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Bigfoot sighting?There has been a Bigfoot sighting of sorts at Lake Camp A Lot near Percy. Campground proprietor Jamie Falkenberry said he made two bigfoot cut-outs after seeing a similar one near Marissa. Falkenberry made one because his grandson wanted one, then he decided to make a couple more and place them on each side of the campground access road along Route 4 to give kids a little excitement and adult drivers a chuckle.

Emling is jail officer of the yearBy Travis Lott

Perry County hasn’t had a lot of good news lately—especially in regard to the county jail—but that changed last week, when a correctional officer for the jail was named Correc-tional Officer of the Year by the Illinois State Sheriff’s Association.Richard Emling was giv-

en the honor for his heroic actions that saved the life of a suicidal inmate August 19 of last year.According to Sheriff Steve

Bareis, Emling responded to a call from Cell Block J at approximately 6:45 p.m.

It was reported that an inmate was bleeding and had trouble breathing.The inmate had used part

of a pen to puncture an ar-tery in his arm, Bareis said.Emling arrived at the cell,

finding the inmate face down in a pool of blood between the toilet and his bunk. He called for backup and for dispatch to send an ambulance.Emling picked up the

inmate and placed him on his back in the middle of the cell. The inmate wasn’t breathing, and Emling couldn’t feel a pulse. He started CPR, and after sev-

eral minutes of compres-sions, the inmate opened his eyes and began breath-ing on his own.As Emling and another

officer searched for the wound, the inmate was drifting in and out of con-sciousness. Emling contin-ued to do sternum rubs to keep the inmate alive and conscious.EMTs arrived at 6:52.“It’s a good thing he was

working that night,” Bareis said.Emling’s employment sta-

tus was not certain through

From left are jail supervisor Doug Clark, Richard Emling and Sheriff Steve Bareis.

From left are Jana, Jaci and Jerry South.

Chester senior getsa huge scholarship

By Travis LottA Chester High School senior has received a $104,280

scholarship to Maryville University in St. Louis.Jaci South, daughter of Jerry and Jana South, was the

recipient of the award, which will pay for her tuition. She will be required to pay only room and board.South said she interviewed for a few different scholar-

ships at the school.She said she is grateful for the honor and was surprised to

be chosen. However, when looking at her academic record, her selection is not astonishing.The requirements for the scholarship is a score of at least

28 on the ACT and a 3.75 grade point average. South blew that out of the water with a 33 ACT and 4.07 GPA. “My hard work paid off,” she said.“We are very proud of all the effort she has put into re-

ceiving this honor,” said Jerry South.South said she plans to go into the field of computer sci-

ence. She is interested in web page design, programming and artificial intelligence.South credited Chester High School computer teacher

Brenda Coop with her field choice.“I honestly don’t think I would be going into computer

science if it weren’t for her,” South said. “She’s the nicest person in the world. It’s impossible to not enjoy a class with her.”

Fingerprinting for FOID card proposed

By Jerry Nowicki Capitol News Illinois

Illinois State Police Direc-tor Brendan Kelly says his department has stepped up illegal firearm ownership enforcement, but the ISP needs greater resources to continue the job, including fingerprints of Firearm Owner Identification Card applicants.During a news confer-

ence, Kelly gave an update about enforcement efforts and announced support for Senate Bill 1966, a measure that would increase FOID card fees and mandate fin-gerprinting of applicants.The House passed the bill

in May, but a Senate meas-ure to agree with that final language stalled before a vote. It remains in the Sen-ate assignments committee but could be taken up this legislative session.Under the bill, new FOID

card applications and re-newals would increase 200 percent, costing $20 every five years, up from the cur-rent $10 every 10 years.

The fees would fund law enforcement revocation ef-forts for those not legally allowed to own FOID cards or guns.Gun advocacy groups

such as the Federal Fire-arms Licensees of Illinois and the Illinois State Rifle Association oppose the bill and have argued that fin-gerprinting and higher fees hinder Second Amend-ment rights.In a news release, As-

sistant House Republican Leader C.D. Davidsmeyer of Jacksonville called the plan an overreach by law-makers and the ISP.“Director Kelly is push-

ing legislation that will require all legal gun own-ers in Illinois to give their fingerprints to the state police when requesting or renewing their FOID card,” Davidsmeyer said in the re-lease. “This is a continued attack on law-abiding gun owners, and it puts undue financial burden on many

Blago’s sentenceis commuted

By Jerry NowickiCapitol News Illinois

Illinois leaders reacted to news Tuesday that Presi-dent Donald Trump com-muted the prison sentence of former Governor Rod Blagojevich which he re-ceived for corruption con-victions.Blagojevich began serv-

ing a 14-year federal prison sentence in 2012. He was convicted on 11 criminal counts related to his effort to sell the former U.S. Sen-ate seat vacated by Barack Obama when Obama be-came president.Blagojevich was also con-

victed on six counts related to campaign contribution shakedowns, including one count that said he essentially tried to trade $8 million in additional state funding to pediatric specialists for a $25,000 campaign donation from a hospital CEO.In 2015, five of those

counts were thrown out in appellate courts, although his 14-year sentence was reimposed months later.Illinois House Republi-

can Leader Jim Durkin of Western Springs said

in an interview Tuesday that he disagreed with the president and called the decision disappointing.“Currently we have a mas-

sive federal investigation into corruption in the state of Illinois, and this action distracts and also dilutes what I think is the proper role of the Department of Justice to root out corrup-tion,” Durkin said.In a statement, Governor

JB Pritzker, who has on several occasions argued that Blagojevich should serve his full sentence, echoed Durkin’s sentiment.“Illinoisans have endured

far too much corruption, and we must send a mes-sage to politicians that corrupt practices will no longer be tolerated,” Pritz-ker said in a statement. “President Trump has abused his pardon power in inexplicable ways to reward his friends and condone corruption, and I deeply believe this pardon sends the wrong message at the wrong time. “I’m committed to con-

tinuing to take clear and

POLICECOUNTY JOURNAL | FEBRUARY 20, 2020PAGE 2

Local police blotters for the week

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Located in Sparta

Denis Muratovic, 30, of St. Louis was arrest-ed February 10 by state police in Randolph County on a Monroe County warrant for speeding. He posted bond.

****John T.E. White, 50,

of Marissa was arrest-ed February 10 by the Randolph County Sher-iff’s Office on a Ran-dolph County warrant for failure to appear in court on a domestic battery charge. He was jailed.

****Leslie N. Vuichard,

33, of Coulterville was arrested February 10 by the Randolph Coun-ty Sheriff’s Office on a Randolph County warrant for failure to appear in court on a charge of possession of a controlled substance. Vuichard was jailed.

****Crystal M. Williams,

24, of Sparta was ar-rested February 11 by Sparta police for pos-session of a controlled substance. She was jailed.

****Dale A. Erxleben, 42,

of Sparta was arrested February 11 by Spar-ta police for posses-sion of meth and drug paraphernalia, illegal transportation of an al-coholic beverage, driv-ing without a driver’s license and driving an uninsured vehicle. He was jailed.

****Thea M. Snider, 42,

of Steeleville was ar-rested February 11 by Steeleville police for battery and disorderly conduct. Snider posted bond.

****Dylan M. Throop, 24,

of Chester was arrest-ed February 11 by Ches-ter police for posses-sion of meth and drug paraphernalia. He was jailed.

**** Megan E. Throop,

25, of Chester was ar-rested February 11 by Chester police for pos-session of meth and drug paraphernalia. She was jailed.

****Jeremiah L. Tucker,

40, of Chester was ar-rested February 11 by Chester police for crim-inal trespass to a resi-dence. He was jailed.

****Naysha L. Starnes,

28, of Sparta was ar-rested February 11 by Sparta police on a Perry County warrant for failure to appear in court on a charge of driving an uninsured vehicle. She was trans-ported to Perry County.

****Jessie Humphries,

44, of Lenzburg was ar-rested February 12 by Tilden police on a St. Clair County warrant for possession of meth. He was jailed.

****Lori M. Ohman, 47,

of Fayetteville was ar-rested February 12 by Steeleville police for driving on a revoked li-cense. She posted bond.

****Erin B. Martin, 35,

of Sparta was arrested February 12 by Sparta police for domestic bat-tery. Martin was jailed.

****Clarence M. Nord-

meyer, 44, of Pinck-neyville was arrested February 12 by Sparta police for making a terrorist threat. He is

The death of a 43-year-old man is be-ing investigated by the Randolph County Cor-oner’s Office and Spar-ta Police Department.

Matthew Wilson of Red Bud was found

By Travis LottPolice are investigat-

ing a burglary at Mi Pueblo Mexican res-taurant in Percy.

According to the Ran-dolph County Sheriff’s Office, the burglars entered the restaurant

Mi Pueblo burglarizedsometime in the even-ing of February 16 or early morning Febru-ary 17.

An early morning cook arrived at the restaurant at approxi-mately 7:30 a.m. Febru-ary 17 and discovered

the place had been burglarized.

Police said the perpe-trators took cash and some computers.

Some physical evi-dence was collected at the scene and is being processed.

Mi Pueblo was the target of an attempt-ed burglary in 2013, according to Sheriff Shannon Wolff.

If anyone has any in-formation about this crime, call the sher-iff’s office at 826-5484.

Death in Sparta isunder investigation

dead February 14 at 7:36 a.m. in his par-ents’ Sparta home.

Coroner Carlos Bar-bour said the cause of death is pending fur-ther investigation. No foul play is suspected.

PinckneyvilleCommunity Hospital

Leading the way to a healthier tomorrow.

5383 State Route 154Pinckneyville, IL 62274

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accused of posting a threat on social media involving his former employer. Nordmeyer posted bond.

****Jim J. Baird, 49, of

Chester was arrested February 13 by Chester police for driving on a suspended license and driving an uninsured vehicle. He posted bond.

****Michael C. Pratt, 32,

of Coulterville was ar-rested February 13 by Chester police for driv-ing on a revoked li-cense, driving an unin-sured vehicle, improp-er signal, unlawful display of registration and on St. Clair County warrants for failure to appear in court on charges of possession of meth and driving on a revoked license. He was jailed.

****Jake Ryan Hauther,

22, of Ellis Grove was arrested February 13 by Chester police for possession of meth, driving on a suspended license, driving an un-insured vehicle and il-legal transportation of an alcoholic beverage. He was jailed.

****Ashley E. Schonagel,

30, of Chester was ar-rested February 13 by the Randolph County Sheriff’s Office for driving on a suspend-ed license. Schonagel posted bond.

**** Oscar A. Perez, 22,

of Baldwin was arrest-ed February 14 by the Randolph County Sher-iff’s Office on a Ran-dolph County warrant for failure to appear in court on a charge of violation of an order of protection. He was jailed.

****Eric M. Hogrefe, 42,

of Chester was arrested February 14 by Chester police for possession of meth, illegal transpor-tation of an alcoholic beverage and on a Ran-dolph County warrant for failure to appear in court on a charge of violation of state park rules. He was jailed.

****Stephanie M. Shana-

han, 29, of Percy was arrested February 14 by Steeleville police for obstructing justice, theft and misuse of a credit card. She was jailed.

****Michelle L. Koene-

man, 46, of Steeleville was arrested Febru-ary 14 by the Randolph County Sheriff’s Office on a Randolph County warrant for theft. She posted bond.

****Richard C. Jackson,

54, of Perryville was arrested February 14 by Chester police for possession of meth and drug paraphernalia. He was jailed.

****Itisha N. Thompson,

27, of East St. Louis was arrested February 14 by Ruma police for driving on a suspended license and driving an uninsured vehicle. She was released with a no-tice to appear in court.

**** Steven M. Loucks, 39,

of Coulterville was ar-rested February 15 by Steeleville police for possession of meth and on a Randolph County warrant for failure to appear in court on a

possession of drug par-aphernalia charge. He posted bond.

****Darran S. Ricker, 44,

of Cutler was arrested February 15 by Steele-ville police for posses-sion of meth, driving an uninsured vehicle and improper lane us-age. He posted bond.

****Rikki L. Warthen, 33,

homeless, was arrested February 15 by Steele-ville police for posses-sion of meth and drug paraphernalia. Warth-en was jailed.

****Christopher D. Brat-

ton, 34, of Sparta was arrested February 15 by Sparta police for ag-gravated battery and battery. He was jailed.

****Brandy D. Webb, 36,

of Sparta was arrested February 15 by Chester police for driving on a revoked license. She posted bond.

****Michael L. Matting-

ly, 45, of Chester was arrested February 15 by Chester police on a Randolph County war-rant for petition to re-voke probation. He was jailed.

****Haley M. Surmeier,

26, of Chester was ar-rested February 15 by Chester police on a Randolph County war-rant for failure to ap-pear in court on charge of driving an unin-sured vehicle. She was released on a recogni-zance bond.

****James D. Marlen, 26,

of Chester was arrest-ed February 15 by Ches-ter police on a Ran-dolph County warrant for failure to appear in court on a charge of criminal trespass to land. He posted bond.

****Shane E. Kempfer, 50,

of Sparta was arrested February 15 by the Randolph County Sher-iff’s Office for driving on a revoked license, speeding and failing to yield to an emergency vehicle. Kempfer post-ed bond.

****David M. Chapin, 40,

of Chester was arrested February 16 by Chester police for aggravated domestic battery and resisting a peace offi-cer. He was jailed.

****Kyle W. Vernon, 22, of

Frohna, Missouri was arrested February 16 by the Randolph Coun-ty Sheriff’s Office for theft. He posted bond.

****Tonya N. Asbury, 36,

of Jackson, Missouri was arrested February 16 by Chester police for driving on a suspend-ed license. She posted bond.

****Lawrence Coleman,

43, of Indianola, Missis-sippi was arrested Feb-ruary 17 by Steeleville police for possession of meth, obstructing iden-tification and driving without a driver’s li-cense and on a St. Clair County, Alabama war-rant for failure to ap-pear in court on a bur-glary charge. He was jailed.

****Korey J. Oettle, 28,

of Percy was arrested February 17 by Steele-ville police for posses-sion of meth and drug paraphernalia and driving on a suspended

license. He was jailed. ****

Joel B. Slavens, 35, of Red Bud was arrested February 17 by Red Bud police for domestic bat-tery. He posted bond.

****Danielle S. Kelley, 36,

of Sparta was arrested February 17 by Sparta police for possession of meth and a narcotic in-strument and on a Ran-dolph County warrant for deceptive practice. She was jailed.

****Inez J. Gleghorn, 37,

of Coulterville was ar-rested February 17 by Sparta police for retail theft. She was jailed.

****Julie L. Rommel,

45, of Chester was ar-rested February 17 by Chester police for driv-ing on a suspended li-cense and driving an uninsured vehicle. She posted bond.

****Shane M. Jones,

34, of Sparta was ar-rested February 17 by Sparta police on a St. Clair County warrant for failure to appear in court on a charge of driving an uninsured vehicle. He posted bond.

****Melanie M. Downen,

48, of Tilden was ar-rested February 14 by Sparta police on a Perry County warrant for failure to appear in court on a chage of pos-session of a hypoder-mic syringe. She was jailed.

****Nicole F. Wagner,

36, of Marissa was ar-rested February 12 by Sparta police for DUI and improper lane us-age. She was arrested again February 14 by Sparta police for leav-ing the scene of an ac-cident and was given a notice to appear in city court.

****Lora L. Crawford, 49,

of Pinckneyville was arrested February 17 for domestic battery within a moving vehi-cle. She was jailed.

****All persons are con-

sidered innocent until proven guilty in court.

****

Update on vehicle thefts

Last week, it was reported that two ve-hicles, a Chevy and a Buick, were stolen from Tilden during the early morning hours of February 10.

The thieves were also believed to have been involved in a string of burglaries in Tilden and Maris-sa.

One of the cars was a 2016 Chevorlet Traverse, which was recovered in Marissa after police in Tilden alerted OnStar.

Police discovered fingerprints on the Traverse but have yet to name any suspects.

Shortly after the February 13 issue of the County Journal was published, the Metro East Auto Theft Task Force recovered the stolen 2002 Buick

in East St. Louis. No one was appre-

hended when the ve-hicle was recovered.

With last week’s sto-ry was a surveillance photo from Marissa of a white vehicle that police thought was in-volved in the crimes. Tilden police sent the photo to the newspa-per to run with the story.

Police later posted the photo to its social media page but dis-covered that the car in the photo was not in-volved in the crimes. It belonged to a wom-an who happened to be driving by at the time police believed the burglars were ac-tive in Marissa.

When alerted to the mixup, police pulled the picture from the Facebook page.

County Journal | FEBRUARY 20, 2020 Page 3

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By Travis LottPercy is moving clos-

er to an agreement with Steeleville to pro-vide police service for the small village.

A draft of an agree-ment was presented to the Percy village board February 13, detailing many of the items that have been discussed in prior meetings.

Percy would pay Steeleville $140,000 over two years in monthly installments of $5,833.

The board also agreed to amend its ordinance governing UTVs and golf carts on village streets to match Steeleville’s or-dinance. Steeleville officials requested the amendments to pre-vent confusion when officers enforce the codes.

Among the changes to the ordinance, Per-cy will issue stickers for the vehicles, and the registration will be good for one calendar year.

Percy will also seek to sell its police fire-arms, including a fully automatic LAR and a Mossberg 20 gauge pump-action shotgun. Both the Randolph County Sheriff’s Office and the Sparta Police Department are inter-ested in the guns.

The board will fur-ther discuss the agree-ment during the March 12 meeting.

In other news, Lisa Hartman presented

her bills for work done to transform the Wilson Funeral Home building into her new Allure Salon.

The project cost Hartman $25,000.

Aside from fixing the place up for her business, Hartman also brought the build-ing into compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Percy trustees had formerly agreed to give Hartman some money from the TIF fund to assist with the work. The board agreed at last Thurs-day’s meeting to give Hartman $6,000. This is only the second time Percy has invested in a TIF project.

Hartman was also asked about expansion plans. She said she may hire another styl-ist, and she is consid-ering advertising for a massage therapist.

In regards to the di-lapidated property at 102 East Pine, the vil-lage will seek to pur-chase the property and tear it down.

Trustee Jan Byrd said he believed this was the best option, as paying an attorney to draw up paperwork to condemn the property would cost as much or more than what it could spend to pur-chase the property.

Byrd said the village would offer owner Mike Carnahan $4,000 for the property, half paid now and half once

Carnahan cleared out the building.

Byrd said Carnahan could accept the offer, or the village would condemn the property.

“If you don’t take this, it’s going to be taken away from you,” Byrd said.

“It sounds like I don’t have a choice,” Carna-han replied.

Carnahan asked if he could discuss the deal with an attorney before accepting, and the board told him he had until next month’s meeting to make a de-cision.

Carnahan said that, after the village de-molishes the property, he would like to buy it back so he can build some sort of auto sales lot.

In other news, the board decided to ac-cept informal bids for the summer mowing on village property.

Village President Mark Prange said the new $15 minimum wage will increase mowing costs, and the village may get a bet-ter deal from a private contractor.

The village will also accept applications for a maintenance worker, as Terry Kohlhaas is seeking other employ-ment.

Applicants must have experience in util-ity maintenance and possess a valid driver’s license. Pay will be based on experience.

The Johnson Creek Rec-reation Area of Kinkaid Lake southwest of Ava is temporarily closed.

Scott Wilmouth, manager of Kinkaid-Reed’s Creek Conser-vancy District, said recent heavy rains washed out a culvert

on the recreation ar-ea’s access road about 75 feet off Route 151.

The access road is closed to make repairs, which are under way.

Wilmouth said the road and recreation area will likely be closed anywhere from

two weeks to a month, depending on weather conditions and prog-ress of the work.

Engineers from the U.S. Forest Service are supervising the proj-ect because the lake is part of the Shawnee National Forest.

