Parents Who Trained Horses and the Kids Who Benefited

News Progress Posted on by

•April 3, 2019•

By Evelyn Burtcheard
for the News Progress

Each spring Dad would take on the job of breaking two to four head of horses for other farmers. He would use our team of Molly and Queen to break the young horses to work in the fields.
Dad would hitch the new horse next to Queen who was a big, unflappable strawberry roan horse that knew what her job was and did it well. She would brook no nonsense from any other horse young or old.
As her name stated she was the Queen. The young horses would try to pull away, ahead, back just about anything except go straight forward with no fuss. Queen would put up with their antics for a while, then she would start by laying her ears back and threatening to bite. If the young horse did not heed her warnings, then the next threat would become a promise, and she would bite, usually on the neck. A few of these encounters and the young horse began to work as it was supposed to.
Once in a while Molly would act as though she had gone senile, and Queen would put her in her place. Dad always said Queen was worth any two horses on the farm. Read More

Many Horses in the Race for Legalized Sports Gambling

News Progress Posted on by

•April 3, 2019•

By Grant Morgan
Capitol News Illinois

Legislative momentum is in place to bring sports betting to Illinois.
But it will take weeks for all interested parties to get their opinions to lawmakers.
That process started Thursday, with more than three hours of testimony during a House Revenue and Finance Committee hearing.
Committee members balanced the opinions of various representatives of the state’s gambling, horse racing, sports and technology industries.
Industry representatives, meanwhile, were tasked with choosing the best of five different plans to legalize sports betting in the state.
Those plans take shape in five separate amendments added to Rep. Michael Zalewski’s (D-Riverside) gaming bill, House Bill 3308.
They can be separated into two categories. Four plans would have legalized sports gambling overseen by the Illinois Gaming Board. One would put all sports betting in the state under the Illinois Lottery’s authority.
Advocates for the Lottery plan, led by Rep. Lisa Hernandez (D-Cicero), say it could benefit the more than 10,000 small retailers, such as convenience stores and gas stations that already sell Lottery tickets.
But the plan does not allow for hugely popular online or mobile betting, and would limit the types of bets that can be made.
For example, the lottery system could not accommodate in-game sports betting like whether a basketball player makes a free throw, or whether a football player gains a certain number of yards. Read More

Collecting Milkweed Pods to Help Make Lifejackets for the Navy

News Progress Posted on by

•March 27, 2019•

By Evelyn Burtcheard
for the News Progress

During World War II the schools and any boys’ or girls’ organizations, scouts and 4-H kids were asked to search and collect milkweed pods.
The fluffy white inside the seed pods was used to make lifejackets for the Navy. Milkweed contents replaced something called kapok which grew on trees in the East Indies but was lost to the Japanese during the war.
Uncle Ray, Mom’s youngest brother, was in Germany so all his nieces and nephews joined in the effort to collect the milkweed pods.
Mom cut burlap sacks in half, stitched the bottoms and tied the tops together leaving a small opening for us to put the pods through. If an overripe pod burst, the white fluff inside went everywhere.
At first we gathered the pods on foot, and then we started riding our roan mare Queen to collect pods faster and easier. Dad showed us how to hang the bags over our horse’s withers or flank which we did, and off we went to gather pods. Read More

Ill. House Passes Bill to Raise Tobacco Purchase Age to 21

News Progress Posted on by

•March 20, 2019•

By Rebecca Anzel
Capitol News Illinois

Lawmakers on Tuesday successfully passed a bill through the House raising the age to purchase tobacco products to 21.
The legislation moves to the Senate for a vote expected next week. There it will likely receive enough support to land on Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s desk.
Although the governor has not definitively indicated whether he supports the measure — which would raise the minimum age to purchase cigarettes, e-cigarettes, vapes, chewing tobacco and other products containing nicotine in Illinois — his spokeswoman said in a written statement that Pritzker “looks forward to reviewing the legislation to raise the smoking age.”
And Senate President John Cullerton, a Democrat from Chicago, indicated at a press event in early February that Pritzker would sign the “Tobacco 21” legislation if both chambers approved it first.
The bill’s passage comes as a victory for sponsor Camille Lilly, a Democratic representative from Chicago. This is the fourth time in as many years a version of this measure was introduced in the General Assembly, where historically it would succeed in the Senate only to fail in the House.
During the previous legislative session, both chambers approved “Tobacco 21.” When former Gov. Bruce Rauner did not sign it, only the Senate was able to override his veto. Read More

