•January 31, 2018•

The Coles County Master Gardeners 2018 “Spring into Gardening” will be held 8 a.m. to noon Saturday Feb. 17 at the LifeSpan Center, located between Mattoon and Charleston.

Featured topics and speakers this year include “Continuous Color in Your Garden”: Mary Ann Metz will discuss how to achieve color in your garden year-round. She is an experienced landscape consultant who is passionate about creating beautiful spaces. “Vegetables for the Landscape”: Alicia Kallal will show ways to increase access to fresh vegetables while improving the functionality of the landscape. An experienced horticulturalist, Kallal’s practical approach will provide strategies to create a more sustainable lifestyle. “Glam in the Garden”: Rachel Pearcy and Kris Newel are two young, creative women who will share how to reimagine, and perhaps, upcycle items to add glam in the garden.  Read More

•January 31, 2018•

Lovington Grade School’s second quarter honor rolls include the following students who earned straight As: Max Allen, Quentin Day, Cassandra Diener, Reggie Edmonds, Delany Gillis, Gavin Mechling, Michaela Powell and Kaitlyn Zander, eighth grade; Kaci Beachy, Emma Edwards, Josie Hale and Austyn Scroggins, seventh grade and Nathan Tighe, sixth grade. Read More

•January 31, 2018•

Wee Readers Storytime is 10:45-11:15 a.m. Thursday mornings. Feb. 1: “Groundhogs”; Feb. 8: “Love Monsters”; Feb.15: “Abe Lincoln”; Feb. 22: “Winter Olympics”

Season 4 of Crazy 8s is here! Crazy 8s is a totally new kind of math club where children in third-fifth grades train to be a firefighter, jump over laser beams, learn optical illusions, and more and is held 3:45-4:45 p.m. every Friday. Older youth may  be helpers. Themes are Feb. 2: “Crazy Cards”; Feb. 9: “Firefighter Training”; Feb. 16: “Tricks of the Eye”; Feb. 23: “Road Trip”.

The Adult Coloring Club is held 3:45-4:45 p.m. every Friday. The library will provide new coloring sheets, pencils, crayons and markers.

Make It & Take It: Thai string dolls. Stop in anytime between noon and 3 p.m. Friday, February 16. String dolls can be cute or creepy or both. All supplies are provided for this free event, and all ages are welcome. Read More

25 Years Ago This Week

Paul and Bev Ozier of Lovington are getting a big pay back from daily bird feeding and watering activities during the winter. They see the birds are fed and on winter mornings the Oziers peer out their back window to watch cardinals, finches, blue jays, titmice, brown-headed cow birds, woodpeckers, winter wrens, chickadees and doves.

Cindy Richardson was named assistant vice-president and Julie McClain assistant cashier, in an announcement from First National Bank board chairman Harry Wilson.

Margie Brewer of Bethany was nominated as candidate for multi-township assessor of the Dora/Marrowbone Multi Township District during a recent caucus by the Democrat party. She will face Republican David R. McCabe in the April 20 township election. Read More

Helping Hand

Dear Editor,

Connie Reedy passed away a little over a month ago. And her passing brought back a vivid memory of the last time I saw her.

When I was coming home from work one afternoon late last summer, I saw two cars stopped on the New Life Tabernacle curve on the Jonathan Creek Road. A pickup had missed the curve and rolled down the slope coming to rest on its top in front of William Herschberger’s cabinet shop.  Read More