Johnson Creek Recreation Area temporarily closed

Donation to the VAThe Coulterville VFW recently donated $500 to the Anna Veterans Home. From left are VFW Junior Vice President Parley Hood, Anna nursing Adjutant Anthony Barnett, VFW Commander John Rainey and VFW Trustee Mike Shaw.

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Editorial Staff: Larry Willis

Travis Lott | Dan ZobelOPINIONSCounty Journal | february 20, 2020Page 4

Policies Of The County JournalA Publication Of Willis Publishing, Inc.

Larry Willis, Kristin Anderson, John FalkenheinCo-Owners/Co-Publishers

PublIshed eAch ThursdAy1101 East Pine • Box 369 • Percy, Illinois 62272

(618) 497-8272Letters to the editor must be signed in order to be pub-

lished. A telephone number is also required for verification. Letters and news items are published at the discretion of the editors. All copy will be edited. The County Journal does not publish poetry.

Classified advertising must be prepaid except for es-tablished accounts. Political and certain other advertising must be prepaid.

Any person or organization holding a money making event and wanting it advertised in the County Journal must discuss their promotion with the advertising department. Generally, if the organization charges for the event, goods or services, the County Journal charges to advertise its event.

Letters advocating a candidate or referendum will be published as a letter to the editor until two weeks before an election. Within that two weeks such promotions will be published only as paid advertisement.

Anyone wishing to express thanks must do so in a paid advertisement. Thank you notes will not be included in news stories.

County Journal(USPS 549-110)

is published weekly on Thursdays for 75¢ each issue,$28 per year in Randolph, Perry and Jackson counties and Marissa. $30 per year in Illinois, $35 per year elsewhere, by County Journal, Box 369, 1101 East Pine, Percy, Illinois, 62272. Periodicals postage paid at Percy, Illinois.POSTMASTER: Send address changes to County Journal, Box 369, 1101 East Pine, Percy, Illinois 62272.

Sending lettersSend letters to the editor to the County

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cation. The phone number will not be published.

By John MeachamMeacham’s Madness

By MarthaPeeblesA Musing View®

Looking back

Letters to the editor

It’s getting crazier in SpringfieldPolitical correctness

is out of controlJu s t w h e n we

thought we had heard the height of ridiculousness from Il-linois lawmakers with last week’s filing of a proposed law ban-ning pump-your-own gasoline, another leg-islator has done one better.It seems state Rep-

resentative Maurice West , a Democrat from Rockford, wants to force schools who have American Indian mascots to get permis-sion from the nearby tribe that the mascot represents.We’re not exactly

sure what West means by the word nearby, but we’re pretty sure there aren’t any tribes around here.On the surface, the

proposal looks rela-tively harmless for our local schools that have Native American mas-

cots. They are pretty generic.The Steeleville War-

riors and Braves and the Du Quoin Indians come to mind, but they don’t refer to a specific tribe.But in these times,

when political cor-rectness has become so outrageous that it’s hard to take it serious-ly, that could change.Then where would

it stop? History tells us that

westward expansion of the U.S. led to bat-tles between Ameri-can Indians and white explorers. Must Trico get permission to be the Pioneers and Red Bud to be the Musket-

eers?How about all of the

animal mascots, such as the Sparta Bull-dogs and Pinckney-ville Panthers? Should they get permission from animal rights activists?Then there are the

insect mascots. Ches-ter’s Yellow Jackets and Nashville’s Hor-nets might not sit well with entomologists.The Marissa-Coulter-

ville Meteors might have a tough time ap-peasing astronomers, and Murphysboro’s Red Devils could be interpreted in many ways.Let’s not forget that

our own Kinkaid Lake

is located in the Shaw-nee National Forest. Do we need to get per-mission for using the word Shawnee?All of this comes

on the heels of an-other piece of legisla-tion that was filed in Springfield that bans the use of gasoline-powered leaf blowers.Seriously, with all

the financial, infra-structure and declin-ing population prob-lems facing Illinois, do some of you legislators have nothing better to do than file this kind of garbage? To these misguided

representatives, we say stop looking for a social cause. Stop try-ing to fix a problem that doesn’t exist just to appear that you care.It’s a waste of time

and taxpayer money—and we find that high-ly offensive.

Playing the Game of LifeOur granddaugh-

ter Maizie visited recently, and she and I played games one afternoon. She insisted on play-

ing The Game of Life, reassuring me that she plays it at home frequently and knows the rules. I wanted to play something much less complicated, like Twister or Go Fish.Since I strongly dis-

like reading direc-tions, I took Maizie’s word for it that she knew how to play. Af-ter all, she’s a bright 9-year-old. We have had the

game for more than 20 years, and I can’t remember our kids ever playing.Surprisingly, it has

been around a long time. The original game was created in 1860 by Milton Brad-ley and was known as The Checkered Game of Life. Even though it was really depress-ing, featuring squares such as Crime, Jail, Poverty and Gambling to Ruin, it became America’s first popu-lar parlor game.

The modern version, which is much more upbeat, was published in 1960. When I was a kid, all I can remem-ber about it was that it was slow, boring and frustrating. For start-ers, the little people pegs would never stay in the little holes in the tiny convertibles. Except for the con-

vertibles giving way to mini vans, trust me, things have not changed. However, with Mai-

zie’s rules, the game was certainly more interesting. Instead of starting out with a mere $10,000 as the game rules recom-mend, Maizie doled out the money like nobody’s business. She said the youngest play-er gets first choice of their own profession and salary, no matter

if they have gone to college or not. Who was I to argue

when she decided to be a doctor and chose the highest salary pos-sible? Every time she passed a pay day, she added $100K to her ever-increasing stack of money. I was just a struggling artist try-ing to keep all my lit-tle pink and blue peg children from falling out of my minivan.The spin dial seemed

to have a glitch where-by she would always spin a 10 and I was lucky to move only two spaces. She bought a mansion and stocks like they were going out of style, while I barely had enough money to buy a run-down shack that lacked insurance. I also had the affinity

to land on spaces such

as GET LIVESAVING OPERATION, which cost me $45K and, of course, went to the doctor in the house. She never seemed to land on things like GET FAMILY PORTRAIT PAINTED $35K or AT-TEND ART EXHIBIT $10K, by which I would have profited. After an hour or so,

when I was up to my eyeballs in debt and Maizie continued to smile like the cat that ate the canary, I de-cided it was time to give it up. Maizie insisted on

counting her money, which required paper, pen and a calculator. She wanted to make sure she had enough for retirement.“I think you are pretty

well set.” I told her.She was headed for

Millionaire Acres while it looked as if I was go-ing to the Poor Farm. On the bright side, at least it wasn’t jail.“Do you want to play

Go Fish?” I asked. She agreed read-

ily, smiled and said, “Do you know how to play?”

From the County Journal issue of

February 25, 1982Illinois Power asked

the Illinois Commerce Commission to ap-prove its request for rate increases of 19.9 percent in electric-ity and 9.7 percent in natural gas.B o n d s t o t a l i n g

$952,000 were sold to pay for construction of a new school building in Coulterville. The

interest rate was 11.9 percent.Some local business-

es changed hands. Dean Rohlfing pur-chased the Gerlach Shoe Store in Steele-ville from Verna Ger-lach, and Arvel Fro-emling of Campbell Hill bought the Su-noco service station in Steeleville from Henry and Rose Brenning.Another Steeleville

business, Circle J

Western Store, an-nounced it was ex-panding and doubling its floor space.The Steeleville school

board approved a bid of $34,271 to repair the grade school roof.There was a con-

struction boom of sorts going on in Spar-ta. Building permits were approved for the Sparta Christian Church, a new Fed-eral Landbank office

in Northtown Center and a combination gas station/liquor store in Sparta Square.People lined up in

Randolph, Perry and Jackson counties to get free cheese, which was considered gov-ernment surplus. In Randolph County,

1,950 pounds of cheese were given away, 1,800 pounds in Perry and 6,500 pounds in Jack-son.

Praying for RushEditor, County Journal:My wife Susan and I

were shocked to hear Rush Limbaugh an-nounce that he has lung cancer. We listen to his pro-

gram on several Min-nesota radio stations and on KMOX from St. Louis when in your area. Before KMOX, he was on WIBV in Belleville for some years.

We feel a kinship to Mr. Limbaugh because his aunt and uncle, Mary and Manley Lim-baugh, lived in Ches-ter. In fact, Manley was

Susan’s school bus driver and biology teacher at Chester High School.We also worked with

them in ecumenical services and programs when I was a pastor at Peace Lutheran Church in Chester and

St. Peter’s Lutheran of Wine Hill near Steele-ville from 1985 to 1992.It’s ironic that Rush

has such a serious illness since he has raised so much money each year to fight leu-kemia. Susan’s father died of leukemia, and her mother had a coch-lear implant. Rush has two implants.Moreover, Rush has

raised millions of dol-lars to aid disabled veterans and others.

No wonder President Donald Trump award-ed him the Presiden-tial Medal of Freedom for his charity work, as well as radio hon-ors.We will keep Rush

Hudson Limbaugh, and others who strug-gle with health issues, in our daily prayers and thoughts. We hope you will, too.

Susan and Pastor Bill Sass

Palisade, Minnesota

Created by Milton Bradley in 1860

Crappies and muskies! Oh, my!

Time flies, as somebody once said. We’re already past the middle of Feb-

ruary, and March 20 is the official first day of spring. Therefore, the minds of many of the multiplied millions upon millions of faithful readers of this column are turning to —fishing.As an outdoor writer, I frequently have

the opportunity to pass along tips from real expert anglers. Recently, I’ve been privileged to collaborate

with two of those fishermen for articles that will be published in Heartland Outdoors magazine.Merle Schmierbach and Todd Huckabee are

far apart in miles and years, but they have in common a love of fishing. Schmierbach, the older of the two, lives in

Marissa, pursues muskies on Kinkaid Lake. He is the proprietor of Mighty Shad Muskie Baits.Huckabee lives near Tulsa, Oklahoma. He

guides for crappies on Lake Eufaula and has his own line of rods. Each has a lot of information to share based

on many years of experience.Schmierbach makes his lures by hand, start

to finish, and they are works of art. What sets his baits apart from others is size—he believes small is beautiful.Schmierbach told me he caught his first

muskie in Canada in 2012. Then it was sev-eral years before he caught another one from Kinkaid. He thinks downsizing was the key.

“I was using a lot of seven and eight-inch baits, and maybe some bigger,” he said. “I was throwing great big stuff because I thought muskies are big fish, so they must eat big prey.“I finally decided that wasn’t right, and I

needed to start making something smaller, so I started making what were basically bass baits that were really built heavy—small baits built to withstand the kind of abuse a muskie gives a fishing lure.”Now the lures Schmierbach makes range

in length from three to six inches. He makes about 50 styles in many colors but says the ones he uses the most are white. He believes action, depth, speed, size and shape are the most important factors.In his seminar at Grizzly Jig Company’s

spring tackle show in Caruthersville, Mis-souri, Huckabee also downplayed the impor-tance of lure color. He said his observations with the Garmin LiveScope technology have convinced him that profile will be the word of the year in crappie fishing.“Profile, profile, profile! Each fish is tuned in

on one profile,” Huckabee told his audience of crappie anglers. “One fish wants one profile. The next fish may want a different profile.”Huckabee said he and other pros believed

for years that dark or bright baits that cast a visible shadow were far superior to clear baits in muddy water, but they were wrong.“I don’t care how muddy it is—the muddiest

you can imagine—(crappies) can see a clear bai,” Huckabee said. “We’re still debating whether they see it or whether they just know it’s there because it’s in their environment.“If there’s a fish 30 feet away and you drop

your bait straight down, no matter what color it is, you’ll see that fish react. That doesn’t mean he’ll come 30 feet to eat that bait, but he will react.”Regarding lure size, Huckabee’s experience

with crappies is the opposite of Schmier-bach’s with muskies.“I knew that heavier baits meant more fish

in the boat for me and my clients,” Huckabee said. “Heavy meant more tournament wins for me. I didn’t know why.“Now all the companies that were on the

total opposite end of that are coming out with three-eighths and half-ounce jigs. They call them LiveScope jigs. Everybody is wanting heavier, heavier, heavier.”Look for Mighty Shad Muskie Baits on

Facebook or visit toddhuckabeerods.com, grizzlyjig.com and laughwithjohn.word-press.com.

As spring approaches, thoughts turn to fishing

Feb. 13 ..............23.7Feb. 14 ............. 22.2Feb. 15 ............. 20.9Feb. 16 ............. 20.0Feb. 17 .............. 18.6Feb. 18 .............. 18.2Feb. 19 .............. 18.9

COUNTY JOURNAL | FEBRUARY 20, 2020 PAGE 5

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decisive steps this spring to prevent pol-iticians from using their offices for per-sonal gain, and I will continue to approach this work with that firm conviction.”

Durkin was involved firsthand with Blago-jevich’s bipartisan im-peachment effort in January 2009.

“I saw a governor who was rogue on steroids,” Durkin said. “He didn’t care about the state of Illinois. He cared about his own ambition, and he abused the office; and the legislature did the appropriate thing. The federal courts did the right thing, not only at the district court level but also the ap-pellate court and U.S. Supreme Court, and they said his sentence was appropriate.”

Durkin questioned w hy B l a g o j e v i c h should get special treatment, when oth-

ers who are impris-oned for drug offens-es receive decades in prison without relief from presidential par-dons.

“It’s just because of the celebrity of Rod Blagojevich,” Dur -kin said. “I think it’s wrong, and it sends a bad message to people in this country that ... you don’t have to pay your debt to society.

“I’m never going to be able to figure out how the president mes-sages, nor the decision making that he does,” Durkin said. “That’s something he’s going to have to explain, but I think he needs to explain to the people of Illinois who saw a governor destroy the integrity of this office but also did some very, very terrible things to the finances of this state. I hope that he could make a plausible explanation of why this is appropriate,

because I haven’t seen anything yet.

“I guess he’s not con-cerned about the state of Illinois for next No-vember.”

Loca l l eg i s lators were also quick to de-cry Trump’s actions.

“I disagree with Pres-ident Trump’s decision to commute the sen-tence of Rod Blagoje-vich,” said state Sena-tor Paul Schimpf. “I am not aware of any expression of remorse or guilt by inmate Blagojevich. Further, in light of the current ethics crisis in Illinois government involving multiple arrests and ongoing federal inves-tigations, I believe this commutation sends the wrong message to current and potential bad actors.”

Congressman Mike Bost, who served in the I l l inois Senate when B lago jev ich was removed from of-fice, also expressed his

disappointment with Trump.

“We are disappoint-ed by the president’s commutation of Rod Blagojevich’s federal sentence,” Bost said in a statement. “We believe he received an appropriate and fair sentence, which was the low end of the fed-eral sentencing guide-lines for the gravity of his public corruption convictions.

“Blagojevich is the face of public corrup-tion in Illinois, and not once has he shown any remorse for his clear and documented record of egregious crimes that under-mined the trust placed in him by voters.

“As our state contin-ues to grapple with political corruption, we shouldn’t let those who breached the pub-lic trust off the hook. History will not judge Rod Blagojevich well.”

2019. He was one of the officers who had been laid off earlier in the summer due to major county budget cuts.

Emling was brought back to the jail, less than a month before the August 19 incident, when some other em-

ployees left the depart-ment.

Bareis was so im -pressed by Emling’s actions that he sub-mitted Emling for the statewide honor.

Emling was chosen out of all the jails in 102 Illinois counties.

“I believe it reflects highly (of the sheriff’s office),” Bareis said. “We have a good group of employees.

“That’s one reason it was so difficult to see these layoffs.”

Bareis said Emling was humble in receiv-

ing the award.“He basically said:

Steve, I was just doing my job. It took a team,” Bareis said. “I told him that sometimes you have to take an award knowing you’re accept-ing it on behalf of the group.”

Emling jail officer of the year ...from Page 1_________

citizens just trying to protect their families.”

While Kelly was ques-tioned at the news conference about the constitutionality of fingerprinting gun owners, he said ISP’s main consideration is public safety and that lawmakers and judges will decide constitu-tionality.

“We will be able to do a much more thor-ough, effective and quicker background check, even for law-abiding citizens, if we have that fingerprint,” Kelly said.

Kelly’s briefing came one year after a shoot-ing at an Aurora ware-house left five people dead and others in-jured. That shooter, Kelly said, should not have had a gun be-cause there was a 1995 felony aggravated bat-tery conviction on his record.

The ISP director also said there are sev-eral instances similar to this one in which criminal background information is not in-

cluded in key nation-al databases. He said there are over 7 million firearms ownership-prohibiting records in this country that are not readily available in background check databases.

The information does show up when a per-son is fingerprinted, and it did when the Aurora shooter was fingerprinted for a concealed carry per-mit in 2014, but he had already purchased the gun used in the shoot-ing by that time be-cause he lied on his FOID card application, Kelly said.

At the time, police sent a letter to the shooter demanding he turn in his guns, but law enforcement took no other action.

“Because a form let-ter sent only at the time of revocation is not enough, we com-mitted to sharing FOID revocation data with any law enforcement agency at any time,” Kelly said.

Now there is a web

portal accessible to any criminal justice de-partment in the state, he said. It includes the reason for revocation, new convictions and other prohibitors, as well as firearms trans-action histories.

Kelly said before the Aurora shooting, ISP was only incidental-ly confiscating guns from those who were not legally allowed to own them as part of other types of inves-tigations. There was no concerted, coordi-nated effort.

“Enforcement has im-proved,” he said

Kelly noted that the ISP’s criminal inves-tigation division con-ducted more than 200 revocations since May 2019 that resulted in retrieved guns.

He said the fund sup-porting police back-ground checks has been affected by budg-et crises, but recent stability from the cur-rent administration has been beneficial, al-lowing the ISP to build multi-year hiring and

service plans. While 90 percent

of some 300,000 new FOID applications in the past year were processed within the mandated 30 days, Kelly said, it took po-lice 13,877 hours of overtime to do it.

Gun rights advocates have sued over alleged FOID and concealed carry permit delays, however.

“Even with the in-credibly hard work of the men and women in justice services, and with the incredibly hard and sometimes dangerous work of the men and women serving in the division of criminal investi-gations, there is still much more to be done,” Kelly said. “Without additional resources for both state and local law enforcement to en-sure illegal firearms are not possessed by potentially dangerous individuals, the odds still remain too high that more tragedies will occur.”

Bringing goat yoga insideYo g a i n s t r u c t o r Martha Peebles held another goat yoga session Monday at the Percy Gym. The goats were provided by Shealee Swisher of Campbell Hill, with help from her mother B r a n d i S w i s h e r. Shown, one of the goats prepares to leap off the back of Brian Dickey of Evansville.

Arndt honored

Mayor Clarence Warner, left, and Alan Arndt

By Travis LottAlan Arndt was hon-

ored Tuesday night by the Willisville village board for his 40 years of service to the Willisville Fire Department.

Mayor Clarence Warn-er said Arndt has served the fire department since before some of the village board members were born, and 40 years of service to anything, especially emergency public service, is a great feat.

Arndt has officially served the fire depart-ment since he was old enough to join at 18, but he said he actually began working with the depart-

ment when he was 16.Arndt said he is not

hanging up his uniform just yet. He told board members that he believes he has at least a couple more years of service left in him.

In other news, trash rates in Willisville will increase by $2 a month to $14 a month. The fee of $3 per extra trash tote remains.

The village is looking to get rid of its old squad car, town work truck, trencher, finish mower, two golf carts and a three-inch pump.

After a suggestion by Trustee Doug Vickery, the board opted to sell

the items in an auction.They will be sold at

Canning Auction Ser-vice in Murphysboro. Canning’s next auction is March 7.

In order to enter the items in the auction, the board must pass an or-

dinance. Therefore, the board will hold a special meeting to approve that ordinance Thursdsay, February 20 at 6 p.m.

The board’s next regu-lar meeting was moved to Tuesday, March 24 at 7 p.m.

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While it’s still months away, the Sparta Chamber of Commerce is work-ing on details for this summer’s rodeo.