Donny Gets More Than He Bargained for at Haunted House

News Progress Posted on by

•March 20, 2019•

By Evelyn Burtcheard
NP Guest Columnist

On our small farm horses were a big part of our livelihood. We always dreamed of riding each one that came to us. As we grew old enough to have our own horses we were in seventh heaven. The horse that I claimed was the black Morgan named Billy, a most intelligent little gentleman. Uncle Frank knew of some people who had a horse for sale; maybe he was trying to be redeemed from the goat fiasco.
Lady was the horse that Donny fell in love with. She had been broken to work double and to ride but she had some habits of which Mom did not approve. She was a long-legged blaze faced sorrel that was reputed to have been of racehorse heritage, and that suited Donny just fine.
The fact that she could run like the wind fit his lifestyle very well. Donny and I had numerous races in and out of the pasture. I don’t think I ever won even one race. Donny would give me a head start, and as he and Lady passed me, Billy would invariably bite at her as she ran past, much to the glee of Donny.
Lady had a bad habit. When she was ready to quit playing, she would head for the barn and try to rub the rider against the side of the barn. This did not bother Donny. As they headed for the barn, he would get on his hands and knees on her bare back until she had gotten past the barn. Then he was careful not to go near the barn again. Mom did not approve of this and started work to break the habit which she accomplished quickly. Read More

Lawmakers Push for Medicaid Managed Care Reform

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Quicker payments to safety net hospitals among proposals

•March 13, 2019•

By Peter Hancock
Capitol News Illinois

Democratic state leaders said Tuesday that Illinois’ “managed care” Medicaid system is threatening the viability of hospitals and access to health care in many parts of the state, and they are pushing legislation they say would reform the system.
“We have a broken managed care program in Illinois, and it’s threatening the very future of our health care providers and the patients they serve all around this state,” Senate Majority Leader Kimberly Lightford said during a news conference unveiling the legislation.
Under the managed care system, which Illinois launched in 2011, insurance companies are paid a flat, per-patient monthly fee to manage the care of most Medicaid recipients. These managed care organizations, or MCOs, are required to reimburse health care providers and make sure patients receive follow-up care with specialists, therapists or rehabilitation facilities following a medical procedure.
In theory, the managed care system is supposed to improve patient care and lower costs by avoiding preventable emergency room visits or hospital readmissions.
But Lightford, a Democrat from the western Chicago suburb of Maywood, argued that neither of those goals has been achieved. Instead of managing care, she argued, the MCOs are merely managing costs through excessive denials of claims and delayed payments, especially for facilities known as safety net hospitals, which serve large numbers of Medicaid and uninsured patients, and small, rural “critical access” hospitals that have 25 or fewer beds. Read More

