News Progress

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Students at Center School are practicing cursive writing on the blackboard.

•November 29, 2017•

By Ellen Ferrera
for the News Progress

A 1913 Platt map of Moultrie County shows 76 country schools scattered  about every two miles throughout the seven townships in the county.

There were no school buses in those days so the schools were located so no child had to walk more than two miles to school. In fact, one school was named Two Mile school.

Most were one room structures with one teacher, usually a female, who played piano and taught all eight grades.

There were no cafeterias so children brought their lunches, but in winter they were sometimes fed hot lunches by the local farm women who brought food to the schools.

A single stove heated the school, and students were called to a recitation bench in the front to recite daily lessons. Read More

Dr. Anne Walk

•November 29, 2017•

By Erin Valentine
For the News Progress

A look into our eyes tells more than ever before.

If your diet consists of burgers and fries over kale and spinach, it is now visible to scientists studying the effects of the nutrient lutein. And a lack of lutein could catch up with us both physically and mentally, according to research from University of Illinois’ Body Composition and Nutritional Neuroscience Lab, Department of Kinesiology and Community Health.

Anne Walk is a postdoctoral research associate at the University. She and her husband Ted, Sullivan superintendent of schools, also own Dedicated Realty in Sullivan.

Walk is part of the research group discovering the effects of lutein, a nutrient found primarily in green, leafy vegetables such as kale, turnip greens, spinach and romaine lettuce, avocados, eggs and yellow carrots. Their findings have been featured in the November issue of Woman’s Day and online for Reader’s Digest and Men’s Health. The new information was first published in the scientific journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience. Read More

Photo by Mike Brothers
Moultrie County Courthouse became a classroom with students from Okaw Valley High School civics classes participating in a mock trial. Circuit Judge Bradford Rau presided over the case with Brad Ackers students filling all other roles in the courtroom.

•November 29, 2017•

An Okaw Valley high school jury decided the driver of a stolen car was doing a good deed rather than committing a crime as they returned a not guilty verdict during mock trial proceedings in Moultrie County Circuit Court Nov. 17.

OVHS social studies teacher Brad Ackers took his civics classes to the Moultrie County Courthouse Friday. The students participated in a mock trial over which sitting Moultrie County Circuit Judge Brad Rau presided.

“The simulation allowed our civic students to fill the roles in the courtroom ranging from court reporters, clerks, prosecutors and defense attorneys to defendants, witnesses, jurors and bailiff,” Akers said of the exercise. “This gives them a chance to experience trial procedures in the actual setting.”

That setting was complete with presiding Circuit Judge Rau on the bench. Rau not only guided the students through the court procedure but answered questions afterwards.

His comments were based on his background as prosecutor and public defender, explaining he had defended people who were guilty in the past and was able to get them released when prosecutors failed to present a solid case. Read More