The event is sched-uled for September 18 and 19 at the Ran-dolph County Fair-grounds in Sparta. Several new events are being planned in conjunction with the rodeo.

Rodeo commit-tee member Sharon Blackwell said a dance, called Boot Scootin’ Boogie, will be September 12 at the Sparta Lions Club.

The dance is being held to raise money to help offset some of the cost of hosting the rodeo.

“It’s very expen-sive to host the ro-deo,” Blackwell said. “But we have been able to cover the ex-penses in the past through business sponsorships.”

The rodeo commit-tee is also talking with Sparta school

district offi cials to see if they would consider hosting an event, such as the Sparta Stampede Rodeo Week, at the schools.

There is also dis-cussion on possibly creating a rodeo queen competition and having a me-chanical bull during the festivities.

“We have a very supportive commu-nity, and without the help of our local businesses, we could not put on the ro-deo.” Blackwell said.

In other notes, the circus will be in Sparta April 15 at the city park.

The chamber gets 25 percent from the sale of circus tickets. Without much out-of-pocket expenses, this is a good fund-raiser for the cham-ber.

Tickets will be on sale soon at Sparta area businesses.

Advance tickets are $12 for adults and $7 for children

2-12 and senior citi-zens.

The day of the cir-cus, tickets will be $15 and $8.

Alan Gerstensla-ger reported that the Sparta Rotary Club will host a pancake breakfast from 7 to 10 a.m. March 28 at the Sparta VFW.

Money raised from the breakfast will help support the IM-PACK program.

Gerstenslager also noted that the Rotary has received a grant to replace benches at Rotary Park.

Another project planned for the park is to upgrade the pic-nic areas.

There will be a Ro-tary-Chamber meet and greet March 31 from 5 to 7 p.m. in the basement of Broad-way Grille in Sparta.

The event is to allow networking among businesses and com-munity members.

The next chamber meeting is March 4 at noon at SouthSide Ribs.

Jennifer Barbour of Steeleville has been named director of re-lations at Sparta Com-munity Hospital.

“We are so excited to welcome Jennifer, as she brings experience and energy to this im-portant position,” said Joann Emge, hospital CEO.

Sparta Community Hospital was selected last October to partici-pate in the National Rural Health Center’s Delta Region Commu-nity Health Systems Development Program to help it assess health care needs, align ser-vices to meet those needs, improve fi nan-cial, operational and quality performance and develop a system of care for the best lo-cal health outcomes.

Barbour will act as the liaison for that pro-gram and the hospital.

“Jennifer will work with community part-ners to better under-

stand the health needs of the population we serve, as well as iden-tifying the barriers to prevention, while increasing the aware-ness of available re-sources,” Emge said. “Ultimately, Jennifer’s work will assist our community make a cultural shift towards healthier living as we collectively prepare for population health.”

Barbour said she is thrilled for the oppor-tunity to work in her home community,

“There is something special, knowing that the work I will be do-ing will help effect change in a commu-nity that I know and love,” she said.

Barbour most re-cently worked as the marketing director at Pinckneyville Commu-nity Hospital. She has nearly 15 years of ex-perience in healthcare and social services marketing, public rela-tions and outreach.

She earned a mas-ter’s degree in public administration and a bachelor’s in public relations from SIU Ed-wardsville.

She served as a member of the Pinck-neyville Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors, Perry Coun-ty Health Coalition and Perry County Drug Co-alition. She is charter president of the Rotary Club of Steeleville and leader of her nieces’ Daisy Girl Scout Troop.

Humane society donationThe Perry County Humane Society is a recipient of a $500 donation raised through Murphy-Wall State Bank’s Jeans Day program. Murphy-Wall employees can wear jeans on Fridays when they elect to authorize a payroll deduction amount each pay period. At the end of the year, a por-tion of the funds goes to designated charitable organizations. Shown is humane society kennel technician Amber Gulley accepting the check from Roger Hileman, Murphy-Wall executive vice president senior mortgage offi cer.

Barbour named SCH director of relations

Jennifer Barbour

Chamber prepares for summer rodeo

Lending teamFirst State Bank of Campbell Hill has added Clint Reiman to its lend-ing team. Reiman will transition from his role as a customer service representative to con-sumer loan offi cer at the Campbell Hill facility.

The Steeleville Chamber of Commerce is accepting nomina-tions for its educator of the year.

The chamber be-lieves in honoring teachers who go above and beyond to help teach and raise chil-dren. It is looking for teachers who showed outstanding education-al efforts during the 2019-20 school year.

Nominees must be currently on the fac-ulty at St. Mark’s Lutheran School in Steeleville, Steeleville Grade School or Steel-eville High School.

Nominations must be made in writing with the teacher’s name and reasons they should be honored.

Mail nomination let-ters to Chamber of Commerce, PO Box 177, Steeleville IL 62288 or email to steeleville-chamber@gmail.com no later than February 26.

The winner will be honored at the cham-ber’s annual dinner March 3.

S’ville chamber seeks a top-notch teacher

Alisa Dearmond

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Darla Spain

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Debbie Holman

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SCHOOLCounty Journal | february 20, 2020 Page 7

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There will be crafts, activities and a play area for eligible children. For the parents, there will be a slide show

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Senior band membersRed Bud High School recognized its senior band members and their parents February 14 during the boys basketball home game against Okawville. From left in front are Caitlin Dehne, David Jansen, Isabela Liefer, Katelyn Murray, Mary Wagner and Abigail Antry. Back row: Band director Lyle Junge and parents Don and Cathy Dehne, James and Val Jansen, Jonathan Liefer, Traci Liefer, Matthew Wagner, Bethany Wilson and Charles and Debbie Antry.

STEELEVILLEFebruary 24-28

Breakfast MONDAY: Breakfast pizza.TUESDAY: Cinnamon roll.WEDNESDAY: French toast sticks.THURSDAY: Bagel, cream cheese.FRIDAY: Cereal.

Lunch MONDAY: Turkey and cheese, green beans.TUESDAY: Chili, car-rots.WEDNESDAY: Bosco sticks, steamed broc-coli/cheese.THURSDAY: Meat loaf, mashed potatoes, gravy.FRIDAY: Fish patty, baked beans, fruit roll-up.

COULTERVILLEFebruary 24-28

Breakfast MONDAY: Breakfast pizza.TUESDAY: Cinnamon roll.WEDNESDAY: French toast sticks.THURSDAY: Bagel, cream cheese.FRIDAY: Glazed donut.

LunchMONDAY: Toasted ravioli, carrots, string cheese.TUESDAY: Hamburger, potato puffs, cookie.WEDNESDAY: Chili, fresh vegetables.THURSDAY: Spaghetti, garden salad w/ranch.FRIDAY: Chicken patty, green beans.

ST. MARK’SFebruary 24-28

MONDAY: Chicken patty, corn, applesauce.TUESDAY: Sloppy joe, baked beans, mandarin oranges.WEDNESDAY: Corn dogs, peas.THURSDAY: Hamburg-er/potato casserole, green beans, pineapple.FRIDAY: Pizza, salad, pears.

TRICOFebruary 24-28

Breakfast MONDAY: Breakfast pizza.TUESDAY: Breakfast slider.WEDNESDAY: French toast.THURSDAY: Eggstrava-ganza.

FRIDAY: Biscuits, gravy.

LunchMONDAY: Toasted ravioli, string cheese, seasoned green beans, carrots w/dip.TUESDAY: Baked chicken, cheesy pota-toes, broccoli w/dip.WEDNESDAY: BBQ chicken sandwich, baked beans, creamy coleslaw.THURSDAY: Baked ziti, breadstick, garden salad, savory carrots.FRIDAY: Cheeseburger, sweet potato tots, cauli-flower w/dip.

EVANSVILLE February 24-28

BreakfastMONDAY: Mini waffles, applesauce. TUESDAY: French toast sticks, pineapple.WEDNESDAY: Biscuit, gravy, peaches. THURSDAY: Cheese stick, mixed berries. FRIDAY: Toast, pears.

LunchMONDAY: Cheese-burger, potato smiles, pineapple.TUESDAY: Spaghetti, green beans, peaches.WEDNESDAY: Hot ham/cheese wrap, romaine salad w/ranch, mixed berries.THURSDAY: Hot dog, pinto beans, pears.FRIDAY: Grilled cheese, tomato soup, mixed fruit.

CHESTER GRADEFebruary 24-27

BreakfastMONDAY: Pancake sau-sage wrap.TUESDAY: Sausage, biscuit, gravy.WEDNESDAY: Cinna-mon roll.THURSDAY: Muffin, yogurt.FRIDAY: No school.

LunchMONDAY: Meat loaf, green beans, mini pie, peaches.TUESDAY: Popcorn chicken, baked beans, mixed berries.WEDNESDAY: Toasted cheese ravioli, salad, cheese stick, broccoli w/ranch, banana, Scooby snacks.THURSDAY: Cheese stuffed pizza, carrots w/ranch, fruit, cookie.

Learning to leadF r o m l e f t a r e T r i c o F FA m e m -bers Harris Ehlers, Madi Rathert, Da-lyn Ehlers and Keegan Brooks, who attended the February 7 and 8 Illinois 212 Confer-ence in De-catur, where they worked on leadership skills.

By Travis LottLittle action was

taken during a brief February 13 meeting of the Sparta school board.

The meeting opened with wrestling coach Robert Hayes asking the board to reconsid-er the purchase of a new activity bus.

Last month, the board discussed a new bus, but the issue was met with dissent from Rick Zweigart, owner of Zweigart Bus Ser-vice, who said the use of activity buses cut into his business.

Hayes said his team was preparing to leave for sectionals Febru-ary 14 and 15, and due to the lack of activ-ity buses, the school would have to pay for a bus and driver to take the team to matches.

Board President Co-rey Rheinecker said that, after he ran the numbers, a new activ-ity bus would be neces-sary.

Board Vice Presi-dent Kevin Holliday agreed and said the item would be on the

March agenda.The board approved

the Skills USA class to attend the April 23-25 state competition in Springfield.

The board reviewed the 2020-21 calendar and stated that a vote would be taken on it at a future meeting.

According to the calendar, school would begin August 19 and end May 21, depending on snow days.

High School Prin-cipal Scott Beckley asked that two classes, senior math and cur-rent events, be added to the high school class list for 2020-21.

In personnel news, the board accepted the resignations of Hailey Kingston, mu-sic and social studies teacher at Evansville, and Mary Niemeyer, paraprofessional at Lincoln.

The board also ac-cepted the retirement re-quest from Glenda Bay-less as speech language pathologist at Lincoln and hired Leslie Mein-inger as a 10-month cus-todian.

Superintendent shout outThe Sparta’s superintendent shout outs for January were Lincoln: Sam and Susan Polino and Logan Shaw; Evansville: Larry Gaertner and Avery Jones; and high school: Allison Rheinecker and Knight Hawk Coal. From left are school board member Jennifer Morgan, Rheinecker, Jones, Gaertner, the Polinos and district bookkeeper Tina Witherby.

COUNTY JOURNAL | FEBRUARY 20, 2020PAGE 8

COUNTY JOURNAL1101 E. PINE STREET • PERCY • 497-8272

COUNTY JOURNAL1101 E. PINE STREET • PERCY • 497-8272

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COUNTY JOURNAL1101 E. PINE STREET • PERCY • 497-8272

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Goat gramsShealee Swisher, a local 4-H youth from Campbell Hill, offered up her goats for Valentine’s Day goat grams. Swisher owns her own business Loving The Farm, which also provides goats for yoga sessions. Shown is Nancy Skovgaard of Herrin, who works in Woody Hall at SIUC, with her goat gram sent by her husband Nic.

Tie-dye lessonsPercy Head Start students recently tie-dyed shirts as part of a study of clothing. Showing off their shirts are Paxton Allhands, Jaxston Miller, Taytum Tucker, Makayla Crabtree, Keegan Koker, Archer Brandt, Ally Kalmas, Maria Hernandez, Hannah Jokerst, Brantley Woodside and Josef Lueker.

People who live in cit-ies, exurbs or suburbs may not frequently come across farms, but millions of people, in-cluding children, still live on farms.

In fact, in 2009, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention noted that more than one million children under the age of 20 lived, worked or had a regular presence on farms in the United States.

Protecting children from injury on farms, especially those who perform work there, is of paramount impor-tance.

The American Society of Safety Engineers of-fers safety tips to par-ents of children who will be spending time on farms.

Know and obey the laws. Various state and federal laws are in place to protect young children from farm-related accidents and injuries.

Age requirements dic-tate which jobs chil-dren can perform on a farm, and parents should adhere to those requirements.

Asking children to do more than they’re physically capable of can lead to accident, injury or even death.

Review equipment operation instruc-tions. Before assigning children a task on the farm, parents should review the equipment operation instructions.

Doing so can help parents reacquaint themselves with tools and equipment they may not have used in a while, and that can make it easier for them to teach kids how to use such equipment.

Reviewing equipment instructions may also provide insight to par-ents unsure if their children are old enough to use certain tools.

Inspect equipment. Before children per-form any tasks on the farm, parents should inspect the equipment their children are like-ly to use to make sure each tool is safe.

Make sure tools are

in proper working or-der because broken or poorly working equip-ment increases the risk of accident or injury.

Enroll children in farm safety camps. The American Soci-ety of Safety Engineers recommends that par-ents contact their local Cooperative Extension and Farm Bureau of-fi ces to enroll children in farm safety camps.

Such camps can teach kids safe farming tech-niques and the proper ways to use age-appro-priate tools.

Set a positive exam-ple. Another way for parents to protect their

children on the farm is to set a positive ex-ample.

Parents can do so in various ways, such as using equipment prop-erly, removing tractor keys from ignitions when tractors are not in use and exercising caution when using hazardous materials shows kids the impor-tance of caution when working on farms.

Hundreds of thou-sands of children per-form jobs on farms across the country.

Parents who want to teach their kids to farm should always do so with safety in mind.

Safety tips for parents of young farmers

SAVE THE DATE!

COUNTY JOURNAL | FEBRUARY 20, 2020PAGE 10

COUNTY JOURNAL1101 E. PINE STREET • PERCY • 497-8272

COUNTY JOURNAL1101 E. PINE STREET • PERCY • 497-8272

20

19TH ANNUALFARM MACHINERY

CONSIGNMENT AUCTIONSATURDAY, MARCH 14, 2020

SALE LOCATION: Hwy. 51 bypass in Perryville, MO. From I-55 at the Perryville exit, go north on Hwy. 51 bypass about 1½ miles to sale site. From Hwy. 61, take Hwy. 51 bypass south about ½ mile to sale site. Watch for sale markers.

!! WANTED !!Good, clean tractors, combines, trucks, farm

equipment, lawn mowers, boats, livestock equipment, etc. NO JUNK (including junk tires)!

Commission rate: 10% on the fi rst $5,000, 3% thereafter.This includes all advertisement expense.

A $20 “NO SALE” consignment fee will be charged at the time of consignment.This will then be deducted from the commission if the item sells.

Consignments made by February 23, will be included on the sale bill and printed advertisements. The website will be updated as often as possible.

SALE CONDUCTED BY:

MANCHE AUCTION SERVICECOL. RODNEY MANCHE (573) 547-1818 or (573) 513-1212

SINCE 1982 - “LET OUR EXPERIENCE SELL YOUR NEXT AUCTION!!!”VISIT US ONLINE AT: www.mancheauctionservice.com

For more information or to make consignments,Call Rodney Manche at (573) 547-1818 or (573) 513-1212

Please leave a message if we are unable to answer,and we will return your call as soon as possible. Thanks!

Fax: (573) 547-1261 • Email mancheauction@yahoo.com

Studying the courthousePercy Head Start students are studying buildings. They recently visited the Randolph County Courthouse in Chester, where Deputy Jarrod Peters spoke to the children about the rooms in the courthouse. Pictured are students Justa Pelico, Taytum Tucker, Brantley Woodside, Josef Lueker, Archer Brandt, Cali Bodeker, Ally Kalmas, Maria Hernandez, Makayla Crabtree, Gianna Perez, Haylee Hull, Paxton Allhands, Jaxston Miller and Keegan Koker.

P e a c e L u t h e r a n Church in Steeleville wi l l have i t s Ash Wednesday services

February 26 at 12:30 and 7 p.m.

The traditional ser-vice, which begins the

Lenten journey, will include the imposition of ashes and Holy Com-munion.

Peace Lutheran Ash Wednesday

Several area housing authorities will receive grants through the De-partment of Housing and Urban Develop-ment’s Capital Fund Program.

The money will be used for management improvements and the

development, fi nancing and modernization of public housing proper-ties.

Over $20 million went to southern Illinois housing authorities.

O f the 14 feder -al grants that were awarded, housing au-

thority recipients in-cluded Randolph, Per-ry, Jackson, St. Clair and Jefferson counties.

Randolph will re-ceive $426,793, Perry $800,495 , Jackson $2,038,230, St. Clair $2,636,719 and Jeffer-son $809,395.

Area housing authorities get modernization money

The Randolph County Birth to Three Program is for expectant moms and children up to age 3.

The program is free and provides regu-lar monitoring of the child’s developmental progress, parenting assistance, referrals for services, story hour and play groups.

The program also has family activities and

has offered fi eld trips, parent encounters and learning opportunities.

The public is invited to attend these activities.Story hour, which

includes music and a craft, is at Sparta Lincoln the second Wednesday of each month at 10:30 a.m., Steeleville library the second Friday at 10:30, Red Bud library the last two Wednesdays

at 10 and Chester li-brary every Tuesday at 10:30.

Play groups, which allow children to social-ize and play with oth-ers, are at Sparta Lin-coln the third Wednes-day of each month at 10:30 a.m., Red Bud Elementary the last two Thursdays at 10 and Chester Grade School the second and fourth Wednesdays at 2 p.m.

Birth to Three Program

PresenterCheryl Adams, At-Home Health Care ad-ministrator at Sparta Community Hospital, recently attended the Texas Association for Home Care and Hospice Winter Conference in Denton. Adams is pres-ident of the Illinois Homecare and Hospice Council. She and Sara Ratcliff, executive di-rector of IHHC, pre-sented Strategies for Success with Review Choice Demonstration in PDGM. Adams is a sought-after speaker in home health across the nation.

Happy HamlinHamlin is a 5-year-old Lab mix who needs a forever home—with no other dogs or cats in the house. If you are interested in adopting Hamlin, call the Perry County Humane So-ciety at 542-3647 or email the shelter at pchsinfo@yahoo.com.

Bike Surgeon in O’Fallon will host a Cannonball bike ride Saturday, February 22 in Chester and the sur-rounding area.

Riders will start as a group at 10 a.m. at the Chester Welcome Center and be escorted by Chester police across the bridge to begin the race on the Missouri side of the river.

There will be a 65-mile route, including, 5,000 feet of climbing, and a 37-mile route, with 2,000 feet of climb-ing.

The rides end at Al’s Restaurant in McBride.

The St. Nicholas Land-mark in Chester is lead sponsor, hosting the

post race and steak din-ner party later that day.

The sport of gravel bike racing has been growing in popularity in recent years.

Several members of the Panaracer profes-sional bike team will participate in this race. Panaracer is a major producer of bicycle tires and has become a leader in the gravel racing segment.

For more information, go to cannonball.bike.

