springfield Police Department and sometimes other city agencies, such as
City Water, Light & Power. The caps and the italics fairly scream at
the recipients, who usually number about 40 and include reporters at every
media outlet in town.
TWENTYMINUSTWO People who know Paris
Ervin and Sara
Wojcicki might best describe the duo as
“sisters from different misters.” Both are downstaters who
began their careers at WICS-TV (Channel 20) around the same time.
Each took at crack covering the station’s city-government beat.
And both of them emit endless amounts of good cheer without being
obnoxious. So when we found out that the friends had quit their
Channel 20 reporting gigs within days of one another to accept positions as
agency spokeswomen, we weren’t the least bit surprised. Losing talent
is a familiar story at WICS and other small-market broadcast stations [see
Amanda Robert, “On the cheap,” Nov. 15]. East St. Louis native Ervin now handles
communications for the departments of agriculture and natural resources,
while Wojcicki serves as the state treasurer’s downstate mouthpiece.
Both women seem to be making the transition from journalist to government
flack: as of press time, both women said they couldn’t get permission
from their new bosses to talk to us.
This article appears in Feb 14-20, 2008.
