Photo furnished
WHS National Honor Society
Windsor High School National Honor Society inducted six new members at the Honor’s Banquet April 27. Pictured are new and previous members.
Back row L to R: Kristen Morlen, Caitlin Welsh, Autumn Bennett, Tristan Warner, Mitchell Haddock, Sterling Howard, Mercedez Austin, and Adam Hendershot.
Front row L to R: Katherine Greuel, Bailey Fleshner, Kaitlin Armes, James Hortenstine, Mikayla Haddock, and Mehria Khan.
Photo courtesy Wurtsbaugh Photography
Sullivan High School Prom Court
From left front: Whitney Elder, Lily Bales, King Ross Metzger, Queen Kelsey Clark, Alyssa Marshall, Jocelyn Nashland and Charlie Emel. From left back: Andrew Frost, Alec Ballinger, Josh Davis, Kaleb Shumard and Kyler Houser. Prom was held Saturday, April 23 with coronation ceremony at 9:00 p.m.
Photo furnished
Bowers getting “Roasted” at April 2 retirement party.
David Bowers Keeps Going
•April 27, 2016•
By Mike Brothers
David Bowers has spent the better part of his life in Lovington reaching out to touch someone.
Even though he retired from family owned Moultrie Independent Telephone Company at the end of March he isn’t going to stop being involved.
“When you live a full life, life is fulfilling,” Bowers said, noting his retirement as vice president and plant supervisor gives him time to concentrate on other community needs.
Shawnee Communications purchased the family phone company, which is going through a fifth plant rebuild as fiber optic cable delivery comes to Lovington customers, who started receiving telephone service from wires strung along fence posts 71 years ago.
‘I remember when I was five years old sitting on the operator’s lap while I plugged a call into the switchboard,” he recalled, noting he and his brothers worked at the phone company part time while growing up in Lovington.
“We had some wonderful and inspiring teachers in Lovington,” he said explaining his career path was guided by those educators but didn’t exactly go as he planned.
“What I really wanted to be was a teacher and football coach,” Bowers recalled attending North Central College in Naperville for his bachelor’s degree. Read More
•April 27, 2016•
By Ariana Cherry
For the News Progress
Arthur-Lovington/Atwood-Hammond’s transportation fund continues to dwindle as the state still continues to not pay the school districts. The current funds for transportation sit at $88,640; although a third payment has been dispersed but not processed. If the payment is processed, it will add another $255,000 to the balance. If that money is not received, more money from the general education fund will have to be transferred. The over-all checkbook balance of the district is around four million dollars with all funds still in the black.
ALAH district looks to federal and state grants to help make technology updates.
Jeremy Rodebaugh,technology coordinator, noted a few things that the district is in need of updating. Some of the things he mentioned include getting more bandwidth as it currently tops out at 75MB. Atwood-Hammond has maxed out on their bandwidth and fiber optics will be needed to increase it.
The cost of installing fiber optics is estimated at $20-25,000. Rodebaugh has been doing some research and stated that there are several state and federal grants for which the district could apply in order to help pay for the increase of bandwidth. Read More
•April 27, 2016•
The current state of Illinois budget impasse is being felt locally in many ways. Moultrie County Counseling has suffered significant reductions according to Executive Director David Cole. The National Alliance of Mental Health reported that from 2009-2012 Illinois cut funding for community mental health programs by 30% or $187,000,000. With the exception of three other states, Illinois had the highest cuts in the nation. To have the current budget impasse on top of these previous reductions creates significant difficulties. Read More
At Jackson/Hamilton Intersection
•April 27, 2016•
The Sullivan Kiwanis Club bedding collection drive is at the corner of Jackson and Hamilton streets 10 a.m-noon Saturday, April 30.
Located at the northeast corner lot, Kiwanians will be on hand to accept new and slightly used bedding for donation to those in Sullivan with a need.
“There is help for struggling families with food and other essentials,” Sullivan Kiwanis treasurer Marci Thompson said. “More people than we realize simply can’t afford bedding.”
She explained this is a part of the Kiwanis mission serving the children of the world. Read More
Photo by Mike Brothers
Old Boiler Goes
The 60 year old 35,000 pound steam boiler that heated both the high school and middle school was removed by Henson Robinson Co. April 26 with a little help from Custom Crane Service. Director of Maintenance Kevin Landrus explained the 4 million BTU boiler had become unreliable and was inefficient. The high school and middle school will each have new systems with twice the efficiency and comfort as part of the HVAC systems upgrade in Sullivan schools over the summer.
Photo by Darian Hays
Lady Redskins face Meridian
Madison Wall threw a very good game and kept the Lady Redskins in the game, but fell to a very good Meridian team 6-1. Hitters faced an all-conference pitcher and didn’t have a great deal of success, but they kept battling until the end scoring one run and having the bases loaded in the 7th inning. The JV game went a little better with a 5-1 win. Abby Elzy pitched great.
•April 20, 2016•
A thirty two year old Windsor man was transported to Carle Hospital following a head on crash into the rear of a planter on Highway 32 Tuesday afternoon.
Macon County Chief Deputy Gary Carroll said that the Toyota RAV driven by Seth Polk was shredded beyond recognition after driving headon into the yellow planter being pulled south while he was traveling south on Rte 32 about a mile from the Bruce-Findlay road.
First transported to Sarah Bush Lincoln then to Carle Hosptial in Champaign, Polk managed to escape with a back injury.
The Moutlrie County Sheriff’s Department noted charges are pending further investigation, once Polk in released from the hospital.
Photo by Mike Brothers Using Sullivan’s existing Geographic Information Service (GIS) City Clerk Monte Johnson created a computer application for locating sites at Greenhill Cemetery.
•April 20, 2016•
By Mike Brothers
The city of Sullivan has been able to use existing Geographic Information Services to help find spaces in Greenhill Cemetery.
GIS coordinator and city clerk Monte Johnson has spent the past three years building a user friendly application to find spaces in the city-owned cemetery without leaving your home computer.
After getting on the city of Sullivan website, in the center of the page is a cemetery photo with the Greenhill Cemetery Viewing Application—click there.
Once you are on the Greenhill page you may search for the desired burial plots by name of the person or by the section and space number if a person has a deed. The application will then direct you to the location within the cemetery.
Johnson noted if a person has accurate GIS on their cell phone or tablet the GIS locator will take them within a few feet of the cemetery space.
This user friendly system didn’t appear overnight, and the process of getting every space in the cemetery into a mapping application has slowed in the older sections where little accurate information is available. Read More