Cannonball bike ride February 22

From Chester Bridge into Missouri

COMING EVENTSCOUNTY JOURNAL | FEBRUARY 20, 2020 PAGE 11

PUBLIC NOTICE-GENERAL PRIMARY ELECTIONEARLY VOTING DATE

PublicPublic notice is hereby given, pursuant to Article 19A of the Election Code, that Early Voting in Randolph County will be conducted on the following dates at the Randolph County Courthouse, Chester, Illinois prior to

the March 17, 2020 General Primary Election.DATES

Monday, February 10 - Tuesday, February 11 8am-4pmThursday, February 13 - Friday, February 14 8am-4pmTuesday, February 18 - Friday, February 21 8am-4pmMonday, February 24 - Friday, February 28 8am-4pmMonday, March 2 - Friday, March 6 8am-4pmMondaMonday, March 9 - Friday, March 13 8am-4pmSaturday, March 14 8am-12pmMonday, March 16 8am-4pm

Melanie L. Johnson, Randolph County Clerk618-826-5000 Ext. 191

COLUMBIAN CLUB

Hosted By St. Bruno Catholic School

SATURDAY, MARCH 7

7:00pm-10:00PM

Save the Date

LIC#044000169

ADAM’S AUCTION 618-234-8751

MULTIPLE ESTATE & CONSIGNMENT AUCTION Thur., February 27th at 5pm Held at St. Clair County Event Center

1550 E State Route 15, Belleville, IL 62221

Antiques; Coins; Collectibles; Glassware; Casual & Fine Furniture; Kitchen & Household Items; Jewelry; Vintage Toys; Sports Memorabilia; Lawn & Garden Equipment; Appliances; Tools of all kinds and So Much More. Doors open 3pm auction day for viewing. Check us out on facebook.com or auctionzip.com.

2nd Annual

Thunder Struck WINTER BANQUET

FUN FOR ALL

Saturday, March 74:00PM-?

Coulterville VFW

Door Prizes, Raffles, Silent Auction, Live Auction,

Barrel of Booze & Music

$10 Cover ChargeFor Dinner & BeerKids Under 6 Eat Free

Main Prizes: 65” Smart TV, Picnic Tables, Baskets, Sports Tickets, Signed Memorabilia,

Softball Items & Thunder Struck Fan Wear

ADAM’S AUCTION ~ 618-234-8751

FARM LAND AUCTION Wed., March 4 at 6PM

83.9 Acres on Lenzburg East Road Lenzburg, IL 62255

Held At St. Clair County Event Center 1550 E State Route 15, Belleville, IL 62221

Open House: Sun., March 1, 12-1PM

LIC#044000169

83.9 acres of farm ground with 76.58 tillable & 7.35 with woods & waterway. Home site possibilities. Horses & livestock allowed. Marissa Unit #40 & Mar issa HS D is t r i c t . Te rms : 5% Buyer’s Premium. $25,000 down

day of sale. Balance due in 30 days.

Shooting Match

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Sign in at Noon • Shoot at 1pm

Cash Only • No Scopes • .670 Choke

100% Payout All 10 Rounds • Limit 35 Shooters Per Round

Meat Wheel • 50/50

COUNTY JOURNAL | FEBRUARY 20, 2020PAGE 12

COUNTY JOURNAL1101 E. PINE STREET • PERCY • 497-8272

The Randolph Socie-ty announced that Per-cy Clerc is the second inductee in its 2020 class.

Clerc descended from some of the ear-liest French settlers of Randolph County. He was born in Prairie du Rocher in June of 1902, the eldest of fi ve sons born to Charles and Germania Clerc.

From the start, he was integrated into the agricultural, reli-gious and social com-munities of Prairie du Rocher.

Baptized and con-fi rmed at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church, Clerc became a devoted life-long member of the parish. After fi nish-ing the eighth grade, he left school to help his father work on the family farm, a job that became even more im-portant after the death of his mother in 1918.

From an early age, Clerc learned the sto-ries and songs of old Prairie du Rocher from his grandmother Sarah Louvier Albert.

He composed some of his own lyrics to these folk melodies, learn-ing French to help him better represent and understand the town’s colonial past. He pub-lished two books of songs and poems in-spired by his grand-mother’s stories, “La Chansonnier de Prai-rie du Rocher” and “Echoes of Old Prairie du Rocher.”

As a child, Clerc be-

gan par-ticipating in one of the most u n i q u e Prairie du R o c h e r traditions, the sing-ing of La Guiannee. A group of costumed s i n g e r s and musi-cians gath-er in the small town every New Year’s Eve and trav-el from house to house, ser-e n a d i n g local resi-dents.

The song, always sung in French, extends wishes for a happy new year then asks the residents for refreshments.

Clerc’s father had been singing La Gui-annee since he was a child in the 1870s.

Clerc felt a keen sense of responsibility to help keep traditions such as this alive, so after his father retired as one of the group’s leaders, Clerc took over the task, leading the singing and keep-ing time with the tap-ping of his cane.

His unique corn husk costume made him in-stantly recognizable.

During his time with the group, their sing-ing was preserved on a recording, which is

now at the Library of Congress.

Clerc and the Gui-annee singers often performed at folk festi-vals, and on one occa-sion, they entertained a government repre-sentative from France.

Clerc’s infl uence was felt throughout the community, as he helped revive other traditions like the Twelfth Night Ball.

One of Clerc’s nieces said that had it not been for his dedication to save La Guiannee, it likely would have ended.

In December 1980, Clerc performed for the fi nal time with the group.

Clerc, who was 78 at the time, perished

in a January 12, 1981 fi re that consumed his small house on the family farm.

Although there is no way to know exactly what transpired that afternoon, the Clerc family believes that Clerc initially made it safely out of the house but went back inside to

try to save his papers, which in-cluded his poetry and songs, as well as historical documents a b o u t Prairie du Rocher.

F r a g -ments of some of these pa-pers were d i s c o v -ered in the ashes.

His death was felt by many to represent a sort of end of an era for the com-munity.

Gerry Franklin, who today helps carry on the Guiannee tradition in Prairie du Rocher, said, “When Percy died, it was almost like we turned a page here in town.”

For the community, Clerc was a stepping stone to the past.

Although nearly four

decades have passed since Clerc’s death, his infl uence is still felt throughout Prairie du Rocher. His contribu-tions to the community continue to be remem-bered and celebrated.

“(Clerc) felt a duty to his fellow man and to the world in general,” Franklin said. “That’s how Percy lived.”

Clerc seemed to in-nately understand a major truth about local traditions and history, that they are nothing without the people who work to maintain and cherish them. Historical build-ings and artifacts are important, but they need people to breathe life into them and give them meaning.

The musical herit-age of the community, perhaps one of the most unique and en-during historical tra-ditions in all of Ran-dolph County, lives on, thanks to the efforts of devoted citizens like Percy Clerc.

For a more detailed biography of Clerc, go to randolphsociety.org.

Percy Clerc leads La Guiannee in the 1970s.

Prairie du Rocher native to be honored

DQ fundraiser for mission tripSparta Dairy Queen will host a fundraiser Tuesday, February 25 from 4 to 8 p.m. to benefi t the Westminster Presbyterian youth mission trip. In July, the youth will travel to Pawhuska, Oklahoma to work with the Osage Nation. From left are Lee Craig and mission leader Laura Schulte, presenting chocolate-covered strawberries and a mission shirt to Dairy Queen owner Scott Rust to thank him for his support.

Section TwoFEBRUARY 20, 2020

Section Two

By Travis LottThree Republicans

are vying for the op-portunity to take on Democrat state Repre-sentative Nathan Re-itz in the November 3 general election for his seat in the 116th Il-linois House of Repre-sentatives.

Two of the three Republicans, David Friess and Dave Hold-er, are from Randolph County.

Holder, a Randolph County commissioner, is from Baldwin, and Friess is a Red Bud city councilman.

Reitz, also a Ran-dolph County native, is from Steeleville.

The other Republi-can candidate is Kevin Schmidt of Millstadt.

Though all three Re-publicans have similar values—listing lower-ing taxes as a number one priority—each has a different idea of why they should receive your vote in the March 17 primary election.Dave Holder

Holder, 65, said he has the qualifi cations and experience to do the best job as state representative.

Holder is a certifi ed public accountant, gov-ernment auditor and, aside from his tenure as Randolph County commissioner, has also served on the Sparta school board.

“I can bring quality experience to the state of Illinois,” Holder said. “Of course, we all know (the state’s) prob-

lems. My experience would be very valu-able.”

H o l d e r said that, a l o n g -side com-m i s s i o n -ers Marc K i e h n a and Ron-nie White, he helped the county t h r o u g h f inanc ia l diffi culties when Ran-dolph County took a big hit to its tax rev-enue. In 2016, Ran-dolph County’s rev-enue was dramati-cally decreased when a change was made to the way coal sold to Dynegy in Baldwin was taxed, resulting in the county’s revenue being cut more than half.

Holder, who is one of the main crafters of the county’s annual budget, had to cut the budget to accommo-date that. These cuts included consolidating offi ces and reducing costs.

The county eventual-ly weathered the storm and was even able to put money into repairs at the courthouse.

Holder also said he drafted the intergov-ernmental agreement that helped lead to the county receiving enter-prise zone status this year. He also helped Prairie du Rocher work with fi nancial in-

stitutions to fund stud-ies of the levees.

“It took coordina-tion and leadership,” Holder said. “I’d like to bring those same tal-ents to the state of Il-linois. I think the state needs them.

“This race, as with many, comes down to who has the experi-ence and qualifi ca-tions to do the job.”David Friess

Friess, 51, said he has a unique reason for Republicans to give him the nod for the election: He has shown that he can win.

In 2018, Friess took on Jerry Costello II, who was a strong in-cumbent who had held the seat since 2011.

“People thought I didn’t stand a chance,” Friess said. “We made it a competitive race. No one else was will-ing to do that.”

A competitive race it was. The two cam-paigns worked tire-lessly to win over vot-ers through endless

public appearances and mailers.

The fi nal results showed Friess com-ing within just seven points of Costello.

“Having taken on the Costello/Madigan ma-chine, I’ve demonstrat-ed to the voters that I will stand up to these guys,” Friess said.

Just seven months after Costello defeat-ed Friess, Costello ac-cepted an appointment from Governor JB Pritzker to serve as the head of law enforce-ment for the Illinois Department of Natural Resources.

In his place, the Dem-ocratic Party appoint-ed Nathan Reitz, son of former state Repre-sentative Dan Reitz.

Friess said he thinks Reitz is a nice guy. He said their sons played on the same baseball team last year, but he feels it’s time for a change.

“Talking to people in the district, they are frustrated with the dy-

nasty poli-ticians. It shouldn’t be a family business,” F r i e s s said.

F r i e s s said he wants to fi ght for term limits in Spring-f i e l d , something he said could help a l l ev iat e

some of the state’s po-litical woes.

“Look at Madigan,” Friess said. “He’s amassed so much pow-er and infl uence that no one will stand up to him.”

He said he believes somewhere between 10 and 12 years is enough for a politician.

Friess, like others, said his main issue is the ever-climbing Il-linois taxes, including the recent doubling of the gas tax and in-crease in vehicle regis-tration fees.

“So many people I’ve talked to are on the verge of not just get-ting their gas across the river, but mov-ing across the river,” Friess said.

Friess said his other two key issues are the Second Amendment and fi ghting for pro-life policies.Kevin Schmidt

Schmidt, 38, also listed taxes, the Sec-ond Amendment and opposition to abortion

as his top three issues, with taxes being the number one topic.

Schmidt is a chiro-practor who owns his own practices in Mill-stadt and Freeburg.

“I’m a business own-er,” Schmidt said. “I’m sad to see businesses being hurt by these rules and regulations.”

Schmidt said he has a knack for cutting costs to keep a busi-ness going, and he thinks that is a needed talent for taking on Springfi eld.

Using a phrase popularized by Presi-dent Donald Trump, Schmidt said he wants to “drain the swamp” in Springfi eld.

“I think I’m the re-form candidate for the job,” Schmidt said. “I’m not a career politician.

“I truly want to make Illinois a better place to live, work and run a business.”

Schmidt said he also would like to work to reduce healthcare costs. He said he be-lieves this can be achieved through a plan that would fea-ture transparency in pricing, which would force healthcare pro-viders to publicly dis-play prices for differ-ent procedures.

Schmidt said this would allow capital-ism to take over by al-lowing patients to shop for lower prices.

“True capitalism lowers cost if it’s al-lowed to happen,” Schmidt said.

Three Republicans vye for house nomination

Dave Holder David Friess Kevin Schmidt

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By: Dan ZobelSPORTSCounty Journal | February 20, 2020Page 14

Pinckneyville wrestlers Ryder Parson and Chris David

Parson advances to wrestling state

Third at sectionals

Dawson Yates leading Panthers to another big seasonThe Pinckneyville senior recently topped 1,500 points for his career

Regional champions!Marissa-C’ville falls in sectional semifinals

By Dan ZobelPinckneyville High School senior wrestler

Ryder Parson will make his second consecutive trip to the state tournament.

Parson (33-9) placed third in the 120-pound weight class February 15 at the Vandalia Sec-tional.

He picked up wins over Lawrence Trimble of Mt. Zion (10-13), Hayden Frey (29-15) of Lawrenceville, Gavin Mann (30-15) of West Frankfort, Arojae Hart (29-3) of Anna-Jonesboro and Cutter Prater (36-10) of Vandalia.

Parson’s lone loss at sectionals was in the quar-terfinals to Greg Thombleson (33-9) of Mt. Carmel.

The win over Prater was by a 5-1 decision in the third-place match.

“He had seen Prater earlier in the season, and Prater beat him,” said Pinckneyville coach Gar-rett Huggins. “When he was able to come out and control the whole match, that was a great confidence builder for him.”

The state tournament is February 20-22 at the State Farm Center in Champaign.

Parson’s first-round matchup will be against junior Blain Christie (38-8) of McNamara.

“We just want him to go out and do what he does and take it one match at a time,” Huggins said. “Our points will come. I think last year it was kind of a shock to him because this is such a big venue, and it can be pretty intimidating.

“He got that first one out of the way, now he can stay comfortable and come out ready to go.”

Parson’s teammate Chris David will accompany him to state as an alternate at 113.

One of Parson’s biggest wins at the sectional was in the consolation semifinals. That is when he squared off with Hart, who beat Parson at regionals. Parson won this time by a 4-3 decision.

“The Anna-Jonesboro kid is a great wrestler,” Huggins said. “Parson won off a stalling call. That was part of our plan of pushing the pace and making the other guy react to it. I think (Hart) is more used to being the one pushing the pace. We got in and banged with him a little bit. Ryder never lost his stride the whole match, and he was able to pull it off.”

David (26-11), also a senior, earned a bye in the first round at 113 and defeated Ashtin Carver (28-11) of Litchfield in the quarterfinals.

David, though, dropped his next two matches, losing to Tavius Hosley (28-2) of Tolono Unity and Jake Schwartz (38-4) of Carlinville.

“Chris was wrestling well. He just fell a little short,” Huggins said. “The Schwartz kid is good. We just couldn’t get past him.”

Also for Sparta, Eli Coop (18-18), a sophomore,

By Dan ZobelMarissa-Coulterville

led after each of the first three quarters February 18, but Gor-eville rallied in the fourth to win 37-33 to advance to the prep girls basketball Class 1A Wayne City Sec-tional finals.

Last season, Marissa-Coulterville defeated Goreville in a sectional championship game.

This time around, Goreville (22-11) will have another shot at a sectional title when it faces Okawville Thurs-day, February 20.

Marissa-Coulterville finished its season 22-8. The win total is the third highest in a sea-son for the program.

The Lady Meteors were able to do that even after losing lead-ing scorer Bree Portz to an ACL injury in early January.

“I couldn’t be more proud of the season the girls were able to put forth,” said Marissa-Coulterville coach Da-rin Degenhart “When we got the news on Bree, that could have been the story of our season, but I feel like they were able to rise above that and keep working. All of their roles had to change at least slightly, and we had some lumps along the way; but we got a regional title and had every opportunity to play for a sectional ti-tle. If you put yourself in that situation every year, you have to be happy.”

Emily Smith and Hailey Krause each scored nine points for Marissa-Coulterville against Goreville, with Krause knocking down

Continued on Page 15

Marisssa-Coulterville’s Hailey Krause dribbles toward the basket Feb-ruary 13 in the first half of the Lady Meteor regional title victory.

Emily Smith of Marissa-Coulterville pushes the ball up court February 13 as New Athens defender Danika White attempts to keep pace.

a 3-pointer. Olivia Quig-ley added eight points, Grace Middendorf five and Macey Schreiber two.

The Lady Meteors had made at least two 3-pointers in 16 con-secutive games. This was just the fourth time this season they had been held to just one or zero made shots from

behind the 3-point arc.Marissa-Coulterville

jumped out to an 11-2 advantage and led 11-6 after one quarter. Gore-ville trimmed its deficit to 20-19 by halftime and the Lady Meteors still led 24-22 after three quarters.

In the fourth, Payton Sopczak and Kelsey Ray each scored seven

points for Goreville. Sopczak finished the game with 11 and Ray nine.

The Lady Blackcats took the lead when Ray nailed a 3-pointer to give them a 30-28 ad-vantage. She later con-verted a 3-point play to push the lead to 33-29.

Continued on Page 18

Dawson Yates

By Dan ZobelThe Pinckneyville

High School boys bas-ketball team is in the midst of another fan-tastic season.

One of the reasons for that is the play of senior guard Dawson Yates.

Yates recently moved into second place all time in scoring at Pinckneyville and cur-rently has over 1,500 career points.

“Individually, it ’s cool,” Yates said, “but I know I wouldn’t be able to do it without the whole community, the guys on my team and everybody else.”

Humble is Yates to a T.As one of the lead-

ers on a 26-3 Panther team that has been

state ranked inside the top five for much of the season, it would be easy to let that kind of success go to your head, but Yates is just taking it all in stride.

Earlier this month when Yates moved into second place all time in scoring at Pinckney-ville by passing Wade Graskewicz’s total of 1,471, Graskewicz was there to present him with the game ball.

“To be honest, I nev-er dreamed of hitting 1,000 points, let alone 1,500,” Yates said. “It was awesome, know-ing the person I passed and how great he was and hearing about the way he played and him giving me the ball and a few words of advice.”

The game of basket-ball did not always come easy to Yates. He said he has been play-ing the sport for as long as he can remember, even from the time he could walk, but he ad-mitted that he was not good in the beginning.

“Just growing up in Pinckneyville and

watching basketball motivated me to go to the gym all the time and get better,” Yates said.

Yates recalls the talk around town in 2006 and 2008, when Pinck-neyville made state tournament runs, each ending in fourth place.

He remembers hear-ing about the play of the likes of Collin Wood-side and Kyle Cassity and other big Panther names.

“I don’t remember what year, but I really liked watching Dylan Hardin play as a senior,” Yates said. “My eighth-grade year, I absolutely loved watching J.C. Moll play. That summer, we grew to become really good friends.”

At that time, Yates and

his classmates were making a name for themselves, as well.

As a seventh-grader, Yates was part of the Pinckneyville Junior Panther team that placed second at the SIJHSAA Class M state tournament. As eighth-graders, that group won the state title.

Fast forward to pre-sent time, and that core is still together. Yates is joined in this year’s senior class by Devin Kitchen, Grant Tanner, Hunter Riggins and Noah Carter.

“Us five, specifically, have played together since we were in the fifth grade,” Yates said. “I can’t put into words how awesome this is.”

That group of Yates,

Tanner and Kitchen got a taste of what the state tournament feels like at the high school level in 2018, when the Panthers, led by the likes of seniors Moll, Grant Jausel and Kyle Luke, placed fourth in Peoria.

“The goal ever since the start of the season and even before this summer has always been to make it back to Peoria and get as far as we can,” Yates said. “We have already basically clinched part of the conference title, which was big for us.”

With one more SIRR Mississippi win, Pinck-neyville will clinch a share of the conference

Continued on Page 17

County Journal | february 20, 2020 Page 15

By Dan ZobelThe Chester Grade

School boys basketball team placed fourth at the SIJHSAA Class M state tournament Feb-ruary 14 at Rend Lake College in Ina.

Chester lost to Joseph Arthur of O’Fallon 58-46 in the third-place game. That came off of a 51-47 loss to Wolf Branch of Swansea February 11 in the semifinals.

“I’m proud of the way we fought,” said Ches-ter coach Chris Kern. “We were down in both games by double digits but fought back.”

