•October 17, 2018•

By Ellen Ferrera
for the News Progress

The County Board met on October 11 with all but Bill Voyles and Kevin MeReynolds present.
Chairman Dave McCabe advised the board of a letter from hired legal assistance regarding a possible breach of computer files. The matter is still under investigation, but they believe no files were compromised. The board will be advised as the investigation continues.
A motion was approved to appoint Sam Scott and Tim Henderson to the Ethics Commission of Moultrie County effective immediately. Hollie Atchison has withdrawn, and a replacement will be voted on at next meeting. Read More

•October 10, 2018•

It’s Round up time at Sullivan IGA from Oct. 28 to Nov. 3 giving every customer a chance to help buy turkeys for Moultrie County Food Pantry’s Thanksgiving.
“We are kicking off the seventh annual round up to go along with our four day meat sale from the 31st through Nov. 3,” IGA manager Pat Stinson said, emphasizing customers can take advantage of great meat savings and help a good cause as well.
During that week customers at Sullivan IGA may round up their grocery bill to the next dollar which goes toward purchasing Thanksgiving turkeys for the Moultrie County Food Pantry.
Those round up donations totaled $1200 last year and supplied 125 families with turkeys.
“We really appreciate the generosity of IGA customers helping supply turkeys to the food pantry for Thanksgiving,” Stinson said.
“The food pantry gives out Thanksgiving meals in November, and we count on the money raised from the Round Up to purchase the turkeys each year,” CEFS Food Pantry Coordinator Kristy Dawson said. Read More

•October 3, 2018•

Early voting gained popularity with numbers doubling according to Moultrie County Clerk Georgia England.
“September 27 was the first day of early voting, and comparing the number who voted Thursday to the number on the first day in November 2016, we doubled,” England said.
In November 2016 15 people voted on the first day of Early Voting. Read More

•October 3, 2018•

By Ariana Cherry
for the News Progress

Sullivan has been looking into new and innovative ways for the city to track energy use and read meters.
City Clerk, Monte Johnson shared a presentation with members of the Sullivan City Council recently for a new AMI System (Advanced Metering Infrastructure) through Nexgrid. After looking through various options, Johnson introduced Nexgrid reporting on a trip he made to their headquarters to see how the software and its application worked.
Through Nexgrid, customers will have the ability to download widgets/apps to their computers, phones or tablets and actually see their energy use in real time and adjust accordingly to see how they can save on their monthly bills. Johnson noted that implantation will take some time as the city will have to manually put everything in – such as receivers and other devices.
There will be new meters for reading energy use, and the city will be able to see the information from office desktops. After everything has been installed, there won’t be a need for individuals to personally go out and read every single meter. Read More

Photo furnished
Corn harvest with teams of horses is among the farming techniques demonstrated at the Illinois Amish Heritage Center.

•October 3, 2018•

A new special event, Harvest to Home, will be held at the Illinois Amish Heritage Center three miles east of Arthur on Friday and Saturday, October 19-20. The event will start at 9 a.m. each day and continue until 8 p.m. on Friday and 4 p.m. Saturday.
The fall harvest was the culmination of the farm year. Corn had to be picked, processed, and stored. It was often stacked into corn shocks in the field or picked by hand and thrown into a nearby wagon.
All of the steps of harvesting and processing corn will be demonstrated at the inaugural Harvest to Home event at the new Illinois Amish Heritage Center. Activities during the two-day event will include corn cutting and shocking, corn harvesting with corn pickers, shelling corn with small and large shellers, harvesting and shredding of corn stalks, and grinding corn into corn meal using an early grist mill. Read More