We don't write papers, we build scrapbooks
We don't write papers, we build scrapbooks
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I was born in Champaign, Illinois. My mother taught at the U of I while I was young. For five generations every member of my family got their degree from the U of I, and both of my parents are burried in the cemetery across the street from Memorial Stadium - behind where the Panther fans were sitting for the state title game. The point being, I have a lot of connections there, and look forward to seeing old friends and family members whenever I come down - even if it is a "working trip." But I...
What’s your favorite cookie? The typical answer is chocolate chip, and I love my wife’s chocolate chip cookies – especially when fresh and warm out of the oven when the chocolate is a bit on the melty side. But man does not live by chocolate chip alone. We are about to hit the holiday baking season, and the thought of your standard Christmas sugar cookie covered with icing and sprinkles as decoration will certainly be high on the list. But I think we’ve been spoiled. If you haven’t gotten a...
The Eastland Cougars are not following the typical script of small school basketball teams. They don't really have five starters with a few on the bench. No, their bench needs a few extra chairs. "You saw how many kids we have," said head coach Nicole Brinker. "And they're all about the same. So, I tell them to go out there and give me everything you've got for two minutes, then we send out more. IF we can keep that up, I don't know how many teams will be able to handle it." Monday night in Lana...
In my review of Lena-Winslow’s play, there was some confusion in regard to why they were without a director, and while I thought I pointed it out, it was apparently not clear enough. Former Director, Mary Ellen Modica, and assistant Director Renee Schulz, had resigned back in 2020 – we even honored Mary Ellen at the Theater Awards for her many years of dedication to the program. The next year COVID shut almost everything down. But there was no advertising, or public attempt to find a rep...
It was a magical volleyball season as we all got to follow Aquin claim their first state championship. But as proven throughout the post season, the strength of the NUIC is far and away better than any other conference, and seeing how we cover a lot of NUIC teams, who do we feel would comprise an All Area Team? Glad you asked. One point that I should mention, while I respect the selections made by coaches in their All Conference picks, I often don't agree with them. All too often they have to...
I admit it, cooking has never been one of my strengths. “Whoa, whoa, whoa! Is this going to be another one of your stupid columns where you try and make excuses for yourself?” “Hi honey, nice of you to stop in.” “Don’t ‘Hi honey’ me. I have sat back and said nothing every time you come across with some lame excuses for why your inherent laziness is perfectly acceptable. But I’m drawing the line here.” “I’m not lazy.” “I had to buy you slip-on shoes because you didn’t want to bend over to...
It had to be Forreston. Of all the teams in the NUIC, the biggest challenge to the Panthers over the last decade has been the Forreston Cardinals. For five straight years Lena-Winslow has been in the 1A State semi-finals, and the one time they lost ... was to Forreston. And this season, as the Panthers dominated every opponent by more than 22 points, and piled up running clocks every week ... the one exception was their 28-14 tough win against Forreston. So even when the Cardinals were 4-3 and...
The Aquin Bulldogs were never challenged in the 1A State semi-finals by the Sterling Newman Comets. In fact, you could tell the match was as the two teams made their way out onto the floor. On one side, you had a somber faced Comet squad, with stern looks on their faces, all trying to pump each other up with calls of "Let's Go!", and "We want this." That were not very convincing. On the other side, the Aquin Bulldogs came out onto the floor ... dancing. Ainsley Stovall is the biggest...
Very rarely do I come out of a show thinking "Damn, that kid was amazing." I mean, I've seen some excellent performers over the many years covering are productions – and have fond memories of the best from each program covered. But I never thought Freeport would see the likes of some of the mega-stars I remember like Hartog, Eifert, Jacobs and Werntz ... But before I reveal the kid who wow'd me, let's get into some of the other stuff first. (How's that for a tease?) The set was impressive. I w...
A near tragedy took place at Lena-Winslow when their Fall play was put into serious jeopardy because there was no director to be found. After several years, Mary Ellen Modica had stepped down, and for reasons we suspect, but won't get into – only days before auditions were supposed to take place ... there was no replacement. I won't lie, I heard about it, knew some of the performers, and was although schedules were impossible to juggle, I was seriously considering stepping in myself to make s...
I won't lie, I was not looking forward to seeing River Ridge's production of the Adams Family last weekend. Freeport did the same show, and due to tight schedules I had seen their production Thursday night, so I doubted River Ridge could possibly come close to what an established program like Freeport could do. I mean, they have a full fly system, tons of lights and pay for a technical director just to build sets, how could the Wildcats compare? Well, I am dead serious when I say – my fears w...
I know all about Spring cleaning – my wife usually has to drag me out of my chair to help … well, I guess she only has to threaten not to cook (that typically works). In either case we trudge out to the shed and rag out the bench swing, and all of the patio furniture and adorn various items throughout the yard. My wife likes snails – don’t ask me why – so she has a collection of ceramic snails that have to be pulled out and placed in their appropriate spot all over the property. And I won’t eve...
The Aquin Lady Bulldogs completed a 41-1 season by winning the 1A State Championship over Springfield Lutheran 25-20, 25-15. But it might take several weeks, months, or even years until the full depth of just what they did really sinks in. Make no mistake, Springfield Lutheran was good – very good – and they came out in game one claiming the early lead over the Bulldogs, then were doing what seemed impossible ... they were holding that lead as they claimed a 12-10 advantage. The turning poi...
