•December 31, 2025•

The Mid-Illinois Senior Center is located at 113 E. Jefferson Street in Sullivan. The Peace Meal Senior Nutrition program lunch is served weekdays (except holidays) at 11:30 a.m. Call (217) 728-8521 for more information on the events below or the Peace Meal. New this month: The last Friday of the month at 12:30 p.m., there will be popcorn and movie. Movie titles will vary each month. Ask at the front desk for the “Movie of the month.” Doors to the center are open Monday through Friday, and it’s warm inside. There is always free hot coffee, hot chocolate, and hot tea for those cold winter days. 

•December 31, 2025•

Submitted

The ISHS’s Verna Ross Orndorff Scholarship, with a prestigious award of $1,000, has opened for Illinois High School students who write and submit the best 1,500-word essay on the subject of Abraham Lincoln or Civil War era Illinois. Essays must be submitted by January 15th, 2026, and meet the following criteria:

The River

•December 31, 2025•

by Janet Roney

The Kaskaskia River has a life plan. It drains water from the Grande Prairie to the Mississippi. Its course has not changed much in ten thousand years. Even after the Corps made Lakes Shelbyville and Carlyle, the river still stubbornly flows in its old river bed deep under the surface of the lakes. (By the way, did you ever notice that the Kaskaskia, Sangamon, and Embarrass all originate a few miles from each other in the Champaign County area, and flow in three different directions, to the Mississippi, Illinois, and Wabash Rivers?)

Not only does the river have a plan, but the fish, ducks, turtles, blue herons, mussels, raccoons, and water snakes that live in and along it have predictable life plans, too. Fishermen, boaters, hikers, and artists like me are drawn to the river, but most folks just pass over it on their way to work and never notice it.