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SAIL Hosts P.A. Orientation

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•August 28, 2019•

Soyland Access to Independent Living, SAIL, will hold a Personal Assistant Orientation for people interested in working as a Personal Assistant. Orientation is at 1 p.m.Tuesday, September 24 at Elizabeth Titus Library in Sullivan.
Personal assistants are employed by people with disabilities to perform household chores and personal care tasks in their homes and are paid by the state of Illinois through the Department of Rehabilitation Program.
No reservation is needed to attend the Personal Assistant Orientation, but participants must arrive by 1 p.m. bring their driver’s license or state ID, Social Security card and be prepared to fill out an application with references. SAIL is a fragrance-free facility and those wearing fragrances will not be allowed to attend the orientation.
For more information about the Personal Assistant Orientation or becoming a Personal Assistant, contact Emily Dobson at 876-8888 or 800-358-8080 or Betty Watkins at 774-4322.

ALAH Knights Returning Lettermen Drive Team Forward

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•August 28, 2019•
By Jason Brown
NP Sports Editor

In his first year as Arthur-Lovington-Atwood-Hammond varsity football coach, Ryan Jefferson’s squad finished the season with an overall record of 2-7.
In his second year, Jefferson hopes to utilize his team’s speed, including 12 returning letter winners, to push for a playoff berth.
“Our goals are to be competitive in the conference and to make playoffs,” Jefferson said. “If a conference championship is a realistic possibility later in the season, that’s great. But we want to be consistently competitive, and we’re hopeful that if we are, it will translate to a playoff berth from five or six wins.”
In practice and Friday’s scrimmage, Jefferson has been stressing the importance of the little things, including simple alignment on defense and sharpness with our offensive execution.
“We lacked in both areas last year, and I believe we have already made huge improvements there,” he said. Read More

Blue Dolphin Achieves Amazing Three Weeks of Competition

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Photo furnished
Blue Dolphin family with Ethan Schmohe.

•August 28, 2019•
By Jamie Crosier
for The Blue Dolphins

Sullivan Blue Dolphin Ethan Schmohe finished out the summer swim season with three major weekends of swimming.
Head coach Jason Drury said, “Illinois swimming is one of the hardest states. Ethan started his three-week accomplishments at Peoria where he swam at the Regional Time Qualifying Meet. He has been working hard at practice and I knew he had the ability to hit his goals.”
At Regionals, he competed in four events. He had more qualifying events, but his goal was to get a state cut in all four. This is a lofty goal, but he came in focused and achieved the additional State cuts to advance to the State Meet with a full load of events. Schmohe not only got the needed cuts, he dropped time in all four events and took first and second in these four. Read More

Obituaries 8-28-2019: Gertrude Shirey

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Gertrude Shirey

Gertrude Jane Shirey, 98, of Sullivan, passed away at 2:56 a.m. Thursday, August 22, 2019 at Mason Point in Sullivan.
Funeral services were held at 11 a.m. Monday, August 26 at Southern Baptist Church in Sullivan. Burial will be in Greenhill Cemetery in Sullivan. McMullin-Young Funeral Home is in charge of the arrangements.   Read More

Sullivan Golfers Place at Course

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•August 28, 2019•
The Sullivan golf team placed ninth with a score of 352 in the John Macek Invitational at the University of Illinois Orange Course Monday.
Hillsboro won the Champaign Centennial hosted tournament with a score of 321.
Layton Ellis recorded the Redskins’ best score at 83 and finished 15th. Read More

A Host of New Coaches in Position for Sullivan Teams

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•August 28, 2019•
By Jason Brown
NP Sports Editor

The Sullivan High School has shuffled a few coaching positions around in preparation for the new school year.
The Redskins will have new coaches in football, baseball, volleyball, softball and cross country.
For fall sports, Sullivan alumnus Nathan Becker has taken over the football team and stepped down as baseball coach, and Christy Molzen has taken over for her third stint as the volleyball coach.
Tabitha Davis was hired as the softball coach, and Jason Badman is taking over for Becker as the baseball coach.
Nathan Becker
Football coach Nathan Becker wants to bring stability to his high school football team. Becker, a 2004 Sullivan graduate, replaces Jeff Myers as football coach. Becker had been an assistant football coach for seven years at Sullivan and had seen himself as a head football coach in the future. Read More

Letter to the Editor on the Fair Graduated Tax

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•August 28, 2019•

Illinois has been stuck with the regressive flat income tax since 1971. Since then, counties across the state have had to increase property and sales taxes to fund education, infrastructure and other priorities.
Supporters of this failing flat income tax system often point to Illinois’ neighbors, saying they are lower tax states. This isn’t the truth. Read More

ALAH Board Looks into APPTEGY, a New School Branding Tool

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•August 28, 2019•
By Ariana Cherry
for the News Progress

At the beginning of his superintendent’s report during the ALAH School Board meeting on Wednesday, August 21, Superintendent Shannon Creek noted that he had visited all the schools in the district during registration, and they were all very busy with a lot of activity going on.
Amanda Romine reported that the online registration was very successful for the district. Arthur Grade School had 141 students who had preregistered online, Atwood: 114; Lovington: 66 and ALAH had 161.
High school principal Steffanie Seegmiller noted that more than 50% of the high school students had registered online before August 7. Staff members said that overall it was a positive experience for parents who registered their students for school and that they would reevaluate for next year to see what would need changed, etc. Read More

Recent Obituaries: Gertrude Jane Shirey

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Gertrude Jane Shirey

Gertrude Jane Shirey, 98, of Sullivan, passed away 2:56 a.m. Thursday, August 22, 2019, at Mason Point, Sullivan.
Funeral services will be held 11:00 a.m. Monday, August 26, 2019, at the Southern Baptist Church, Sullivan. Visitation will be held an hour prior to the service Monday at the church. Burial will be in Greenhill Cemetery, Sullivan. Memorials may be made to the Southern Baptist Church, Sullivan, or to the Mason Point Activity Fund. McMullin-Young Funeral Home is in care of the arrangements.
Gertrude was born October 30, 1920 in Boone, NC; the daughter of William Harrison and Lena (Williams) Carlton. She married Renos F. Shirey in 1944; he preceded her in death in 1979. She was a member of the Southern Baptist Church, the Rebekah Lodge and the Ladies Auxiliary American Legion. She received a Sullivan Volunteer Award and Gertrude was known for her locally famous homemade rolls.
Gertrude is survived by her son, Glen David (Crystal) Shirey of Sullivan; daughter, Eva (Kenneth) Miller of Sullivan; grandchildren, Erick Miller of Sullivan and Clint Leonard of Findlay; great-grandchildren, Anna and Langston.
She was preceded in death by her parents, husband, 1 infant daughter, Mary Lee, 1 grandson, Michael Leonard and 4 brothers.
Condolences may be offered to the family at www.mcmullinyoung.com