The match was over. Everybody knew it. River Ridge had come out far too excited in game one, making far too many hitting errors in a 25-16 loss, and now sat staring up at the wrong end of an 18-12 score in game two as Ottawa Marquette was in firm control with a kill that forced the Wildcats to take their final time out. "We were so excited and nervous about being here," Gwen Miller admitted. "We needed to relax." As the Newark student section filed into the gym, they even noted that, "this one...
Something had to give. All season long the talk throughout the volleyball world in northwest Illinois had been – "What will happen when Aquin plays Galena?" Lena-Winslow and Dakota players were sick of hearing it. Everyone did everything they could to see that it wouldn't happen. But both Aquin and Galena had taken down every challenger. In fact, they were the only two teams left in the 1A Tournament who had not lost to a 1A team all season. Galena stood at 36-1 – with their only loss com...
A Super Sectional is supposed to be a classic battle between two powerful teams hoping to punch their ticket to the State finals ... but that already took place at the Sectional finals when Aquin topped Galena. So the battle with Grant Park was ... well ... a tad on the ugly side. "We had just played Galena, and they (Grant Park) were just getting the ball back over to us," admitted Lucy Arndt. "It was hard to get our energy going." After an initial 2-0 lead by the Dragons, Aquin flexed its' mus...
Gunar Lobdell had 180 yards and three touchdowns; Jake Zeal added 97 yards and two more scores, and Gage Dunker did what Gage Dunker typically does – amass yards and reach the end zone. All season long the three headed monster that makes up the Panther ground game has gotten the headlines and pictures in the paper, (well, at least our paper) but we need to give credit where credit is due and celebrate the men in the trenches. Senior Henry Engel, Senior Jake Tippett, Junior Odin Stabenow, S...
Let me say from the very beginning that there were a lot – and I do mean "a lot" of really nice performances in EPC's production of 'The Dearly Undeparted'. Keegan Strauch made a perfect money grubbing villain; Dylan Olvera was ... Dylan Olvera (which is a compliment); I loved Allison Weese as Ace Bandage; Emma Lagos was a scene stealer as Ooga; the entire Chedarwax family was great; Neveah Gross was the perfect touch of crazy; and the chemistry between Hudson Groezinger and Caylie Schubert w...
I don’t know about you, but I am seriously glad that the election is over. Part of the reason is because I was sick and tired of seeing commercials on television where candidates were repeatedly bashing each other. I swear, at times I felt like my choices were between Adoph Hitler or Atilla the Hun – it was nuts. Then there were all of the mailers, I mean – Holy Crap! I counted, and over one week we got 17 political mailers at our house. It was ridiculous, and got to the point where my wife and...
In the opening round of the Polo 1A Volleyball Regional, the Eastland Cougars and Pearl City Wolves both came in with young teams, but it was the experience of the Cougars that carried them to the 25-14, 25-22 sweep to advance into the semi-finals against Sterling Newman. Game one was over early. Maybe it was the Regional atmosphere, maybe the Wolves had Cougars in the headlights, whatever the reason – Pearl City came out flat, and never got into a rhythm. Of the 25 points the Cougars needed t...
In their opening match of the Christian Life Volleyball Regional, the Scales Mound Hornets deserved to win. The Hornets only made five unforced errors, while Dakota made nine; and only made three service errors, while Dakota made five. In fact, after trading points back and forth until it was 10-10, the Hornets claimed the lead and looked destined to pull off what many would have seen as the biggest Cinderella story of the post season. The Indians used their first time out after junior Rylee...
I'd seen it hundreds of times before, a team fought hard in game one of a volleyball match only to come up inches short. But after trying so hard and leaving everything out on the floor in the effort, they always got blown out in game two. Wednesday night after the cross-country trek to Alden-Hebron (Thanks for nothing IHSA) I was sure I was going to see it again. The Orangeville Broncos had pulled off a stunner in game one by beating Durand 25-14 – although in all fairness, it was Durand who w...
Anyone who has ever played sports knows the feeling, a mistake there, a good play by the opponent there, and suddenly no matter what you do, or how hard you try, things seem to be going against you. No sport is affected more by momentum than Volleyball, and that was put on display for all to see in the Regional championship between the Galena Pirates and Lena-Winslow Panthers. Early in game one, the Panthers couldn't do anything right, and Galena couldn't do anything wrong. When it got to 10-3...
I've always loved Halloween. I never got into horror movies, and can remember going to see the original movie "Halloween" after a friend had told me every single thing that was going to happen in the movie so I didn't look like a panicked idiot in front of the date I was taking – and I STILL looked like a panicked idiot as it scared the poop out of me – even knowing what would happen ahead of time. So, no, I am not a horror movie fan – except for the classics – Frankenstein, Dracula, Wolf Ma...
Walking out of the stadium following Lena-Winslow's round one playoff win over Chicago Richards Saturday, it was a good thing there was nobody left in the ticket booth because everyone would have been asking for refunds. To be perfectly honest, Lena-Winslow's JV scrimmage against Chicago Richards only took place because so many small schools have shifted to the eight man format. With fewer schools competing, even though Richards was 5-4 (thanks to a forfeit win) they probably would not have qual...
