This past month, Peoria audiences were able to see performances from the great powers of the past two centuries and one from the current. The Bradley theater department produced the 2010 winner of the Olivier Award for Best New Play,…
Now that Gov. Bruce Rauner has proposed slashing budgets and funding across the board attempting to make Illinois more solvent, the arts, always first to go, are slated for elimination from the Illinois educational system. So what that kids won’t…
In 1943, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) started promoting dairy products as part of the 7 Basic Food Groups. It recommended adults drink 2 or more glasses of milk a day. This promotion of milk and the dairy…
Think tank defends crackdown on law-breaking contractors. In Washington, a progressive think-tank is defending President Obama’s executive order cracking down on federal contractors who break labor laws. Karla Walter of the Center for American Progress reminded a House committee of…
Pictures rattle on the walls and plates shake in the cabinets at Joann and Galen Siscoe’s home a dozen times each day when freight trains pass on the tracks about 75 feet from their front door. The couple has lived…
New York Times best-selling graphic novelist and Peoria illustrator Skottie Young might be offbeat, but he’s not off-balance. Whether work and fun, his job and his family, or words and pictures, Young is about balance, despite a visual style that’s…
As exclusively reported in this column by this monthly newspaper, Bradley athletic director Michael Cross is going to be replaced. It was made official with the Cross resignation, Monday, Feb. 16. We also predicted that Bradley president Joanne Glasser was…
For years, the Joe Maddon-Peoria story has been that in 1984 Maddon introduced himself to the new Peoria Suns owner Pete Vonachen by saying, “Hi, I’m Joe Maddon, and I’m your manager. I just want you to know that I’ve…
Gov. Bruce Rauner has not definitively confirmed or denied he is prochoice. His first state-of-the-state address focused on lots of choices but not choice to have an abortion. Rauner is a millionaire pragmatist. Money has meaning to him. The “burdensome”…
Injustice Pervasive in the Justice System Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, made a rare public appearance at Bradley University Feb. 12. It was standing room only in the Michel Student…
By Nancy Long To hear Gov. Bruce Rauner’s proposal to allow local governments to establish “employee empowerment” zones where employees could get all the benefits of union membership without paying union dues, one would think he is acknowledging the benefits…
We developed silos to effectively store items, like harvested crops, in bulk supply. Here in the Midwest they are easily identified, as we drive through our states labeled as the “breadbasket” that feeds the world. In doing so, we cross…
In 1966 when I was 18, I traveled on a cruise ship to visit my sister and her family living in the Philippines. It was a marvelous adventure after the seasickness subsided. An infirmary visit and medicine helped tremendously. The ship I was…
Aged hands clasped the black leather-bound book as a thin-framed man walked along the bustling streets of downtown Peoria. His destination was the great archives at the Public Library. His mission was to preserve over 40 years of memories for…
View the cityofwestpeoria.com for all information on snow issues. It has been listed here several times and also in the West Peoria News. You can reference whatever you need at the city website which is likely easier to locate than…
Peoria Players has given us the yin and yang of Weimar Germany with its recent offerings of “The Sound of Music” and “Cabaret.” TSOM is all country, set in the Alps of Salzburg with singing nuns, children, true love…