Against Joseph Ar-thur, Chester’s defi-cit grew to nearly 20 points at one point, but Chester got it back to six with under two min-utes to play.

“We had a chance to make it four, but we missed a shot and (Joseph Arthur) made free throws down the stretch,” Kern said.

Chester Grade School players and coaches with their fourth-place trophy

Chester Grade School boys hoops earn fourth at state

“Overall, we realized we could play with anybody. This was the best team I’ve coached, effort wise, with how they grinded and hus-tled.”

Chester finished with a 16-13 record. The

team’s run at state in-cluded a 51-32 victory over Eldorado Febru-ary 7 in the quarter-finals.

Chester’s regional championship was the program’s first since 2002.

“I’m proud of the kids for winning a regional. That was a goal at the beginning of the sea-son. We knew we could if we had our minds right,” Kern said. “Ulti-mately, I don’t think we envisioned finishing

this high, but once we got here, we knew we had a chance.”

The defining charac-teristic of this Chester team was its never-ending fight.

“We play in a tough conference,” Kern said, “and we play a lot of physical games. I had a lot of coaches come up to me after games to say that we had a good group of kids as far as aggressiveness.”

Chester will lose six eighth-graders to grad-uation but will return six seventh-graders, including two starters.

“Next year, we plan to be here again,” Kern said. “Honestly, we could be better next year, but that’s not a given to get back in this situation.

“This was a great group of kids and fun to coach. I’m proud of the way they played throughout the sea-son.”

Lost to Joseph Arthur in the third-place game

The Randolph County Cutters & Strutters of the National Wild Turkey Federation will host its 10th annual Hunting Heritage Ban-quet.

The event is Friday, February 28 at 5 p.m. at Ratzkeller Bar & Ban-quet at 1019 Veterans Street in Red Bud.

Dinner will be served at 6:30. The evening starts with a social hour and will include raffles, a silent auction and an oral auction.

Everyone will have an opportunity to view special edition wildlife prints, bronze sculp-tures, wildlife decor and NWTF turkey-get-ters.

Funds raised from the banquet will be directed through the Hunting Heritage Fund to support projects in Illinois for wild tur-key and other habitat species. Local NWTF chapters can also apply for funding to support community activities, such as high school scholarships, JAKES Youth Day activities, Turkey Hunter’s Care Program and wing shooting educational programs for women and youth.

For more information, call Susan Whelan at 615-6204 or Bob Pratt at 282-2275.

Steeleville Won LostMonday EarlyMixed Nuts 102 59FNB Alley Cats 99 62Brunzeez Divas 90 71Rock & Rollers 88 73Splits & Giggles 84 77Gutter Gals 80 81County Journal 76 86

High Team GameSplits & Giggles 734High Team Serie sSplits & Giggles 2126High Ind. GameChrista Poenitske 188Jan Bell 188 High Ind. SeriesJane Stanhouse 497

Tuesday EarlyBusch Hoggers 31 4Henry’s Tax Serv. 28 7Mevert’s Auto 25 10Farm Bureau 24 11NAPA 11 24Korando Htg. 10 25River City Auto 7 28Shiloh Tavern 4 31

High Team GameHenry’s Tax Service 1280High Team SeriesHenry’s Tax Service 3723High Ind. GameJeremy Edgar 247High Ind. SeriesKris Beshears 639

Thursday EarlyS’ville 1st Natl. 60 10Chester Eagles 49 21Longbranch 44.5 25.5Kueker Ins. 40 30Peace Lutheran 37 33Pocket Pounders 34 36Sparta Equip. 30.5 39.5Hillside Auto. 30 40Pistol City 29 41 Windy Hill Farms 27 43Chester Natl. Bk. 21 49

High Team Game1st National Bank Steeleville 1280High Team Series1st National Bank Steeleville 3566High Ind. GameMike Dierks 279High Ind. SeriesBruce Mathis 716

Bowling standings

Hunting Heritage Banquet

will travel to state as an alternate after reaching the consola-tion semifinals at 285.

Coop lost to Kalique Edwards (35-11) of Au-burn in the opening round before pick-ing up victories over Justin Laws (6-5) of Roxana and Camden Ramsey (29-7) of Roch-ester. He then lost to Logan Wilson (27-2) of Tolono Unity.

“This was Coop’s first year wrestling, so to

have the opportunity to be part of this is amazing for him,” said Sparta coach Robert Hayes Jr. “The kid he beat from Rochester he had lost to twice during the regular season. He wasn’t go-ing to go down three times.”

Senior Isaac Evans and sophomore Gar-re t t Kempfer a l so wrestled for Sparta.

Evans earned a first-round bye at 182 before

falling to Drew Kil-lam (29-8) of Auburn in the quarterfinals. Evans then defeated Garrett Cardwell (36-14) of Benton but lost to Micah Downs (33-4) of Tolono Unity.

“Isaac’s bracket had four of the top six wrestlers in the state,” Hayes said. “He wres-tled hard. He was an outstanding leader for us and kept everybody in line. He showed them the way. He will

be missed for sure.”Kempfer wrestled at

152 and finished 0-2. He lost to Kaleb Reid (22-20) of Monticello and Reed Davis (26-8) of the Jacksonville-Illinois School for Vis-ually Impaired co-op.

“Kempfer had a lot of good wrestlers in his bracket, too,” Hayes said. “I’m very happy with his wrestling.”

Sparta will bring back the bulk of its team next year.

“We have almost eve-rybody returning for another two years,” Hayes said. “We have to fill the open spots, but hopefully, we’ll be able to compete more on a team level next year.”

Red Bud had two wrestlers compete at sectionals, sophomore Caleb Bass at 220 and senior Pierce Heizer at 285.

Bass (32-8) finished 3-2. He defeated Drake Lewis (17-15) of Auburn,

Zachary Blankenship (18-20) of Carterville and Ethan Plunkett (34-18) of Vandalia, but he lost to Tucker Bry-ant (32-6) Harrisburg and Jefferson Thomas (34-7) of Litchfield.

Heizer (27-7) was 1-2. He picked up a win over Luke Smolak (21-12) of Carterville and suffered defeats to Jake Rider (21-5) of Carmi-White County and Skyler Sutton (32-8) of Olney.

Parson advances to wrestling state...From Page 14___________________________________________

February 28

Goreville holds off Chester to claim BDC West title

Chester guard DeOndre Martin gets a shot up February 18 over Goreville defender Trent Glidewell. The Blackcats won 65-57.

By Dan ZobelIn a game that was

shaping up to be a grind it out battle until the end, two incidents late in the first half pushed the momentum to Goreville’s side, and the Blackcats emerged victorious 65-57 at Chester in a Black Dia-mond Conference West Division showdown.

The victory earned Goreville (28-2, 11-0 BDC West) the outright con-ference title. Chester (18-11, 8-3 BDC West) would have stayed in the run-ning for a shot at shar-ing the title with a win.

When these two teams met at Goreville Febru-ary 4, the Blackcats, one of the top Class 1A teams in the state, won 43-32. Chester kept the game close and low scoring by being patient on offense, slowing down the game.

The Yellow Jackets were doing more of the same this time and trailed just 12-10 after the first quarter.

With Goreville leading 16-10 with just over two minutes remaining in the second quarter, Ches-ter coach Brad Norman called a timeout. Nor-man was then whistled for a technical foul for walking too far onto the court after being granted the timeout.

One minute and six Goreville points later, Norman called a timeout and was subsequently whistled for another technical and was eject-ed from the game. Nor-man said he was not given an explanation for the second infraction.

Kanon Webb nailed both technical free throws and followed them up with a 3-pointer to increase the Blackcat lead to 27-10.

DeOndre Martin scored for Chester in the closing seconds of the half to make it 27-12 at halftime.

In the third quarter, Chester cut its deficit to 11 points twice, the later after a Chett Andrews 3-pointer and Nathan Heffernan score.

Goreville answered wi th back - to -back 3-pointers from Webb and Logan Hankins. The Blackcats led 43-28 after three quarters.

Chester continued to push in the fourth quar-ter and cut the Goreville lead to 10 points, 45-35,

after an Ian Reith pull-up jumper.

The Yellow Jackets, though, were unable to get back within single digits until Martin hit a pair of free throws with 1:48 to play to make it 55-44.

Chester sent Goreville to the free-throw line seven times in the final 2:04 of the game. The Blackcats converted 10-of-14 of the foul shots.

The closest Chester came was after a Jared Landeros 3-ball with 34 seconds left cut the defi-cit to 61-54.

“We were proud of the

ways our guys battled back,” Norman said. “They didn’t quit. I can’t say enough about them. They battled one of the best 1A teams in the state and came back and made it a seven-point game.”

Martin, Reith and An-drews each finished with 14 points for Ches-ter. Andrews made a trio of 3-pointers. They are the team’s lone seniors and were honored prior to the game for their last home game.

“Chett has been in the program for four years,” Norman said. “It’s great

to see him turn into the ball player he is. He shows up every day and does what the coaches ask. It worked out great for him his senior year, other than his injury, but he’s come back and been a big part of our program.

“DeOndre came over a couple years ago and I felt like he was good for us and we were good for him. It’s been awesome to watch him play the last two years. I wish I would have had him for four. He turned out to be a pretty awesome guard and represents

our school well.“There is not enough

words in the diction-ary to describe Ian. He’s started for three years. He’s the third leading scorer in the school, probably the leading rebounder and top five in assists. The kid does it all. He has never once back talked a coach and he’s never skipped a practice. He’s going to turn into a great father and a heck of a worker one day. Hopefully he can find something he loves and fall in love with it like he has with basketball.”

County Journal | February 20, 2020Page 16

By Dan ZobelDespite a valiant

comeback attempt, the Chester High School girls basketball team had its historic season come to a close Feb-ruary 13 in the Class 2A Columbia Regional championship.

Freeburg raced out to a strong first quarter lead and held off Ches-ter’s fourth-quarter rally to top the Lady Yellow Jackets 36-29 to claim the title.

The regional champi-onship is the first for Freeburg since 2009. The Lady Midgets, who improved to 25-8, tied the program record for most wins in a season.

For Chester, the Lady Yellow Jackets were attempting to snap a regional title drought that stemmed back to 1992.

Chester finished 26-6, setting a new bar for most wins in a season. The Lady Yellow Jack-et season included two tournament titles and a long win streak of 11 games.

“What a season,” said Chester coach Pat Knowles. “The crowd and the support we got as we were winning was unbelievable. It was pretty neat.”

Freeburg set the tone from the beginning against Chester.

The Lady Midgets led 21-13 after the first quarter, getting 16 points from Maddy Schwemmer, includ-ing four 3-pointers. Schwemmer did not score the rest of the game, but she led all

Alyssa Cole scored 11 of her game high 23 points in the third quarter, and Nashville took down SIRR Missis-sippi foe Pinckneyville 42-28 February 13 in the Class 2A Sesser-Valier Regional cham-pionship.

This is the second straight year Nashville beat Pinckneyville (18-11) for a regional title. The Hornettes have won four consecutive regional champion-ships.

These two teams split a pair of regular sea-son matchups, with neither team scoring more than 31 points in

Chester’s Destiny Williams and Freeburg’s Kylie Kisgen watch the basketball. Photo by Jim Beers

Chester rally falls short to Freeburg in Columbia Regional championship

Lady Yellow Jackets fall by a 36-29 score

scorers.Neither team could

get much going offen-sively after that.

Freeburg took a 27-18 lead into halftime and 33-19 into the fourth quarter after Ches -ter managed only one point in the third.

In the fourth, Ches-ter’s offense got going again, and the Lady Jackets went on a run to cut their deficit to 33-29 with just under three minutes to play.

“We made some shots and got a couple of runouts,” Knowles said. “We were able to turn them over a few times and capitalized.”

Freeburg’s defense answered back by hold-

ing Chester scoreless the rest of the way.

“We cut it down to four points then missed a free throw, and three possessions in a row, we didn’t score,” Knowles said. “We just didn’t shoot the ball well. Their defense was quick, but we missed a lot of open shots.”

After the first quarter, Chester’s defense was equally as good, hold-ing Freeburg to just 15 points over the final three quarters.

One adjustment Ches-ter made was shifting Destiny Williams on to Maddy Schwemmer and play a box-and-one defense.

“Once we se t t led

down, we shut them down,” Knowles said. “Our defense picked things up. We were playing hard. It was awesome, but we just could not make a bas-ket.”

On offense, Destiny Williams, Chester’s all-time leading scorer, was held to just six points.

Reese Chandler paced Chester with eight points. She made two 3-pointers, while Ken-dall Williams hit one 3-ball and scored six points. Trinity Brown tossed in five points and Alyssa Seymour four.

“(Freeburg) didn’t key on anybody,” Knowles said. “They played a good man defense.”

Neither team was good at the free-throw line. Chester made 4-of-10 foul shots and Free-burg 4-of-15.

Kylie Kisgen added nine points for Free-burg. Ellie Eichenlaub was good for five, Ha-ley Kims four and Mya Gebke two.

Chester will lose four seniors to gradua-tion, Destiny Williams, Brown, Ally Rowold and Audrey Hopper.

“Three of them were in the program all the way through. Two didn’t play a lot, but what they contributed for four years in prac-tice was important,” Knowles said. “I told the seniors they won 68 games in their career, and that’s not bad. That set the tone to get the program back and be competitive.”

Nashville wins regional title over Pinckneyvilleeach game.

This time around, Nashville came out hot and led 10-4 after one quarter and 22-11 at halftime.

In the third quarter, Cole and the Hornettes put the game away with a 16-8 advantage, rais-ing their lead to 38-19.

“Nashville did a great job of keeping us away from the rim tonight and making it difficult for us to score,” said Pinckneyville coach Alan Engelhardt. “Cole did a nice job of step-ping out and hitting jumpers for them, and we didn’t get enough stops to rebound and

run.”Pinckneyville leading

scorer Kenzie Rushing was held to just seven points and was coming off of a 30-point game February 11 in the Lady Panther win over Sesser-Valier-Walton-ville in the semifinals.

Lily Britt and Aubrey Bruns each scored six points for Pinckneyville. Lily Tanner chipped in five and Elaine Shaney-felt and Haliegh Kling two apiece.

Tanner, Bruns and Rushing each hit one 3-pointer. Pinckneyville was 7-of-9 at the free-throw line.

Cole made a pair of

3-pointers for Nashville. Sabrina Kollbaum (9 points), Rylee Luech-tefeld (7 points) and Emily Schnitker (3 points) each knocked down a 3-ball.

The Hornettes made just 5-of-13 foul shots.

Pinckneyville will lose three seniors to gradu-ation, Kling, Bruns and Brianne Lacy.

“We will miss our sen-iors,” Engelhardt said. “They have competed and done the unsung work for us for four years. I hope our young-er kids realize the op-portunity in front of them if we will get in the gym and work.”

Reese Chandler of Chester, Erianna Henry of Sparta and Macey Schreiber of Marissa-Coulterville advanced

Girls basketball standings

Records Through February 18 Conference Overall Black Diamond Conference West DivisionGoreville* 8-2 21-11S-V-W 7-3 15-11Chester 7-3 26-6Vienna 6-4 12-19Trico 2-8 13-18Christopher 0-10 5-23

Cahokia Conference Kaskaskia Division

Marissa-C’ville** 8-2 22-8New Athens** 8-2 16-10Dupo** 8-2 13-11Red Bud 4-6 11-17Valmeyer 1-9 2-22Steeleville 1-9 2-23

SIRR Mississippi

Carterville* 10-0 29-2Nashville 7-3 24-9Anna-Jonesboro 5-5 23-11Pinckneyville 5-5 18-11Du Quoin 3-7 15-14Sparta 0-10 7-20

SIRR OhioHarrisburg* 9-1 29-5Benton 8-2 18-13Massac County 6-4 19-12Herrin 5-5 12-18West Frankfort 2-8 8-24Murphysboro 0-10 6-23

*Conference champion**Share of conference title

Hoops sectional tournament

outlook

Of the teams in the Black Diamond Conference West Division, Cahokia Conference Kaskaskia Division, SIRR Mississippi and SIRR Ohio, only Goreville, Carterville and Nashville remain.

Goreville will play for the Class 1A Wayne City Sectional Thursday, while Carterville and Nash-ville will play each other that same day for the 2A Carterville Sectional title.

Class 1A Wayne City SectionalFebruary 17

Okawville 46, Gallatin County 28February 18

Goreville 37, Marissa-Coulterville 33February 20

Okawville vs. Goreville, 7:00Class 1A Farina South Central Supersectional

February 24Winner Wayne City Sectional vs. Winner Casey-Westfield Sectional (Hume Shiloh or Altamont)

Class 2A Carterville SectionalFebruary 18

Carterville 62, Freeburg 46Nashville 44, Harrisburg 36

February 20Carterville vs. Nashville, 7:00

Class 2A Hamilton County SectionalFebruary 24

Winner Carterville Sectional vs. Winner Paris Sectional (Teutopolis or Paris)

Chandler, Schreiber and Henry advance to sectionals of Three-Point Showdown

to the sectional portion of the prep girls basket-ball IHSA Three-Point Showdown.

Chandler advanced

out of the Columbia Regional and Henry from the Sesser-Valier Regional.

They will compete

Thursday, February 20 prior to the Class 2A Carterville Sectional title game between Car-terville and Nashville.

Schreiber qualified from the Marissa Re-gional.

She will fire away again February 20

before the Class 1A Wayne City Sectional championship game between Goreville and Okawville.

Reese Chandler Macey Schreiber Erianna Henry

Goreville, Carterville, Nashville still playing

The trio of girls are competing for a shot at the state tournament showdown

County Journal | February 20, 2020 Page 17

Boys basketball standings

Records Through February 18 Conference Overall Black Diamond Conference West DivisionGoreville* 11-0 28-2Sesser-Valier 8-3 17-10Chester 8-3 18-11Christopher 5-6 18-11Trico 4-6 13-14Zeigler-Royalton 1-10 7-21Vienna 1-10 3-25

Cahokia Conference Kaskaskia DivisionMarissa-Coulterville 10-1 22-5Steeleville 10-1 16-13Red Bud 6-5 11-18Valmeyer 5-6 12-14New Athens 5-6 12-15Dupo 2-8 8-17Lebanon 0-11 0-24

SIRR MississippiNashville 8-1 24-6Pinckneyville 8-1 26-3Carterville 4-5 13-15Sparta 3-6 13-15Anna-Jonesboro 3-6 11-18Du Quoin 1-8 8-19

SIRR OhioMurphysboro 7-2 23-6Massac County 6-3 23-6Benton 6-3 23-7Herrin 6-3 14-12West Frankfort 2-7 8-19Harrisburg 0-9 9-15

*Conference champion

Tentative Upcoming ScheduleFEBRUARY 21

Chester at Sesser-ValierNashville vs. Du QuoinMarissa-Coulterville vs. ValmeyerMurphysboro at BentonPinckneyville at CartervilleRed Bud at DupoSparta at Anna-JonesboroSteeleville at New AthensTrico at Goreville

FEBRUARY 22Sparta vs. ChesterTrico vs. Vienna

FEBRUARY 18Trico 45

Zeigler-Royalton 44TRI 13 09 10 13 - 45Z-R 08 12 14 10 - 44

Four Trico p lay -ers scored at least 10 points, and the Pio-neers prevailed in a BDC West road game against Zeigler-Royal-ton.

Trico was led in scor-ing by Kaden Wilson with 12 points, Isaac K r a n awe t t e r a nd Hunter Baker 11 apiece and Logan Cleland 10. Cleland made three 3-pointers and Wilson one.

Trico was 15-of-24 at the free-throw line. The Tornadoes made 4-of-7 foul shots and four 3-pointers.

Gannon Dollins led Zeigler-Royalton with 21 points.

Red Bud 54New Athens 48

REB 08 15 12 19 - 54NAT 06 06 13 23 - 48

Alex Kueker scored 18 points to lead Red Bud and Carter Wiegard added 14, as the Mus-keteers won a Cahokia Conference Kaskaskia Division road game at New Athens.

