2016

The days of trying to decipher a police officer’s handwriting on a traffic citation are over in Moultrie County. The Moultrie County Circuit Clerk’s Office became the first office in the sixth judicial circuit to implement e-Citations.

The building and grounds committee of the Moultrie County Board met and voted to recommend the removal of a dilapidated courthouse chimney. Maintenance director Rick Matthews explained that the recent rain had indicated the unused courthouse chimney was the site of water infiltration inside the building.

2006

The Sullivan school board signed off on a confidential agreement providing for the resignation of Coach Derik Eaton. The settlement signed at Monday’s meeting did not reveal the reason for Eaton’s resignation, but merely noted that “a dispute has arisen among the parties regarding Eaton’s employment as a teacher and as a high school boys’ track coach.”

Realizing that Sullivan city residents are being hit this month with high utility bills, the city council voted to dispense with late fees for the next three months. To avoid late fees, however, customers must call in to make arrangements to pay their bills.

Thirteen Generations Plus Five Hundred
•January 7, 2026•

by Janet Roney

Generation after generation of people have found everything needed for life here in central Illinois. The first historic people were the French who  passed through Moultrie over three hundred years ago. At twenty-five years per generation, that’s at least thirteen generations ago.

My Uncle Cliff used the same Jonathan Creek fishing holes as those who built the ceremonial mound in the corner of his cow pasture. The shell casings left from our son-in-law Craig’s deer hunt mingle with arrowheads waiting to be found  along the eroded banks of the Kaskaskia. Our Uncle Vern and Aunt Ruth gathered poke shoots, sour dock greens, and sassafras roots for their spring “physic” on Grandpa Roney’s hillside just like ancient people did before them. The corn that now covers Moultrie’s prairies descends from the same type of corn raised thousands of years ago along the West Okaw in Cornbread Bottom. That’s where avid arrowhead hunter Randy found an artifact certified to be 13,000 years old. That’s five hundred generations ago!

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.

•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:

•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.