•July 15, 2020•
Lovington village board met Monday, July 13 with action expected on a request from Casey’s General Stores for curbside beer sales.
Casey’s request from Gayle Begalske proposed that a Casey employee take a tablet to the car, allowing the drivers license to be scanned and payment made prior to the sale.
At the regular meeting on June 8 guest Roger Brust questioned trustees on three points.
He was requesting the village have a clean up day. Read More

•July 15, 2020•
By Mike Brothers

The Moultrie County farm is up for lease with bid packets available from July 15 through August 5 in the county clerk’s office.
Moultrie County board members approved continuing the two-year lease of the 217.58-acre county farm during the regular Thursday, July 9 meeting of the county board in courtroom A to accommodate social distancing.
In order to submit a cash rent proposal, the bidder must own 40 acres or live in Moultrie County.
Provisions to provide 2/3 ton of lime and maintain soil quality are the renter’s obligation.
An additional $5.40 fee from Ag Answers ensures soil fertility is maintained through tissue sample testing.
Bid opening is 3:00 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 5.
Clint Robinson entered the two-year lease in 2018 with a bid of $82,500 ($379.17A). The term expires October 31, 2020.
In 2018 four bidders showed interest in the county farm: Zeb Hughes bid $70,713.50 ($325A); Shuman Brothers bid $67,658.68 ($310.96A); Robinson, $82,500 and prior renter Mark Kuhns bid $75,520.26 ($347A). Read More

•July 8, 2020•
The Moultrie County Beacon annual Fried Pie Sale started with the usual high expectation and supporters came through, however due to the Covid 19 health crisis the sale is cancelled.
This is a major fundraiser for the Beacon, along with the Annual Beacon Benefit, which was also postponed this year.
Fried Pies were to be in production the week of March 16th with delivery to be March 19th.
As you recall, Governor Pritkzer of Illinois announced a statewide public health crisis due to Covid-19 at the same time, so production of pies was halted due to the need to social distance from others. Read More

Vanausdoll Goes to Tuscola
By Ariana Cherry,
for the News Progress

•July 1, 2020•

Superintendent Shannon Cheek and members of the Arthur Lovington Atwood Hammond school board discussed what the upcoming school year could possibly look like this fall.
“It is a whole new way of thinking and a whole new way of creating,” Supt. Creek began. The school district was still waiting for guidance from the state.
Creek stated that more teachers had been added to the committee for remote learning. The district might be looking at a hybrid model, but there are a couple of different plans that are being discussed.
Some of those ideas included some grades doing remote learning at home while others would be in the school buildings and “vise-versa.”
Each teacher will be doing about 35-40 hours of remote learning training, which they all will do voluntarily. Teachers also will receive credit for doing the training. The committee will continue to develop plans this summer for mask regulations and how bus transportation will be handled, etc. Read More

Photo by Mike Brothers
Bottle Caps to Benches
Supt. Ted Walk, SES Principal Leslie Guyot, Girl Scout Troop 3070 Leader Nikki Flexser, Girls Scout Cadettes Elise Fleming and Zoe Conlin attended the presentation of the bench in memory of kindergartener Tyson Mendoza at Sullivan Elementary School. A red and white bench was also placed at the entry to Wyman Park in Sullivan.

•July 1, 2020•
Zoe Conlin and Elise Fleming, Cadettes in Girl Scout Troop 3070, turned their recycling project into a memorial for the community.
The Girl Scout Silver Award is the highest achievement a Cadette can achieve. It requires identifying an issue we care about in our community, building our team, developing and completing a project related to the identified issue.
Conlin and Fleming wanted their community service project to be on recycling.
At first they tried to set up a recycling program at Mid-State Tank, where their fathers work. However, we had a hard time coming up with a good plan.
They focused on the Bottle Caps to Benches recycling project. This required collect enough plastic lids and caps from the community along with monetary donations to make two park benches. Read More