Wiegard hi t two 3-pointers and Kue-ker one. Wyatt Cowell added 10 points and Bryce Amman six.

Red Bud made just 9-of-19 foul shots.

New Athens was 17-of-23 at the charity stripe and made one 3-pointer.

Joe Range paced the Yellow Jackets with 23 points.

Steeleville 59Valmeyer 48

VAL 12 17 02 17 - 48STV 17 15 15 12 - 59

Austin Hagel scored 13 of his 19 points in the first quarter, and Steele-ville used a strong third quarter to pull away from Valmeyer for a home Cahokia Conference Kaskaskia Division victory.

Hagel made four of the team’s five 3-point-ers. Drew Gerlach added 14 points, eight in the fourth quar-ter, Jacoby Gross nine, Jordan Wilson seven, Jacob Sutton six and Carter Wasson four.

T h e W a r r i o r s knocked down 12-of-16 free throws.

Valmeyer was 12-of-18 at the foul line and hit four 3-pointers.

The Pirates were led in scoring by Jacob Rowold’s 23 points.

Carter Wiegard of Red Bud lets a shot fly February 14 during the Musketeer loss to Okawville.

High school boys basketball roundupPinckneyville gets huge OT win over Nashville

Steeleville’s Jordan Wilson gets a hand on the shot of Valmeyer’s Henry Weber February 18 in the Warrior win over the Pirates.

Trico ball handler Hunter Baker looks for a teammate after a scramble for the basketball February 14 during the Pioneer win over Steeleville.

Okawville 56Sparta 40

SPA 08 13 06 13 - 40OKA 13 07 13 23 - 56

Carlos Keen tallied 18 points, and Sparta kept pace with Okawville for much of the game, but the Rockets pulled away in the fourth quarter in a nonconference clash at Okawville.

J a y d e n E t h i n g -ton made two Sparta 3-pointers and scored eight points. Dauntay Merideth hit two 3-balls for six points.

Sparta made 12-of-19 foul shots. Okawville was 10-of-20 at the foul line and knocked down four 3-pointers.

J a c k s e n H e c ke r t paced the Rockets with 18 points.Marissa-Coulterville 67Mulberry Grove 33

Murphysboro 45Wayne City 39FEBRUARY 15

Pinckneyville 44Nashville 42 (OT)

NSH 08 09 11 10 04 - 42PVE 12 09 08 09 06 - 44

Pinckneyville’s Dre

Scott beat the buzzer with a put-back in over-time to lift the Panthers over Nashville at home in an SIRR Mississippi showdown.

The win avenged Pinckneyville’s 57-38 loss January 10 at Nash-ville. The Panthers and Hornets are both 8-1 in conference play and have been ranked in the top 10 of the AP Class 2A rankings for the bulk of the season.

In this matchup, Daw-son Yates had a driving shot blocked in the clos-ing seconds of the extra period.

Scott snatched the ball out of the air and scored before the horn sounded. He finished with 12 points and eight rebounds. He made all eight of his free-throw attempts.

Yates led Pinckney-ville with 14 points. He made two 3-pointers.

Grant Tanner chipped in a solid game with nine points and seven rebounds.

The Panthers were 16-of-22 at the foul line.

Nashville made just 5-of-13 foul shots and connected on f ive 3-pointers.

Carson Parker was tops in points for the Hornets with 15.

Chester 56Trico 41

TRI 05 15 09 12 - 41CHE 04 25 11 16 - 56

Ian Reith tallied 13 of his 19 points in the first half, and the Yel-low Jackets used a big second quarter to set the tone in a home BDC West win over Trico.

DeOndre Martin also scored 19 points, in-cluding making all nine of his free-throw attempts. The Yellow Jackets were 20-of-24 at the foul line.

Jared Landeros and Chett Andrews each chipped in six points for Chester, with An-drews making a pair of 3-pointers.

Trico made 10-of-12 free throws and five 3-pointers.

Hunter Baker paced the Pioneers with 16 points. He was 8-of-9 at the foul line. Kaden Wilson scored 12 points, including three 3-point-ers, and Logan Cleland six points, including two 3-pointers.

Sparta 71Carterville 59

CTV 13 13 11 22 - 59SPA 15 23 21 12 - 71

Tony Williams scored all 20 of his points after the first quarter, and Sparta picked up its second SIRR Mississippi

Continued on Page 18

title for the fourth time in the past five years.The Panthers and Nashville are tied at 8-1 atop

the conference with both teams losing to each other. Nashville got Pinckneyville January 10 at Nashville by a 57-38 score. On February 15, Pinckneyville struck back with a 44-42 victory over the Hornets in overtime.

“That was huge,” Yates said. “Losing to them at their place wasn’t just an embarrassment for the team, but for the community. We knew we couldn’t let them, the whole town, down. Every game, the community has our backs.”

What made the win even bigger was it came on senior night. Junior Dre Scott came up with the winning bucket off a Yates miss in the clos-ing seconds.

“Us getting that win really pulled us together more than we already were, especially on senior night” Yates said. “It could have been anybody hitting the game winning bucket and we would have felt good about it.”

Yates described the team as having a family atmosphere and noted that one of the main keys to this year’s success has been the way they con-nect and the team’s chemistry together.

That type of play is something that can easily be detected when watching the game from adults down to the youth of Pinckneyville.

Yates remembers the days of getting in Duster Thomas Gymnasium as a child to get shots up and work on his game. If there is one thing that he has learned over his four years in the high school program, it is to give back to those youth.

“One of my favorite things is how well the team interacts with the younger kids throughout the town,” Yates said. “We have the little kids camp during the summer and others during weekends. It’s great having them come in. It’s important for us to high five them and say high in public and slapping their hands when we come out of the tunnel.”

Dawson Yates...From Page 14

Reith honoredChester High School boys basketball player Ian Reith, pictured with coach Brad Norman, was honored following the team’s February 18 game against Goreville for moving into third place on the program’s all-time scoring list. Reith recently scored his 1,203 career points, which moved him over Zach Lochhead’s total of 1,202. The only two players ahead of Reith are Scott Bridges and Jason Ohlau. Bridges finished with 1,366 points and Ohlau 1,348. Other members of the 1,000-point club include Bob Tindall, Larry Costilow, Steve Sherrill, Dennis Hartenberger, Curt Clendenin and Jake Lochhead.

County Journal | February 20, 2020Page 18

victory in a row.Williams made 10-of-

13 free throws and hit two 3-pointers. Kerry Harris also scored 20 points, 14 in the first half. Carlos Keen add-ed 15 points. Dauntay Merideth (4 points), Jayden Ethington (3 points) and Brayden Henry (3 points) each made a 3-pointer.

The Bulldogs were 14-of-20 at the free-throw line. Carterville made 4-of-6 free throws and nine 3-pointers.

Eli Downen paced the Lions with 16 points.

Murphysboro 61Harrisburg 37

Anna-Jonesboro 45Du Quoin 42

FEBRUARY 14Sparta 65

Du Quoin 49SPA 16 18 13 18 - 65DUQ 13 08 15 13 - 49

Carlos Keen had a monster game with 31 points, and Sparta jumped out to a dou-

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ONCOLOGYQuincy Medical Group | 618-357-5971 Dr. Amjad Ali | Mar. 5, 12, 26 Dr. Raymond Smith | Mar. 2, 16, 30ORTHOPEDICOrthopaedic Center of So. IL | 618-242-3778 Devin Haertling, PA-C | Mar. 9, 23PAIN MANAGEMENTFamily Medical Center | 618-357-2131 Dr. Paul Juergens | Mar. 18PODIATRYNext Step Foot & Ankle | 618-236-7444 Dr. Daniel Thouvenot | Mar. 6, 20 Dr. Douglas Basso | Mar. 13PULMONOLOGYSIH Medical Group | 618-997-5350 Dr. Raymund Pineda | Mar. 17SPORTS MEDICINEOrthopaedic Center of So. IL | 618-242-3778 Devin Haertling, PA-C | Mar. 9, 23 Integrative Spine CareWOUND CAREWound Care Specialists | 877-295-2273Thursdays, Mar. 5, 12, 19, 26

March 2020

(Physicians and Advanced Practice Providers are independent contractors, and are not employees of Pinckneyville Community Hospital, unless otherwise noted.)

Dietician x5936 Tuesdays

PET Scanner x5909Thursdays

MRI Mobile Unit x5909 Monday (PM) Tuesday (AM) Thursday (AM)

Cardiopulmonary Daily x5907

Rehab Daily

Sleep Studies X5907

Coumadin Clinic x5934Wednesdays

CHF/COPD Clinic x5958Mondays

Pinckneyville Community HospitalOutpatient & Specialty clinicS

We were kind of nurs-ing a lead for a good portion of the game,” Degenhart said. “We needed to make a cou-ple more plays or hit a couple more shots. We were in a good po-sition, but give Gore-ville credit, they made some plays.”Adrianna Licka add-

ed six points for Gore-ville and Katie Benard and Jasilyn Wester-field four apiece. Abby King hit a 3-pointer and f inished with three points.Marissa-Coulterville

did not help itself at the free-throw line, making just 8-of-15 foul shots. Goreville made 9 -o f - 14 free throws.The Lady Meteors

will have two seniors graduate, Krause and Schreiber.“Losing them will

not be easy,” Degen-hart said. “I think we have people who can step up and into big-ger roles, though. I definitely expect to be competitive.”

RegionalChampionship

After that first shot fell for Hailey Krause February 13, she was tough to contain.

K r a u s e f i n i s h e d with 16 points for the Marissa-Coulterville prep girls basketball team in the Class 1A Mar i s sa Reg iona l championship game, and the Lady Meteors defeated New Athens 41-30 to claim the title.

“(Krause) has the green l ight ,” said Marissa-Coulterville coach Darin Degen-hart. “We talk about moving the ball in the offense, but if you’re open, shoot it con-fidently. As long as you’re shooting it con-fidently, I’m usually pretty happy with it.”

K r a u s e d i d n o t score in the opening quarter but tallied 11 points over the next two, including a trio of 3-pointers. In the fourth quarter, she attacked the paint and got to the free-throw line, where she made 5-of-6 foul shots.

“I’ve had a hot streak going on for awhile,” Krause said. “I’m just trying to keep it going, more to help the team than just me.”

The regional title is the second in a row for Marissa-Coulterville, which last won back-to-back champion-ships in 2010 and 2011.

The Lady Meteors accompl ished this one without their star point guard Bree Portz, who tore her ACL in January.

“This is a big step, especially with every-thing that has hap-

Macey Schreiber of Marissa-Coulterville digs in defensively February 13 against New Athens ball handler Madi Stewart.

Regional champions!...From Page 14____________________________________________________________

pened throughout our season,” said junior Emily Smith. “We’ve had ups and downs, and this will really boost our confidence.”

New Athens was de-nied its third consecu-tive regional champi-onship and finished 16-10.

This was the fourth time these two teams had met this season, with two coming in Cahokia Conference Kaskaskia Division ac-tion. Marissa-Coulter-ville won three of the matchups, although New Athens prevailed January 30 in over-time.

“This was definitely a dogfight,” Degenhart said. “That’s what we were expecting. We were lucky enough to get a lead and make enough free throws down the stretch. I’m pretty happy with it.”

Smith also finished with 16 points for Marissa-Coulterville. She hit a big 3-point-er to beat the buzzer to close out the third quarter then made 8-of-13 free-throw at-tempts in the final three minutes of the game.

Marissa-Coulterville was 8-of-16 at the foul line in the final three minutes and 14-of-23 for the game.

“We had some oppor-tunities there,” said

New Athens coach Erik Hager. “We just couldn’t get buckets to fall. We had to try to do something and see if they could make some free throws.”

The Marissa-Coulter-ville defense was just too good for New Ath-ens to make any kind of comeback.

The Lady Meteors were led on that side of the court by Smith, who guarded New Athens leading scorer Danika White for the bulk of the game.

“The last two games, Grace (Middendorf) has guarded Danika and done a good job,” Degenhart said. “She picked up a couple fouls early, so we kind of switched things. Emily took over and ran with it and did a great job.”

With Smith blanket-ing White, the senior finished with just six points, all coming at the free-throw line. It was the first time this season White was held without a field goal.

“I had to stay down and see if she tried to cut,” Smith said. “I couldn’t really help off of her or else she would get open. My goal was just to not reach.”

Neither team could get much going of-fensively to start the game, with Marissa-

Coulterville in its man-to-man defense and New Athens playing a 1-3-1 zone.

The Lady Meteors took an 8-4 lead into the second quarter, thanks to a slick play by Casey Daugherty.

With 30 seconds re-maining in the quar-ter, Daugherty stole the ball from a New Athens ball handler, pushed the ball up court and found Smith for a transition score.

D a u gh e r t y t h e n scored 22 seconds into the second quarter off a pass from Olivia Quigley, and Krause scored a bucket in the lane on the next pos-session to push the

lead to 12-4.The teams then trad-

ed mini spurts to close out the half.

New Athens scored the next six points, including a bucket from Julia Drake and a 3-pointer by Madi Stewart. Stewart fin-ished with a team high 13 points, but 10 of those came in the fourth quarter.

New Athens then turned the ball over on four of its last five possessions of the half.

“They kept us away from the rim,” Hager said. “We had to run our offense so far out. We wanted to get the ball in the post, but they rotate so well;

and they have weak side help all the time. Their ball pressure didn’t make it easy.”

In that time, Krause k n o c ke d d o w n a 3-pointer, and Quigley scored in the paint to give the Lady Meteors a 17-10 advantage at halftime.

In the third, Marissa-Coulterville struggled from the floor, open-ing the half 1-of-8 and turning the ball over three times.

Things were not easy for New Athens either, but after Lindsey Poi-rot and White both made a pair of free throws, the Marissa-Coulterville lead was cut to 20-16.

In a blink of an eye, though, the lead was up to 10 points.

Krause hit a 3-point-er with 42 seconds on the clock, then Smith beat the buzzer with a 3-ball from the left corner to give the Lady Meteors a 26-16 advantage after three.

The lead stretched to 31-16 in the first two minutes of the fourth, thanks to five free throws from Krause.

With the help of two Stewart 3-pointers, New Athens drew within eight points, 33-25, with 2:26 to play, but the Lady Meteor lead never seemed in jeopardy.

Quigley finished with four points, Schreiber three and Daugherty two. Schreiber and Smith each made a 3-pointer.

Drake chipped in six points for New Athens, Poirot three and Pay-tin Sullivan two.

ble-digit lead, en route to an SIRR Mississip-pi road win over Du Quoin.

Keen and Jayden Ethington (5 points) each made one 3-point-er. Keen was a pris-tine 14-of-15 at the free-throw line. Bradyne Cometto added 10 points and Tony Williams and Dauntay Merideth five apiece.

Sparta knocked down 25-of-37 free throws.

Du Quoin was 14-of-19 at the line and nailed five 3-pointers.

Braeden Pursell led the Indians with 18 points. Kadin Mays and Jason Whitfield each contributed eight points, with Whit -field making a pair of 3-balls.

Trico 53Steeleville 44

STV 11 12 13 12 - 44TRI 12 17 10 14 - 53

Kaden Wilson tal-lied 19 points for Trico,

which topped noncon-ference rival Steeleville at home.

Trico defeated Steele-ville in all three games played between the two teams this season.

Wilson made two 3-pointers. Jesse Smith also made a pair of 3-balls and finished with 12 points. Hunter Baker added 11 points, Logan Cleland six and Isaac Kranawetter five.

The Pioneers were 13-of-18 at the free-throw line.

Steeleville made 11-of-19 free throws and one 3-pointer. That 3-ball came from Aus-tin Hagel, who scored 17 points, but only two after halftime.

J o r d a n W i l s o n chipped in 11 points, Zach Mevert nine and Drew Gerlach four.Marissa-Coulterville 71

New Athens 43NAT 06 08 15 14 - 43M-C 21 15 14 21 - 71

Five Marissa-Coulter-ville players scored at least nine points, and the Meteors rolled to a home Cahokia Confer-ence Kaskaskia Divi-sion victory.

Logan Jones led the charge with 18 points, including two 3-point-ers.

Sebastion Ivory-Greer added 14 points and six rebounds, Blake Steinwagner 14 points and four assists, Austin Gilley 10 points, four rebounds and three blocked shots and Kade Portz nine points and seven assists. Portz made one 3-ball.

M a r i s s a - C o u l t e r -ville made 6-of-8 free throws.

New Athens was 12-of-16 at the charity stripe and knocked down five 3-pointers. Joe Range led the visitors with 22 points.

Pinckneyville 72Anna-Jonesboro 31

PVE 20 21 26 07 - 74A-J 09 11 06 05 - 31

Dawson Yates com-piled 13 points and 10 assists, and Pinckney-ville rocked Anna-Jonesboro for a road SIRR Mississippi win.

Devin Kitchen led the Panthers with 20 points. He made five 3-pointers.

Hunter Riggins add-ed 11 points, Dre Scott 10 points and six re-bounds, Grant Tanner seven points and seven rebounds and Ben Res-toff five points, four rebounds and three assists.

Hunter Riggins, Rest-off and Duke Riggins (4 points) each made one 3-pointer.

Pinckneyville made 14-of-20 foul shots.

Anna-Jonesboro was 8-of-13 at the foul line and hit three 3-point-ers.

Okawville 61Red Bud 40

OKA 17 13 21 10 - 61REB 13 09 06 12 - 40

C a r t e r W i e g a r d nailed a trio of 3-point-ers and finished with 11 points, but the Mus-keteers fell away from Okawville in the third quarter and lost to the Rockets at home in nonconference action.

Red Bud’s Alex Kue-ker added eight points, including two 3-point-ers, for Red Bud. Bryce Amman, Jayden Birk-ner and Wyatt Cow-ell scored six points apiece.

The Musketeers hit 5-of-6 free throws.

Okawville was 7-of-18 at the foul line. The Rockets made four 3-pointers.

Mason Meyer paced Okawville with 15 points.

Murphysboro 51West Frankfort 46

(Overtime)Nashville 58

Carterville 35

High school boys basketball roundup...From Page 17______________________________________

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COUNTY JOURNAL1101 E. PINE STREET • PERCY • 497-8272

Valentine’s DaySparta IMPACK coordinated a Valentine’s Day event February 13 for residents of the Randolph County Care Center. The students disributed 50 red and pink balloons, tying them to the backs of residents’ wheel-chairs and in their rooms. The Sparta High School Leo Club worked with IMPACK to design Valentine’s Day cards.

Black history field tripIn honor of Black History Month, youth from Sparta IMPACK toured the Griot Museum of Black History and Culture in St. Louis February 15. The students had the opportunity to learn about great black scientists and artists such as Dr. George Washington Carver and jazz trumpeter Miles Davis. They enjoyed lunch at Popeyes and spent the afternoon at Gateway Arch National Park. The trip was coordinated by Kenita Jalivay, granddaughter of IMPACK founder Geanette Wilson. Dr. Angela Barber, a longtime IMPACK supporter, donated the cost of the 15-passenger van, admission tickets and food for the group.

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DONNA LYNN CREWSDonna Lynn Crews,

65, of Marissa, for-merly of Tilden, died at home Thursday, February 13, 2020.She was born Au-

gust 30, 1954 in Red Bud to Delmar and Wilhelmina Sparling Owens.Donna loved to cro-

chet and knit in her free time. Her grand-daughter and cats were her pride and joy in life. She is survived by children Larry (Amy) and

Jason Crews of Tilden; granddaughter An-gela Crews of Tilden; brother Vernie (Brenda) Owens of Woodlawn, Illinois and sisters Diane Hargis and Martha (Bobby) Curry of Sesser and Michelle Moore of Alto Pass. She was preceded in death by her parents and

son Daniel Crews.Visitation is Saturday, February 22, 2020 from

10 to noon at Heil-Schuessler & Sinn Funeral Home in Tilden. Services will follow, with Pas-tor Paul Hahn offi ciating.Memorials may be made to the family.

