Ted likes to say he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was 17, doing well at a college prep boarding school in Indiana, when a classmate went on a violent rampage while high on a combination of potent drugs. When cops searched that classmate’s phone, they found that Ted had fulfilled […]
Cover Story
Posted inArts & Culture
Down on the farm
The seeds of a trade war, severe weather, plummeting prices and corporate farming competition mean that many farmers are harvesting a bumper crop of problems, especially those people loosely defined as “family farmers.” “They call them ‘the farmers in the middle,’ and their numbers are declining pretty rapidly,” said National Farmers Union President Roger Johnson. […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Movies 2019 – The dawning of the Age of Netflix
When film historians look back at 2019, they will note that this was the year when Netflix changed the cinematic landscape for good…or ill, depending on your point of view. Up until this year, the streaming service had only been a minor disruption on the movie landscape by producing its own fare, acquiring others’ work […]
Posted inNews
STATEHOUSE YEAR IN REVIEW
A tumultuous year in Illinois politics draws to its close as the historic legislative accomplishments of May and June give way to a flurry of ongoing federal investigative activity, resignations and indictments. Central to the story of 2019 is Gov. J.B. Pritzker, a Chicago Democrat and billionaire who spent more than $170 million of his […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Teaching LGBT history
Illinois’ public school students may soon learn about Jane Addams in a new light. “Illinoisan Jane Addams, the mother of social work, founder of the Hull House, and Nobel Peace Prize recipient, was in a committed 40-year relationship with her partner, Mary Rozet Smith,” read a statement from Equality Illinois during the debate over House […]
Posted inNews
Green New World
Just taking a photograph at Nature’s Grace and Wellness in Vermont, about 75 miles northwest of Springfield, can be tricky. Fire away, you’re told in the grow area, where glare from high-pressure sodium bulbs makes ordinary cameras go nuts, drawing excessive amounts of blues and purples from rows of lights above hundreds of pot plants […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Holiday events calendar
Memorial’s Festival of Trees Nov 27-Dec 1, Wed 10am-8pm, Thu 4-8pm, Fri-Sat 10am-8pm and Sun 10am-5pm. A holiday tradition featuring more than 200 decorated trees and wreaths, hand-crafted gingerbread village structures, hand-decorated cookies and live entertainment. Adults $5, children ages 3-12 $3 and ages 2 and under are free. Orr Building, Illinois State Fairgrounds, 801 Sangamon […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Fashion comes to Springfield
A body-painted model walks the runway in a flowing dress made from trash and an ornate headdress of flowers. A dress sculpted from 140 pages of Veranda magazine intrigues the crowd. A model glows with illuminated LED lighting sending pink blooms dancing skyward with iridescent rhinestones. Vintage clothing finds a new life on the runway […]
Posted inNews
Double vision
Springfield School District 186 faces challenges familiar to many urban school districts. Academic achievement at district high schools lags behind state averages. Parents are voting with their feet as they choose to live outside the district or enroll kids in private schools. Segregation remains and demographic trends are ominous. During the past 15 years, white […]
Posted inNews
A second chance in life
More than 150 people who attended a free program in Springfield on Oct. 19 emerged with a possible second chance. The Expungement and Record Sealing Summit, hosted for the second year by the Sangamon County Circuit Clerk’s Office, gave pre-registered participants free, full-service assistance to get their adult criminal records possibly expunged or sealed. Volunteer […]
Posted inBest of Springfield®
Best Of Springfield (intro)
Illinois Times readers are an opinionated bunch, and more than 17,000 of you took the time to cast nearly a quarter million votes for your favorite people, places and things in the Springfield area. This is the 35th year for our Best of Springfield contest, but along the way we’ve continued to tweak both the […]
Posted inNews
School segregation’s new frontier
New Berlin, a village with 1,500 people separated from the outskirts of Springfield by 12 miles of pale blue skies and sunlit cornstalks, still has many hallmarks of a small town. It hosts the county fair, with chili cookoffs, livestock exhibitions and country music stars drawing crowds during the long days of June. Tractors occasionally […]
