Photo by RR Best
Sullivan police office manager Janet Dirks (left) holds a merit award presented to her at last week’s city council meeting by Mayor Ann Short (right) for her heroic handling of an emergency phone call in March that was pertaining to what was shortly after found to be a homicide.

Council also discusses creating possible fourth TIF district

April 22, 2015
by Ariana Cherry
Arthur/Sullivan Reporter

Sullivan mayor Ann Short and the city council presented Sullivan police office manager Janet Dirks an award at their regular meeting earlier this month for her heroic handling of a homicide call on Wednesday, March 11.
Many members of the Sullivan police force and chief John Love were present as Dirks accepted her award.
“Our entire police department did a great job that day,” said police chief John Love. “Janet was a lifeline. We are fortunate to have her.”
Two guests, TIF consultants Steve Kline and Gwen Crawford, presented reports about the current TIF districts and information about the possibility of forming another TIF district, the area of which includes the former Jackson Chevrolet building. Read More

Nearly every race re-elects candidates

April 8, 2015

by Keith Stewart
keith@newsprogress.com

In all but one of the five contested races Tuesday incumbents were all re-elected according to unofficial final tallies. Moultrie county clerk Georgia England says that final results will not be available until a canvass is completed on April 21, which will include any provisional and absentee votes remaining. However, England said she does not imagine the canvass to result in any change in the unofficial results. Overall voter turnout came in at just 15.76 percent, which the clerk described as low compared to previous consolidated elections. Read More

Photo by Keith Stewart
Sullivan paramedics are seen transporting a juvenile to a medevac helicopter Monday afternoon in Arthur after the boy fell from the third floor of the Moultrie County Courthouse in Sullivan.

Boy then transported by
helicopter from Arthur

March 25, 2015
by Keith Stewart
keith@newsprogress.com

A boy was being treated for injuries he received after he apparently jumped from the third floor of the Moultrie County Courthouse onto the first-floor rotunda a week ago Monday.
The boy, shackled and clad in an orange jumpsuit, had just left a courtroom about 3:15 p.m. Monday when he went over the railing.
Because the incident involves a juvenile, authorities are not releasing his name.
The boy was treated at the scene by Sullivan paramedics, who then rushed him by ambulance to Arthur, where a makeshift helicopter pad was set up in Eberhardt Park across from the fire station Monday afternoon. There, a medevac helicopter landed and transported the child to Carle in Urbana.
State’s attorney Jeremy Richey, who is handling all media requests regarding the incident, declined to comment about the boy’s condition or provide any details about the incident. Read More

Photo by RR Best
Authorities, including a member of the Illinois State Police Crime Scene Investigating unit were seen entering a residence at 503 W. McGill in Sullivan Thursday afternoon. Court records show that the residence belongs to Michael S. Yost, the man who was found with stab wounds Wednesday morning in addition to Sheri Randall, who was pronounced dead at the scene. Authorities are calling last Wednesday’s incident a homicide and have since brought Yost up on preliminary first degree murder charges.

March 10, 2015• 5:02 p.m.

Michael Yost arrested Tuesday afternoon
by Keith Stewart
keith@newsprogress.com

A Sullivan man was brought up on preliminary first degree murder charges Tuesday afternoon in connection with the death of a 43-old woman last Wednesday.
Illinois State Police announced Michael S. Yost of Sullivan as being arrested Tuesday after he was released from St. Mary’s hospital in Decatur. Yost was then incarcerated at the Moultrie County Jail.
Yost was found last Wednesday morning along with Sheri Randall in her Graham Street apartment in Sullivan. Both individuals were found unresponsive and suffering from stab wounds. While Randall was pronounced dead at the scene by Moultrie County Coroner Lynn Reed at 11:50 a.m. that morning, Yost was transported by ambulance to St. Mary’s Hospital in Decatur, where he underwent surgery.
According to Reed, Randall’s preliminary cause of death is multiple stab wounds on the abdomen. Reed said Tuesday that as is normal with autopsies, a toxicology report is pending, but he doesn’t expect it to change the outcome of the findings so far. Read More

Photo by David Mobley/Courtesy of Booth Library Special Collections, Eastern Illinois University.
Pictured is Guy Little, Jr. in costume as Scrooge’s nephew in “A Christmas Carol” from 1968.

Sullivan icon turns 80

by Joash Tiarks
Reporting in Sullivan

“Walk on through the wind,
Walk on through the rain,
Tho’ your dreams be tossed and blown.
Walk on, walk on with hope in your heart
And you’ll never walk alone,
You’ll never walk alone.”

- Carousel, ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’

A successful Broadway musical production and its poetic lyrics may not relate all that easily to the daily life of your average central Illinois resident, being far removed from the lights
and bustle of New York.
However, your average resident of Sullivan, Ill. could likely recall fun times with friends over food and drinks at Jibby’s restaurant, formerly just off the square from the county courthouse. At first glance a connection between Broadway productions in New York and Jibby’s in Sullivan might be hard to make. But that is before taking into account the life and work of Guy S. Little, who turned 80 this month, and his love for the theater.
Born in 1935 to a local farm manager and a former high school English teacher, Guy attended his first stage performance at age five when his mother Inis who herself directed high school plays out of a love for the theater, took him to the Lincoln Theatre in Decatur to see ‘The Merry Widow.’
“I was hooked, enthralled,” declared Little. “From that moment I knew what I wanted to do.”
This turned out to be no passing infatuation.
Guy would wholeheartedly pursue his passion for the stage from Sullivan to New York and New Jersey, to Miami, back across the midwest and out to Arizona, eventually owning a theater and a playhouse here in central Illinois. In addition he produced shows and managed theaters in Milwaukee and Phoenix and in numerous theatrical tours across the country, hosting hundreds of Broadway and Hollywood stars along the way.
Family legend tells of of how he produced his first play, ‘Hansel and Gretel’, at the age of nine with a set of marionette puppets in the backyard; of his wild night ride from New York to New Jersey with James Dean and the few days they roomed together while working in summer stock shows on the east coast as a teen on summer break from high school. Read More