GILBERT BUCHGilbert “Gib” Buch,

88, of Red Bud, died at 1:55 a.m. Wednesday, February 12, 2020 at Red Bud Regional Hospital. He was born Septem-

ber 3, 1931 in Red Bud to Henry and Erna Wegener Buch. Gib married Leona

Buch June 13, 1959 at Trinity Lutheran Church in Red Bud (Prairie). She survives. He owned and operated Buch Trucking and

was a member of Trinity Lutheran Church in Red Bud (Prairie).He is also survived by daughter Jana (Drew)

Buch-McCoy of St. Ann, Missouri; grandson William (Ashley) McCoy; great-grandson Oliver McCoy; sisters-in-law Margaret (Don) Blanken-ship and Marie Everding; brothers-in-law LeVern (Laverne) Buch and Cletus Koester; nieces and nephews.Gib was preceded in death by his parents and

sisters Verneil Mueller and Lucille Buch.Services were held at 1 p.m. Saturday, Febru-

ary 15, 2020 at Trinity Lutheran Church in Red Bud (Prairie), with Rev. John Lukomski offi ciating. Burial was in the church cemetery.Pechacek Funeral Home in Red Bud assisted

the family with arrangements.Memorials may be made to family choice.

DOROTHY A. DUNKERDorothy A. Dunk-

er, 84, of Evansville, died at noon Tuesday, February 11, 2020 at the Coulterville Care Center.She was born July

21, 1935 in Modoc to Henry G. and Ethel K. Johnson Robert. She married Paul

Dunker October 17, 1953 at St. Boniface Catholic Church in Evansville. He preceded her in death May 5, 2017. Dorothy worked at International Shoe Com-

pany in Evansville and Spartan Printing in Sparta. She was a member of St. Boniface Catholic Church in Evansville. She enjoyed cooking, cleaning and spending time with her grandchildren.She is survived by children Paul (Marcy) Dunk-

er Jr. of Red Bud and Debbie (Mark) Kaiser of Morrison, Illinois; brothers Jim (Gary Stewart) Robert of Nashville, Tennessee and Joe (Linda) Robert of Evansville; sister-in-law Beulah Rob-ert of Red Bud; grandchildren Brad (Megan) and Brett (Jilliane) Dunker, Jenna (Drew) Schneider, Janelle (Dave) Guetschow and Daniel (Jessica) Kaiser; great-grandchildren Hannah Dunker, Nolan, Griffi n, Hudson and Meilyn Schneider and Noah and Dawson Guetschow, nieces and nephews.She was also preceded in death by her parents,

sisters June (Floyd) Baker and Pat (Roy) Blum and brother Donald Robert.Funeral Mass was at 10 a.m. Saturday, Febru-

ary 15, 2020 at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church in Red Bud, with Father Steven Pautler offi ciating. Burial was in St. Boniface Catholic Cemetery in Evansville.Pechacek Funeral Home in Evansville assisted

the family with arrangements. Memorials may be made to St. Boniface Catho-

lic Church in Evansville.

MATTHEW J. WILSONMatthew “Matt” J.

Wilson, 43, of Red Bud, died in Sparta at 7:36 a.m. Friday, February 14, 2020. He was born Septem-

ber 7, 1976 in Red Bud to Larry and Brenda Miller Wilson.Matt married Kalie

Frees May 3, 2003 at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church in Red Bud. She sur-vives.He was of the Catho-

lic faith. Matt was a member of the Sparta Country Club. He was a Mizzou, St. Louis Blues and St. Louis Cardinals fan. Matt was an avid golfer, an active golf coach and played golf for McKendree Univer-sity. He was a devoted father and loving hus-band, son, brother and caring friend.He is also survived by his parents of Sparta;

children Dylan and Brenn Wilson of Red Bud; family friend Haley Johnson of Red Bud; sib-lings Tricia (Steve) Stuart of Addison, Texas, Kristy (Joe) Kessler and Allyse Wilson of Los Angeles, California and Lyndsay Wilson of Denver, Colorado; in-laws Jamie Wilson of Sparta and Randall Frees of Red Bud, nieces and nephews. He was preceded in death by his maternal

grandparents Edward and Lucille Miller, pa-ternal grandparents Julia and Stanley Wilson, uncle Bruce Miller and cousin Derek Bockhorn.Visitation is Thursday, February 20, 2020 from

11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Pechacek Funeral Home in Red Bud. Services will follow, with Father Clyde Grogan offi ciating.Memorials may be made to family choice.

KIMBERLY ELAINE HARTMANNKimberly Elaine Hartmann, 61, of Perryville,

died at her residence surrounded by her family Tuesday, February 11, 2020.She was born July 26, 1958 in Evansville, Indi-

ana to Virgil and Margaret Walker Rolley. She and Roger Hartmann were united in mar-

riage August 5, 1997. He survives.Kimberly retired from the Human Service

Center in Red Bud.She is also survived by son Joseph Hoelscher

of Perryville; daughter Jami Lynn Stringer of Rockwood; brother Steve Rolley of Kentucky; sisters Paulette Rider of Evansville and Ladonna Morris of Kentucky and 10 grandchildren.Kimberly was preceded in death by her par-

ents and sister Carol Geller.Memorial services will be held at a later date. Liley Funeral Homes of Marble Hill, Missouri

is assisting the family with arrangements.

MARTHA ANN HOUSKAMartha Ann Houska,

59, of Foristell, Mis-souri, died Thursday, February 13, 2020 at DePaul Hospital in Bridgeton, Missouri.She was born March

31, 1960 in Red Bud to John Howard Jr. and Mary Margaret Cleland Watson.She married Ronald

Houska November 2, 1991 in St. Louis. He survives.Martha grew up in Sparta. She and her hus-

band owned and operated of Houska Inc., a landscaping business where she helped man-age all day-to-day operations. She was a very enthusiastic soccer mom, watching and cheer-ing on her daughters from their early years to them fi nishing out their college careers. She happily took on the role of grandmother, af-fectionately known as Nana. Martha was also a loving sister, daughter, aunt and a devoted friend to many. Her positive outlook and gener-osity will be missed by all who knew her.She is also survived by daughters Dawn (Dan-

iel) Houska-Canaday of Lake St. Louis, Mis-souri, Alyssa Houska of St. Charles, Missouri and Maggie Houska of Foristell; grandchildren Aston Louis and Eden Rose Canaday; father of Chester; sister Mary Ellen (Mark) Bollmann of Kremmling, Colorado and brother John C. (Marianne) Watson of Coulterville.Martha was preceded in death by her mother

and brother William Howard Watson.It was her wish to be cremated.Visitation is from 3 to 8 p.m. Thursday, Feb-

ruary 20, 2020 at Pitman Funeral Home on Wentzville Parkway in Wentzville, Missouri and from 9 to 11 a.m. Saturday, February 22 at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Sparta. Memorial services will follow.In lieu of fl owers, online donations may be

made to the American Stroke Association.

MARGARET ANDERSONMargaret Anderson, 91, of Sparta, died Sun-

day, February 9, 2020 in Sparta.Visitation is Saturday, February 22, 2020 from

10 to noon at Trinity Presbyterian Church in Sparta. Services will follow.Serenity Memorial Chapel in Belleville is

assisting the family with transitory arrange-ments.

WALTER LEE MOHRWalter Lee Mohr, 77,

of Pinckneyville, died Monday, February 17, 2020 at 9:41 p.m. at Pinckneyville Com-munity Hospital. Walter Lee was born

January 9, 1943 in Pinckneyville to Wal-ter A. and Leona Rein-hardt Mohr. On March 10, 1962,

he married Suzie Klinger at St. Paul United Church of Christ in Pinckneyville. She survives. He was a member of the United Methodist

Church in Pinckneyville and Methodist Men. Walter Lee was a lifelong farmer and worked for fi ve years at Blue Bell Packing, 26 years at Consol 2 Mine and six years at Nascote Indus-tries. Walter Lee was a member of Future Farmers

of America, 4-H, UMWA and belonged to the Rural Youth. He was an avid LA Dodger and Pinckneyville Panther fan. He dearly loved farming and spending time with his family. His greatest joy was being actively involved with his grandchildren. He was their biggest fan.He is also survived by children Traci Wolf,

Sheryl (Chuck) Hessler, Becki (Kevin) Cowley and Brandon (Lori) Mohr; brother James (Doro-thy) Mohr and grandchildren Tara, Chase and Taylor Deskin, Brayden and Carsyn Cowley and Riley and Sydney Mohr.Walter Lee was preceded in death by his par-

ents and brother Kenneth Mohr.Visitation is at United Methodist Church in

Pinckneyville Thursday, February 20, 2020 from 5 to 8 p.m. and Friday from 8 to 10 a.m. Services will follow, with Rev. Don Meeks offi -ciating. Burial will be in Mueller Hill Cemetery in Pinckneyville.Pyatt Funeral Home in Pinckneyville is assist-

ing the family with arrangements.Memorials may be made to United Methodist

Church in Pinckneyville or Methodist Men.

SANDY L. LAURENT Sandy L. Laurent,

69, of Sparta, died at 7:16 p.m. Sunday, February 16, 2020, at Memorial Hospital in Belleville.Sandy was born

September 13, 1950 in Du Quoin to Miles A. and LaRaine Bardle Nixon. She married Mi-

chael D. Laurent June 24, 1972 at St. Joseph Catholic Church in Prairie du Rocher. He survives.Sandy was retired from Sparta Animal Clinic.

She was a member of Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church in Sparta. She enjoyed sew-ing and quilting and loved animals, fl owers, gardening, people, her family and grandbaby. Sandy is also survived by sons Christopher

Laurent of St. Louis and Robert Laurent of Farmington, Missouri; grandchild Caroline; mother-in-law Doris Eggemeyer of Red Bud; sister Candy (Loren) Smith of Ava; sisters-in-law Sharon (Patrick) Mudd, of Stanley, North Carolina, Janet (Donald) Wrobel of Slidell, Louisiana, Jeanie (Emory) Hodges of Willow Park, Texas and Linda Rickenberg of Steele-ville and brothers-in-law Joseph (Angelica) Laurent of The Colony, Texas, Terry (Tammy) Laurent and Steven Laurent of Ruma. She was preceded in death by her parents,

brother Randy Nixon, father-in-law Robert J. Laurent and brother-in-law Morris Rickenberg. Visitation is Thursday, February 20, 2020

from 7:30 to 9:30 a.m. at Wilson’s Funeral Home in Steeleville. Funeral Mass will be at 10 a.m. at Our Lady of

Lourdes Catholic Church in Sparta, with Father Vincent Mukasa offi ciating. Burial will be in Caledonia Cemetery in Sparta. Memorials may be made to Masses or Ran-

dolph County Humane Society.

LORAINE A. MAURERLoraine A. “Larry” Maurer, 72, of Sparta, died

at his home at 6:40 a.m. Monday, February 17, 2020.Arrangements are pending at the Wilson’s

Funeral Home in Steeleville.

COUNTY JOURNAL | FEBRUARY 20, 2020 PAGE 21

COUNTY JOURNAL1101 E. PINE STREET • PERCY • 497-8272

Broadway & MarketPO Box 377

Sparta, Illinois 62286618-443-2187

A memorial service was held Sunday at the American Legion in Steeleville for Paula Weaver of Steeleville.

Weaver died Decem-ber 19.

She was an avid fan of entertainer Wayne Newton and met him several times. In fact, Weaver was the area coordinator for the Wayne Newton Fan Club.

She last met with Newton about three and a half years ago in St. Louis. However, she and her husband Mar-vin also made many trips to Las Vegas. Newton would point out his “good friend Paula” sitting in the audience during his shows.

According to Marvin, the couple fi rst went to Las Vegas in 1975.

“We asked the hotel people about a good show to see, and they said Wayne Newton, so we went,” said Marvin.

“We liked it so much, we went back the next night.”

The next year, the Weavers went back to Las Vegas, and this time, they met Newton. From there, it became a friendship.

“He was very acces-sible and a nice guy,” said Marvin.

The County Journal once carried a story concerning the Weav-er’s dog, which had a connection to Newton.

In the 1980s, Newton had an English sheep-dog that was aggra-vating his horses. He didn’t want to put the dog down.

“Paula found out about it,” said Marvin. “Newton gave her the dog.”

The Weavers had the dog on their rural Steeleville farm for about four years, then one day after it was let out, it disappeared and was never seen again.

“I think someone saw

the story in the news-paper. They later saw the dog running loose and took it,” Marvin said.

Among the flowers at Paula Weaver’s ser-vice Sunday was a big bouquet of roses from Newton and his wife.

The card read: Our sunshine lady will be (sorely) missed. All our love. Wayne and Kat Newton.

Newton fan is remembered

This photo of Paula Weaver with Wayne Newton was taken in St. Charles, Missouri in 2015.

The Newtons’ bouquet o f r o s e s a t t h e February 16 memorial service for Weaver.

HELP US WELCOME

TO OUR TEAM!Lyle Hill

Dupo • Millstadt • Red Bud • Columbia

Lyle Hill of Sparta, Illinois joined the staff at Leesman Funeral Home in the summer of 2019. Lyle has been a licensed funeral in the summer of 2019. Lyle has been a licensed funeral

director/embalmer since 1973. His father, W. Clell Hill owned and operated a funeral home in Sparta for many years. Lyle recently retired

from Herr Funeral Home in Collinsville, Illinois after working there for 30 years. Lyle has two brothers and two daughters. He enjoys fishing, playing golf, and going to St. Louis Cardinal baseball games. He is a member of the First United Presbyterian Church in Collinsville, Illinois,

where he has been an Elder and volunteers at the food pantry. where he has been an Elder and volunteers at the food pantry. We are excited to have Lyle as part of our team.

NICHOLAS WESLEY MORRIS

Nicholas Wesley Mor-ris 79, Kingston, Mis-souri, died Thursday, February 13, 2020 at University of Kansas Medical Center with his family by his side.

He was born in Sparta July 2, 1940 to Robert W. Morris and Marga-ret Mulholland Morris.

On March 13, 1965 he married Mary Jo Antonich in Kansas City, Mis-souri. She survives.

He was a 1958 high school graduate of Sparta Township High School. After high school, he served in the Marine Corps. He was employed at TWA as a mechanic, retiring from there in 1994. Nick enjoyed hunting in his younger days and also raised and trained bird dogs, earning many tro-phies in fi eld trials. He was a die-hard Chiefs fan and enjoyed watching them win the Super Bowl.

He is also survived by daughter Allison Morris; son Nick Morris Jr.; grandson Ian Morris; broth-ers Tim (Lynn) Morris of Odessa, Missouri and Mike Cross of St. Augustine, Florida and sister Vikki Morris of Gardner, Kansas.

Nick was preceded in death by his parents, daughter Nikki Lynn Morris, brother Bob Morris and sister Suzy Morris.

It was his wish to be cremated and no services are planned. Burial will be in Ft. Leavenworth Cemetery.

If you would like to honor Nick in some way, the family suggests donations to your local animal shelter or a charity of your choice, in his name.

LETHA MAE BURNSLetha Mae Burns, 84,

of Sparta, died Mon-day, February 17, 2020 at Sparta Community Hospital.

She was born July 23, 1935 in Chester to Harry and Laverne Bierman Draves.

Many people recog-nized Letha from the time she worked at Wright’s Building Cen-ter. She also worked at Spartan Printing as a secretary.

She was a member of Trinity Presbyterian Church. Letha volunteered at Sparta Community Hospital and was a very active member of the Delta Theta Tau Sorority.

She is survived by her children David Roger Burns of Sparta and Jennifer (Michael Combs) Burns of Jacksonville, Florida; granddaughter Samantha of Athens, Georgia and brothers Earl (Rosemary) Draves of Red Bud and Leonard (Car-ole) Draves of Festus, Missouri.

She was preceded in death by her parents.Visitation will be held at Trinity Presbyterian

Church in Sparta Sunday, February 23, 2020 from 6 to 8 p.m. and Monday, February 24, 2020 from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. Services will follow with Pastor David Hoffelmeyer offi ciating.

Heil-Schuessler & Sinn Funeral Home in Sparta is assisting the family with arrangements.

Memorials may be made to the Family or Delta Theta Tau Sorority.

GREEN | GENTLE | DIGNIFIED

Brant Select Services, ltdTroy R. Brant, CCO

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EvansvilleNews

By Eloise Kueker449-2043

Sparta senior site

By Diana Cole758-2880

Coultervilleand SwanwickNews

Chester senior site

SOCIETYCOUNTY JOURNAL | FEBRUARY 20, 2020PAGE 22

Perry Gold Plate

S’ville senior site activities, menu • ••

• •• St. Mary’s Antique Mall

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Happy Birthday!Nina DoolenFeb. 21, 1937 -Dec. 26, 2017

We miss you every day!

Love always, Love always, Gerald, Dan,

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600 State StreetChester, IL 62233

(618) 826-5021(618) 826-5024 Fax fkcglaw@gmail.com

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Automotive

I grew up in a house-hold that loved base-ball. My dad played as a boy and young man. He even tried out for the Cardinal Farm team.

He was an avid Car-dinal fan, and back in those days, none of the games were televised. He would sit in the kitchen and listen to the games on the radio.

He coached my broth-er and the neighbor-hood kids. Of course, we girls and mom went to the games. Some of the boys who lived out in the country who were on the team would come home with us from school and go with us to the games.

I remember one time in particular that dad had a 1959 Rambler sta-tion wagon, and none of the parents could drive to the games. So the whole team, dad, mom and we three girls climbed into that car, with no seat belts or car seats at that time, and went to the game.

There was always some kind of group, boy scouts or church groups, that would charter a bus to go to the games in St. Louis.

So after having this kind of infl uence, I still like to watch the Cardi-

nal games on TV. Don is not a fan, so we

have a bargain: From November to March, he can watch what he wants on TV, but when spring training starts and those games are televised, it is my turn to choose.

As I watch those play-ers, I feel a sense of sharing something with Dad in heaven.

I am sure he is up there rooting on the team and even saying, “Swing that bat. You can’t hit the ball if you don’t swing.”

Happy birthday to Lori Thies, Sister Stephanie Mertens, Laura Gross, Terra Albers, Sharon Kessler, Danny Wes-becher, Rosemary Kess-ler Cain, Mark Kern, Dottie Gallois, Brad Schaefer, Alice Wes-becher, Glen Bollinger, Joy Kessler, Dorothy Gross and Taylor Kue-ker.

We extend our sym-pathy to the families of Kevin Kern, Dorothy Dunker and Kim Rolley Hartmann.

There will be a benefi t breakfast/brunch at St. Pius in Walsh March 1 at 9 a.m. Proceeds will go to the Gerald Schu-lein Benefi t Fund.

Lenten service for St. Peter and St. John’s R u m a L u t h e r a n churches:

All are at 6:30 p.m.—Ash Wednesday, Feb-ruary 26, St. Peter’s; March 11, St. Peter’s; March 18, St. Johns; March 25, St. John’s; April 1, St. John’s;

April 5, Palm Sunday usual Sunday schedule;

All are at 6:30 p.m.—April 9, Holy Thursday at St John’s; April 10, St. John’s; April 11, Holy Saturday at St. John’s;

Easter Sunday, April 12, St. John’s at 6:30 a.m. and St. Peter’s at 10 a.m.

The Six Wonders of the Old and New Testa-ments is each Tuesday at St. Peter’s at 6 p.m. Light refreshments are served.

It is also at St. John’s Ruma Sundays at 4 p.m. followed by a soup and sandwich meal.

Rev. Schlie of Im-manuel Lutheran of Perryville will be the guest speaker at Ruma Sunday, February 23.

There is no cost to attend, and all are wel-come.

For more information, call Nathan Koester at 528-2395.

Congratulations to lo-cal students who were listed on the honor roll at Sparta High School.

