•July 25, 2018• First Mid Bank & Trust was named 2017 Central/Southern Illinois Community Bank of the Year Award by the U.S. Small Business Administration. This award is presented to the community bank with the best overall performance record for lending to small businesses in Illinois. The Small Business Administration (SBA) is a United States government agency that provides support to entrepreneurs and small businesses. … Read More
•July 25, 2018• The Okaw Valley CUSD #302 announced the approval of a $1.5 million athletic facility to be built at Okaw Valley High School in Bethany and unveiled its new school logos. The OV School Board approved the use of existing district fund balance July 19 to construct the facility. This construction is scheduled to start in the coming weeks and is scheduled to be finished for the 2019 spring sports season. Included in the new facilities will be an eight-lane synthetic all-weather track, a new softball field for middle school and high school teams and a new baseball … Read More
Lena Gillenwater Lena Ann (Botts) Gillenwater, 96, formerly of Lovington, passed away in Imboden Creek Nursing Home in Decatur Tuesday, July 17, 2018 at 6:27 p.m. with family at bedside. Funeral services were conducted at 11 a.m. Friday, July 20 at Strode Funeral Home in Tompkinsville, Kentucky with the burial following in Harlan Crossroads Cemetery. She was born May 26, 1922 in Monroe County, Ky. to the late William Earlie and Pearliza Smith Botts. … Read More
•July 25, 2018• Property tax exemptions are a good way for taxpayers to save, but they also cost the county revenue, and that is why the rules that guide them should be fair for everyone. Moultrie County supervisor of assessments Lori Barringer announced that is why a new application for leasehold exemptions begins with tax year 2019. “We discovered the past applications failed to have copies of the leases attached along with other incorrect information,” Barringer said, noting the new exemption form includes a March 29 application deadline for each year. There are approximately 300 properties in Moultrie County affected … Read More
Dear Editor, The July 11 issue contained a letter from Ms. Ellen Dick-Ferrera who seemed to want to reduce the issue of abortion, the deliberate terminating of the life of an unborn child, to what she calls a “choice”. Throughout her remarks she champions what she calls “choice”. While knowing, as she writes, that she is not fond of crotchety and those she considers to be ignorant old men, as a former unborn child who is well on my way to becoming, if not ignorant, a crotchety old man, what I know for sure is that if my mother had … Read More
•July 25, 2018• By Mike Koziatek Of the Belleville News-Democrat A gaggle of rambunctious fifth-graders scrambled to the top of the 100-foot-high Monks Mound to get a great view of the Gateway Arch in downtown St. Louis and burn off energy at the end of their class field trip to the Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site. Before climbing Monks Mound, the Gardner Elementary students from Waterloo, Illinois, toured the historic site’s spacious interpretive center in Collinsville, Illinois, and learned how Native Americans based at the mounds conducted trade with people in other regions, including the Great Lakes for copper and … Read More
•July 25, 2018• By Ellen Ferrera for the News Progress The great comic actor W.C. Fields had a rule of never performing with children or dogs. If you see “Annie’’ at The Little Theatre you will know why. They steal the show! The children (and dog) are such polished performers and just carry the show in ways you don’t expect. If you have or know children who have never seen musical theater, please give them the gift of a ticket to “Annie”. You will open a whole new world of wonder and enchantment for them. Those of a certain age … Read More
•July 25, 2018• Moultrie County, as Trustee, has completed their tax deed proceedings on real estate properties that were delinquent for 2014 and prior real estate taxes. The County, as Trustee, will now offer for sale the real estate obtained to the public. They will offer approximately nine items through a sealed bid auction sale. All sealed bids must be in the Moultrie County treasurer’s office located in the Moultrie County Courthouse, 10 S. Main Street, Suite 10 in Sullivan no later than the close of business of August 24, 2018. … Read More
•July 25, 2018• By Jim Nowlan NP Guest Columnist This column is one of several about colorful but little-known characters from Illinois history, written in tribute to our 2018 bicentennial this year. Charles Tyson Yerkes and George E. Cole were larger-than-life figures who squared off in the Gilded Age of the 1890s, when Chicago politics made today’s game look like tiddlywinks. In 1886, fresh out of jail in Philadelphia for financial improprieties, Yerkes exchanged a loyal wife and six children for a stunning beauty. The twosome headed for Chicago, the fastest growing city in the world, to make his fortune, … Read More