Growing Up In Sullivan: Visiting the Past – Anticipating the Future

News Progress Posted on by

•March 13, 2019•

By Jerry L. Ginther
NP Guest Columnist

I’ll concede that viewing the past from my vantage point necessarily presents a somewhat different concept than the ones of my children and grandchildren. Most of them see those times as an adventure not unlike the TV episodes of “Little House on the Prairie.” What young boy would not appreciate going to town with his father in a horse-drawn wagon to load up supplies. When they were younger, they were thrilled by the adventure and dismissed the hardships and dangers that were common to that era.
With the knowledge I have acquired from my immediate ancestor’s stories, I know that it was a time of perpetual, laborious activity with few tools to mitigate the difficulty of farming the prairie lands. Some of their recollections were of tough times. They were the pioneers of their era braving the elements. Illness and injury were frequent companions. The weather, often unpredictable, caused additional hardships. In those days they could hardly forecast the weather for the next day with any degree of accuracy. However realistic my perception may be, it was not just from the years of my life, but also from the chronicles of my parents and grandparents.
My grandparents were born before 1900. As a matter of fact, my father’s parents were 19 and 20 years old at the turn of the 20th century. I suppose that what they did not have impressed me more than what they had. When I realized they had no automobiles or telephones and had never heard of an airplane, their history became all the more interesting to me. Read More

Ill. Rep Supports National Popular Vote Alliance

News Progress Posted on by

•March 6, 2019•

By Grant Morgan
Capitol News Illinois

Capitol News Illinois reported on Springfield GOP Rep. Tim Butler’s bill to change how Illinois allocates its Electoral College votes for president last week.
Somewhat forgotten, however, is a decade-old law which already binds the state to change its electoral process without having to do anything more.
That law, signed by former Gov. Rod Blagojevich in 2008, included Illinois in a multi-state alliance to effectively bypass the country’s Electoral College.
Rather than award their electoral votes to the winner of the statewide popular vote, the compact requires member states to award their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote.
If enough states sign onto the compact to push their cumulative voting power to more than 270 electoral votes – the amount required to win the presidency, the compact will take effect in the next presidential election cycle. Read More

Understanding Illinois: Get Kids Out of Violent Neighborhoods!

News Progress Posted on by

•March 6, 2019•

By Jim Nowlan
NP Guest Columnist

A thoughtful, experienced educator friend of mine has a proposal for getting kids at extremely high risk of failure out of their violent neighborhoods—send them to boarding school!
The idea isn’t so nutty as it might appear at first blush. The state of Illinois already has experience with running a boarding school: The Illinois Math and Science Academy (IMSA) near Aurora. And the expense of taking kids out of the worst of the worst neighborhoods during their formative years might cost less than prison.
Charles (Charlie) Roy of Peoria is a senior fundraiser for Bradley University. He returned to Illinois from California a few years ago to be close to family. In the Sunshine State, Charlie was president (headmaster) of Villanova Preparatory School, an Augustinian Catholic school favored by Hollywood celebrities and the like, as well as for a few poor kids.
Charlie says that children from poor backgrounds can do well at residential boarding schools. So, Charlie proposes that Illinois consider piloting one or more 7th thru 12th grade “prep schools” for kids identified as otherwise likely—maybe almost certainly—to end up in prison. Read More

Understanding Illinois: Are Farmers Becoming Serfs to Big Ag?

News Progress Posted on by

•February 27 2019•

By Jim Nowlan
NP Guest Columnist

Based on what I hear from atop my perch in rural central Illinois, I worry that my farmer friends may become but serfs to Big Agriculture. That is, farmers provide the labor, soils and risk in service to a very few global chemical and other ag companies. The farmers must buy their inputs from these few companies, yet the companies call most of the shots and reap the rewards, it seems.
I grew up a “town boy” in a tiny farm town; never knew much about ag, still don’t. After a career away, I moved back to my hometown. I love my farmer friends and appreciate the bounty of American agriculture, so I yearn to be proved wrong about all this.
The following is what I observe and also hear from my farmer friends at the back table at Connie’s Country Kitchen in my town.
The farmers buy seeds, but don’t own them; they cannot plant with seed they have harvested. They used to own and work on their equipment; now farmers often lease, because it’s too expensive to buy.
Well, you say, at least farmers can decide what crops they want to plant. Yes, to paraphrase Henry Ford, they may plant any crops they want so long as they are corn and beans. That is because nothing much else is protected by subsidized government crop insurance, which includes some price protection. Thus, the bankers who hold the loans on land and for spring planting needs insist that the farmers buy this insurance, which also indirectly protects Big Ag. Read More