Columns

Heights News

The anticipation is multiplying for connoisseurs of the sights, sounds and smells which has become synonymous with Trefzger’s Bakery. Speak with businesses in Peoria Heights and many are drawing attention to the outside transformation of the old Rouse-Hazard bicycle factory.…

Political writers are fond of using “Kabuki dance” to refer to various tactics and machinations during political battles. We have unfortunately had too many examples of this during the past several years with government shutdowns, bailouts, failed grand bargains and…

Art in Peoria is looking up, figuratively and literally. The past few years have seen an increasing amount of public art after decades of art drought. Thankfully Preston Jackson’s islands of aesthetics around the city brought new life to our…

Labor Roundup

Low-paid workers stage another mass 1-day walkout April 14. Low-paid workers, fast-food workers, retail workers, adjunct professors, health-care workers and others from coast to coast staged another one-day walkout on April 14, again demanding “$15 and a union.” The protests…

Purge Continues With the March 15 election, voters continued to make changes on the District 150 school board. Dan Walther will be seated as District 3 representative. He replaces one timer Rick Cloyd. Cloyd will be remembered for trying to…

Ethics of Stewardship As I write about ethics of stewardship, today I am focusing on things outside our walls. Next time I will focus on use of building space. It was not until the late 19th century that grass lawns…

Snow Trillium Spring has officially blossomed! On St. Patrick’s Day, I managed to get out to a special place in the woods where some of the first flowers of spring peek through the leaf litter. It has been a mild…

Even as a young adult, I firmly believed in the likelihood of living happily ever after. Growing up in an era and environment which included many large families, though mine was not, I had naïve expectations about marriage and children.…