News Progress

Scholarships for students in 10-county region

Sarah Bush Lincoln Health Foundation raised nearly $30,000 at the 41st annual Cheers! event to support the SBL Volunteer Guild Scholarship Program.

Cheers!, a high-energy cocktail party, was held March 1st at the Foxmore in Shelbyville featuring the band 8South to nearly 300 in attendance. The event also hosted a Texas Hold‘em style Poker Tournament which had 31 participants. This year’s grand prize winner, Eric Hutchinson, who won 4 Green seat Cardinals Baseball tickets valued at $1,500, donated by Roy Schmidt Honda. Winner of the raffle prizes were: Jenna Vogel, who won a pair of diamond earrings valued at $2,000, donated by Towne Square Jewelers; and Adam Lehman who won a Nashville, TN package including a two-night stay at the Graduate Hotel, valued at $650. 

•April 2, 2025•

HSHS St. Mary’s Hospital is expanding its out-patient laboratory hours to provide greater convenience and accessibility for patients. The new hours, now in effect, offer early morning, extended evening, and weekend availability, making St. Mary’s the only facility in Decatur to provide after-hours outpatient laboratory services. The new outpatient laboratory service hours are Monday - Friday from 5:30 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. and Saturday from 7:00 to 11:00 a.m. 

Online auction runs through April 6th 

•April 2, 2025•

An 1881 U.S. $10 gold coin, an 18-karat yellow gold chain link bracelet, and a baseball card with a piece of Joe DiMaggio’s bat are among the unclaimed property items being auctioned online through April 6. The spring online auc-tion includes vintage pocket watches, currency notes from various countries, and (25) 1 oz., .999 fine silver rounds.

“Our online auction is open to everyone, not just collectors. It’s a convenient way for people to shop for their personal collection or find a one-of-a-kind gift, like a piece of a Joe DiMaggio baseball bat,” said Illinois State Treasurer Michael Frerichs, whose office oversees unclaimed property in Illinois.

A total of 100 lots will be auctioned, some featuring multiple items. To view auction items, go to the catalog on the HiBid website: https://hibid.com/catalog/627601/lincoln-auction--illinois-state-treasurer-unclaimed-property .

Williamsburg Hill

•April 2, 2025•

by Janet Roney

We were feeling pretty blue one Sunday afternoon in late August 1988, when my husband and I took a little drive to check out the crops elsewhere. We were in the midst of the worst drought since the awful one we remembered as kids in 1954. Everywhere we looked the pastures were brown, the corn was stunted and curled, and the soybeans were wilted. 

It would have been a very depressing drive had we not had another goal in mind…a drive up Williamsburg Hill southwest of Shelbyville. My artist friend, Katie West from Cowden, had taken me there several years before to show me the old cemetery on top of the hill and the view from there, and I wanted Roger to see it. 

•March 26, 2025•

Lovington has enlisted the help of the MAPPING The Future of Your Community program through the Illinois Institute for Rural Affairs at Western Illinois University to take a proactive approach to planning for community and economic development. 

 The MAPPING program is a participant-driven strategic visioning and planning process whereby local leaders and citizen volunteers create a long-range vision for the future of our community and a plan of action for achieving it. A series of five, three-hour sessions, involving community members will be held to discuss: Where are we now? Where do we want to be? How are we going to get there? How do we make it happen? How do we make it happen and maintain momentum?