•February 2, 2022•
An upcoming Prairie’s Edge Master Naturalists event will give attendees the opportunity to learn about early Native American cultures in Illinois through archeological information.
The Master Naturalists have arranged for Fred Christensen, president of the East Central Illinois Archeological Society, to present “Illinois Archeology, An Overview” at 6 p.m. Feb. 8 at the Douglas-Hart Nature Center in Mattoon. The Master Naturalists program is part of University of Illinois Extension.
People have lived in Illinois for 12,000 years, and archaeology provides most of the information about them for all but the last four centuries. Christensen’s talk will provide a survey of those millennia before written history. Read More

•February 2, 2022•
By Jim Baumann
NP Guest Writer

Mark Ludwig is a Daily Herald (this newspaper’s mother ship) alumnus who now is a journalism professor at Cal State-Sacramento.
He posts on Facebook more than I could ever find time to, but those posts often remind me why I stuck with putting out a newspaper instead of teaching others to do it.
Mark’s posts are often very funny — as are the responses he gets.
“Here’s one I haven’t seen before,” he wrote, “‘a lass’ instead of ‘alas.’”
Ah, he speaketh my language.
Here is a look at some of the responses he received:
“Don’t be too hard on them,” Dave Zuckerman replied. “After all, it’s a doggy dog world.”
Michael Althouse responded: “For all intensive purposes.” Read More