BY TERRA BROCKMAN The Illinois Department of Agriculture has named a fifth generation central Illinois farmer, Harold Wilken, the winner of the annual R.J. Vollmer Award for Sustainable Agriculture. Wilken, together with his wife Sandy and son Ross, are the…
BY CLARE HOWARD Kim Crandall walks her dogs, Roo and Mia, everyday on the streets around her Morton home and in the nearby park bordering corn and soybean fields. The walk gives her time to reflect on an alarming pattern…
BY IMAM KAMIL MUFTI The Moslems (Muslims) Are Coming! After giving quite a bit of thought to this column, I decided to talk about a common phrase I hear in the media and from some of our politicians about…
By BILL KNIGHT Many Peorians may have only a vague idea of the difference between a slap shot and a chip shot, or think a hat trick needs a bunny, or a power play involves the Koch brothers. But the…
BY CLARE HOWARD Dr. Bento Soares knows cancer too intimately from both a personal and academic perspective. He moved here 11 months ago for his position as senior associate dean for research in cancer biology and pharmacology at the University…
Citing a longstanding culture of sexual discrimination, a lawsuit filed in November in U.S. District Court in Peoria is seeking damages from Sherman’s Place appliance and furniture store in excess of $2 million plus legal fees on behalf of…
The national president of the Sierra Club said at the annual meeting of the state conference of the NAACP held in Peoria that attempting to protect the coal industry because it provides jobs is a shortsighted argument based on a…
Many young adults piled up huge student debt to get college degrees enabling them to pay off loans but face a slowly recovering job market. On the other side of the career spectrum, retirees worry that fixed incomes won’t be…
It’s jarring when reality thumps wishful thinking. But “if wishes were horses, beggars would ride,” as it’s said. (Maybe the central Illinois equivalent is, “If wishes were caterpillars, butterflies would come.”) Anyway, the Peoria economy seems to be crying, “My…
DANFORTH, ILL. – On a warm September day on the cusp of harvest season, about 70 farmers from throughout the Midwest drove to a cavernous metal equipment barn on Harold Wilken’s organic grain farm in Iroquois County. They came to…