EACFebruary 24, hosting

the Sparta Lincoln Car-dinals and February 25, in Steeleville, both at 4 p.m.

The A team will par-ticipate in the St. John Lutheran Chester tour-nament February 28 and 29.

March 6 marks the end of the third quar-ter.Evansville Enterprise

February 14, 1941A nt h o ny W i t t e n -

brink, 18, injured both legs and the right hip

when the left track of a caterpillar tractor passed over his body at the quarry on the Thummel farm south of Evansville.

Al Schneider Jr. tried to pull him out and was thrown off balance, and the track passed over his left foot and knee.

Both boys were taken by car to the offi ce of Dr. A.C. Scott then driv-en to their homes.

A daughter was born February 10 to Mr. and Mrs. Henry Weigard.

Mrs. Charles Nitzsche passed away. Survi-vors were her husband Charles, sons Sylves-ter and Albert and daughters Mrs. Ber-nice Zeller and Mrs. Melba Harle, sisters Mrs. Louis Thompson, Annie Thompson, Mrs. W.S. Ling, Mrs. J.M. Schwartz , Mrs. Phil-lip Ningler, Mrs. Mike Wesbecher, Mrs. Henry Smith and two grand-children.

Anita Wittenbrink became the bride of Conrad Becker Febru-ary 6. Attendants were Franciska and Roy Wit-tenbrink.

Edmund Water cele-brated his 11th birth-day. Guests were James Kohlberg, Felix Schoen-berger, Harold Braun, Charles Biesterfeld, Myron Gross, Tommy Laufer, Robert Lauber, Paul Schulein, Leroy Meyer, Floyd Witmer, Francis Gross, Bonnie Biethman and Floyd Zipfel.

The Coulterville VFW Auxiliary met Monday. Two new members, Rachael Asbury and Lenna Morgan, were installed. There were 14 members present.

The kindergarten class at Coulterville participated in the coloring contest. First place will get a $15 gift card to Dairy Queen and second place a $10 card. All other entries will receive a $5 card.

We are still waiting to hear about the future of shooting matches.

Bingo is Tuesdays at 7 p.m. The kitchen opens at 4 p.m. and closes at 7.

About 15 Valentine’s cards were sent to vet-erans at Coulterville Care Center and The New Athens Home for

the Aged. A card was sent to

Major Bill White of California, a 104-year-old veteran who was asking for Valentine’s Day cards.

The next meeting is March 9.

Brandy Gardner, Jim-my Gardner, Judy Rain-ey, Rachael Asbury and Angie Reid had a fabu-lous day in St. Louis on Saturday. They enjoyed riding the new Ferris wheel, and highly rec-ommend the ride. They had some appetizers at The Old Spaghetti Fac-tory before doing some shopping at the IKEA store.

Elodie and Daxton spent the night with David and me Saturday. For our belated Valen-tine’s supper, we had Mimi’s spaghetti, garlic bread and salad. Roses were on the table, and for dessert there were Valentine’s cookies and ice cream. Their dad picked them up Sunday, and lunch was from the

Dairy Queen.The Coulterville His-

torical Society met Thursday. There were two new life members.

Plans are under way for trivia night.

Jenny Dyson was pre-sented with a check for $50 as the recipient of the Smart/Maher Teacher’s Award. She was nominated by the Coulterville VFW and Auxiliary.

There will be a Fall Festival planning meet-ing March 19 at 6:30 at the Coulterville United Methodist Church base-ment.

Anyone who would like to help in any way, please attend.

Debbie O’Dea Arnett is again in charge of crafts and vendors. You can contact her on Facebook.

The Shoperoo pro-gram has over 50 sup-porters for Coulterville

school. Only 17 are par-ticipating.

Since September, the group has earned $80.

Renda Rabe invites those who have stopped snapping receipts to join again. The collec-tion of points doesn’t end until August 31.

The school uses the money for the activity fund, so it benefi ts all of the students.

For those who don’t know about Shoperoo, it is a free app (much like Walmart’s Savings Catcher was). You take a picture of your re-ceipts and earn points from places like Circle K, Casey’s and Dollar General. Receipts from places like Dairy Queen and Pistol City go into a drawing.

Shoperoo costs you nothing but a few min-utes of your time

It’s the easiest fund-raiser ever.

ActivitiesFebruary 24-28

MONDAY: Bingo at 10.TUESDAY: Birthday bingo at 10.WEDNESDAY: Bingo at 10. Card club at 12:15. FRIDAY: Bingo at 10.

MenuMONDAY: Beef roast, mashed potatoes, mixed vegetables, pears, pine-apple sheet cake.TUESDAY: Pulled pork sandwich, baked beans, slaw, mixed fruit.

WEDNESDAY: Country fried steak, mashed potatoes, green beans, applesauce.THURSDAY: Pol ish sausage/sauerkraut, s t eamed brocco l i , m a s h e d p o t at o e s , peaches, coconut pie.FRIDAY: Spaghetti/meat balls, romaine salad, mandarin or-anges, garlic bread.

Hours: 8:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday-Friday.

Call 965-3134 exten-sion 5 by 9:30 a.m. to make a reservation.

ActivitiesFebruary 24-28

MONDAY: Coffee and news at 9:30. Nickel bingo at 10:15.TUESDAY: Coffee and reminiscing at 9:30. Prize bingo at 10:30.WEDNESDAY: Coffee and trivia at 9:30. Nick-el bingo at 10:15.THURSDAY: Oldies but goodies music trivia at 9:30.FRIDAY: Country and bluegrass music at 10.

MenuMONDAY: Baked ham, au gratin potatoes, green beans, fruit.TUESDAY: Chicken/noodles, peas/carrots,

pickled beets, fruit am-brosia.WEDNESDAY: Beef ravioli, broccoli, garlic bread, lettuce salad, fruit.THURSDAY: Biscuit, milk gravy, sausage patty, hashbrown casse-role, applesauce, fruit.FRIDAY: Fish, hush puppies, macaroni/to-matoes, slaw, ice cream.

Suggested donation: 60+ $3.50, under 60 $6.50.

Meal sites and home-delivered meals: Du Quoin, Cutler and Wil-lisville.

Call 542-3511 by 8 a.m. to make a reservation.

ActivitiesFebruary 24-28

MONDAY: Bingo at 10. Nickel bingo after lunch.TUESDAY: Bingo at 10. Mardi Gras party.WEDNESDAY: Bingo at 10. Nickel bingo after lunch. THURSDAY: Quilting at 8:30. FRIDAY: Big bingo at 10.

MenuM O N DAY : G r i l l e d cheese, homemade chili, mixed romaine salad, fruit salad.TUESDAY: Lasagna,

garlic bread, mixed romaine salad, green beans, fruit.WEDNESDAY: Philly steak sandwich, roast-ed potatoes, creamed corn, fruit.T H U R S DAY : Fr i e d chicken, baked beans, fruit pie.FRIDAY: Pork sausage/sauerkraut, mashed potatoes, gravy, corn, biscuit, fruit.

Prices at center $4, home-delivered $4.25.

Lunch is served at 11:30.

Call 826-5108 by 9 a.m. to make a reser-vation.

ActivitiesFebruary 24-28

MONDAY: Exercise at 10:30. Elaine Hargis card club at 12:15. Bin-go w/Karen at 12:30.TUESDAY: BP/BS w/Craig Manor at 9:30. Build strength and fl exibility w/Larry Ber-nadoni at 10. Diabe-tes prevention w/Barb Brown at 12:15.WEDNESDAY: Exercise at 10:30. Fondue bar at noon. $4 THURSDAY: Chorus at 10:15. FRIDAY: Exercise at 10:30. Bingo w/Karen at 12:30.

MenuMONDAY: Country fried steak, mashed

potatoes, stewed toma-toes, fruit.TUESDAY: Pork steak, baked potato, slaw, cin-namon apples.WEDNESDAY: Chicken noodle soup, grilled cheese, cake.THURSDAY: Parsley potatoes, cabbage, fruit crisp.FRIDAY: BBQ riblet, baked beans, tater tots, pears.

Prices: At center $5, home-delivered $5.25, carry-outs $6, all oth-ers $6.50.

H o u r s : M o nd ay -Thursday 8-3, Friday 8-2. Meal hours 11:30-noon.

Clothing store: 9-3.For more informa-

tion, call 443-4020.

Ken 6 1 8 -521-6174Justin 618-967-0075

JK Thompson Co.New Homes And

Custom ConstructionSeptic System Installation

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real estateCounty Journal | february 20, 2020 Page 23

LET ME MARKET YOUR SOUTHWEST ILLINOIS FARMLAND

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Je� HeilAgent, Land Specialist (573)-880-6150

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Knight Hawk Coal, LLC • (618) 426-3662

Trespassers Subject To Arrest

no TRespAssinGSteeleville, 511 S. Sparta St. ~ 2-Bed, 2-Bath, Home,

Fenced Back Yard With 12x16 Storage Shed & 17x17 Concrete Patio. $91,500.PRiCe ReDUCeD!!! Steeleville, 604 N. West St. ~ 2-Story 3-Bed, 2-Bath Home On Corner Lot, 2-Car Garage w/Attached 12x24 Carport & 1-Car Garage In The Back. Full Basement & Covered Wraparound Porch In The Front. PRiCeD tO Sell! $62,000.PRiCe ReDUCeD!!! OakDale, 5566 Polk Rd. ~ 4-Bed, 1½-Bath, Pole Barn, Outbuildings, Fenced Pasture, On 9.28 Acres. $243,900.COUlteRville, 915 S. 7tH St. ~ 3-Bed, 1¾-Bath, Move-In Ready Home, Corner Lot. $85,000.ReD BUD, 204 Clarence Dr. ~ Updated & Move-In Ready, 3-Bed, Tri-Level Home With 2 Full Baths, Attached Garage, Fenced Yard. $205,500.maRiSSa, 509 South Dr. ~ 3-Bed, 2-Bath Home, Attached Garage, Outbuilding, Sunroom. PRiCeD tO Sell! $81,500.tilDeN, 1111 S. maple ~ 2-Bed, 2-Bath With Walk-Out Basement On 8 Acres, Rent Houses, Pavilions, Lots Of Potential With This One. $195,000.PiNCkNeyville, 5706 todds mill Rd. ~ 5-Bed Home On 6 Acres, w/ 2-Car Detached Garage w/Concrete Floor, 24x30 Shed & The 50x70 Old Suchomski Store With Basement. $125,000Steeleville, 205 e. Broadway ~ 3-Bed, 1 Full Bath Home, Full Basement, Outbuildings, Pool, Big Living Room, Rear Alley Access. mOtivateD SelleR! $69,500

ProPerties For sale

For All Your Real Estate Needs...Buying Or Selling.

2347 Roosevelt Road, Coulterville, IL 62237 • (618) 578-8833(618) 758-2731 • email: gutjahrrealty@gmail.com

David Gutjahr, Managing BrokerGUtjaHR Realty, llC

New ProPerty ListiNgs Are BeiNg AccePted!See Listings On realtor.com, zillow.com And trulia.com

$89,000

Building For Sale In Marissa.More than 1 acre with paved parking lot,

new roof, public water/sewer & 16,600 sq. ft.

Broker/Realtor® 618-830-2926Sharon Cross

14 Washington Blvd., Chester...................................$132,0004257 State Rte. 50, Chester.....................................$170,0002317 Old Plank Rd, Chester.....................................$159,9004255 State Hwy. 150, Chester..................................$170,000609 Solomon St., Chester.........................................$149,500759 Servant St., Chester.............................................$48,000402 Riverview Blvd., Cheste402 Riverview Blvd., Chester....................................$110,00013037 Walnut St., Shiloh Hill.......................................$77,00031 Knollwood Drive, Chester.....................................$330,0001551 Logan Hollow Rd., Ava.....................................$189,0001106 Spring St., Chester.............................................$39,9001020 Opdyke St., Chester.........................................$168,0004507 Chester Road, Bremen......................................$85,00011100 Park Blvd., Chester..........................................$195,000503 S. Garfield St., Steeleville..................................$124,900117 Rainbow Dr., Chester...........................................$38,000619 Van Zant, Chester................................................$72,0001511 Swanwick St., Chester......................................$125,000425 Van Zant, Chester..............................................$135,0002453 State St., Chester.............................................$179,000819 819 Valley St., Chester................................................$49,000620 Harrison St., Chester............................................$50,000

406 RIVERVIEW | CHESTER | $103,000Immaculate 3 Bedroom Brick Home, With Finished Basement

County Journal — Ad for 2/20/20 — 2x4 Ad — Real Estate Section

NEW! PERRY COUNTY 63 ACRES — DUQUOIN This property is the definition of Recreational Property! Hunting, fishing,

boating, trail riding, camping, etc. Multiple home sites with plenty of road frontage off Sacred Heart Road. 2 concrete pads for camping trailers with

water and electric plumbed in. Concrete block outhouse and shower house. This property has it all!

JACKSON COUNTY 192 ACRES — GORHAM Excellent farm with good soils and very little or no flood risk.

JACKSON COUNTY 119 ACRES — CARBONDALE Truly a beautiful property with a 2-bed, 2-bath home, 25-acre lake, 30

tillable acres, duck blind, barn and garage. Excellent hunt property! JACKSON COUNTY 40 ACRES — ELKVILLE

Excellent wooded hunt property. All mature woodland. JACKSON COUNTY 60 ACRES — ELKVILLE

Waterfowl hunt property with marketable timber close to Campbell Pond. RANDOLPH COUNTY HOME FOR SALE — SPARTA

3-bed, 1-bath home and detached 2-car garage on corner lot in good neighborhood. Partial basement. Large living room and master bedroom.

Located on South Chestnut Street. RANDOLPH COUNTY 6 ACRES — BALDWIN

Homestead with older home, barn and Quonset building. Fallview Road.

FOR RANDOLPH COUNTY

Melanie JohnsonCounty Clerk & Recorder

WARRANTY DEEDSRobert D. Hal l to

Christopher M. Hanton Lt 62 Sparta Consider-ation $45,000

Edward J. Wittenau-er & Josephine A. Wit-tenauer to Edward J. Wittenauer Trust & Josephine A. Wit-tenauer Trust NW NW

Sec 24; NW Sec 5 4-5Chester Dairy Com-

pany to Larry Korando Lts 8, 9 & 10 Blk 8 Fairview Addn Consid-eration $25,000QUITCLAIM DEEDSLesley D. Fruth to

Alex W. Fruth Lt 538 CTYVILL

David F. Robinson & Betty A. Robinson to David E. Robinson NE Sec 34 4-5; NW Sec 3 5-5

Ruth Engdahl to Ruth

Engdahl Sec 34 5-5Leo H. Edler & Mary

Joann Edler to Ruth Engdahl Sec 34 5-5

Leo H. Edler & Mary Joann Edler to Aaron Edler & Ethan Edler NW Sec 27; Sec 34 5-5

James E. Neilson to Katherine A. Robin-son Lt 3 Blk 1 Rosboro Addn

Janet M. Dickey & Lisa Dickey to Janet M. Dickey Lt B Blk U Chester; Lts 5, 6, 7 & 8

Blk 3 IMPCOJanet M. Dickey to

Lisa Dickey same as above

Jeffery V. Hicks & Jody K. Lurk to Jer-emy V. Hicks & Jody K. Lurk Lt 3 Blk 4 S Crozier Addn

Jena A. Oakley-Ko-priva to Jena A. Oak-ley SW NE Sec 19 5-6

Steven Clay to Tam-my Whitney & Steven Clay Lt 7 Egge Addn

FULLY LICENSED & INSURED • SERVING PERRY & RANDOLPH COUNTIES

Date and place of recording: November 21, 2016 at Recorder’s Offi ce of Randolph Coun-ty, ILIdentifi cation of recording: Document No 2016R04317

Sherry L. JohnsonClerk of the Circuit Court1 Taylor StreetChester, IL 62233

Scott P. HendricksAttorney At Law206 W. College, Ste. 12Carbondale, IL 62901phone: (618) 529-2274fax: (618) 529-1638

PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS IS AN ATTEMPT TO COLLECT A DEBT, AND ANY INFOR-MATION OBTAINED FROM YOU IN MY AT-TEMPT TO COLLECT THIS DEBT WILL BE USED FOR PURPOSES OF COLLECTING THE DEBT. ........................................................... 0-2-27

DOING BUSINESS ASDBA

CERTIFICATE OF PUBLICATIONPublic Notice is hereby given that on January

30, 2020, a Certifi cate was fi led in the offi ce of the County Clerk of RANDOLPH COUNTY, Illinois setting forth the name and post offi ce address of all persons owning, conducting and transacting the business known as: Free-dom Construction located at 6545 Meadow Lakes Dr., Steeleville, IL 62288.

Dated this January 30, 2020Melanie L. Johnson

Randolph County Clerk...........................................................1 - 2 - 2 7

20 CH 1481 SCHOOL STREETTILDEN, IL 62292

NOTICE BY PUBLICATIONNOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN TO YOU, Brian

M Schilling a/k/a Brian Matthew Schilling, a/k/a Brian Schilling, Tasha K Schilling a/k/a Tasha Kristen Schilling, a/k/a Tasha Diggs, a/k/a Tasha K Diggs, Unknown Owners and Non-Record Claimants

defendants, that this case has been com-menced in this Court against you and other defendants, asking for the foreclosure of a certain Mortgage conveying the premises de-scribed as follows, to wit:

LOTS 4, 5 AND 6 IN BLOCK 7 OF WIL-LIAM STEVENSON'S SECOND ADDITION TO THE TOWN, NOW VILLAGE OF TILDEN, RANDOLPH COUNTY, ILLINOIS, AS SHOWN BY PLAT RECORDED ON AUGUST 2, 1907 IN PLAT BOOK "F" AT PAGE 38 IN THE RE-CORDER'S OFFICE, RANDOLPH COUN-TY, ILLINOIS, EXCEPT COAL, TOGETHER WITH THE RIGHT TO MINE AND REMOVE THE SAME AND SUBJECT TO ALL OTHER RIGHTS AND EASEMENTS IN FAVOR OF THE OWNER OF THE MINERAL ESTATE OR OF ANY PARTY CLAIMING BY THROUGH, OR UNDER SAID ESTATE.

Commonly known as: 481 School Street Tilden, IL 62292and which said Mortgage was made by Brian M Schilling a/k/a Brian Matthew Schil-

ling, a/k/a Brian Schilling, Tasha K Schilling a/k/a Tasha Kristen Schilling, a/k/a Tasha Diggs, a/k/a Tasha K Diggs

Mortgagor(s), toNational City Mortgage, a division of Na-

tional City BankMortgagee, and recorded in the Offi ce of

the Recorder of Deeds of Randolph County, Illinois, as Document No. 229792; and for other relief.

UNLESS YOU fi le your answer or other-wise fi le your appearance in this case, on or before March 23, 2020, A JUDGMENT OR DECREE BY DEFAULT MAY BE TAKEN AGAINST YOU FOR THE RELIEF ASKED IN THE COMPLAINT. E-fi ling is now mandatory for documents in civil cases with limited ex-emptions. To e-fi le, you must fi rst create an account with an e-fi ling service provider. Visit http://efi le.illinoiscourts.gov/service-provid-ers.htm to learn more and to select a service provider. If you need additional help or have trouble e-fi ling, visit www.illinoiscourts.gov/FAQ/gethelp.asp, or talk to your local circuit clerk's offi ce.

PURSUANT TO THE FAIR DEBT COLLEC-TION PRACTICES ACT, THE PLAINTIFF'S ATTORNEY IS DEEMED TO BE A DEBT COLLECTOR ATTEMPTING TO COLLECT A DEBT AND ANY INFORMATION WILL BE USED FOR THAT PURPOSE.McCalla Raymer Leibert Pierce, LLCAttorney for Plaintiff 1 N. Dearborn St. Suite 1200Chicago, IL 60602Ph. (312) 346-9088File No. 272049-207965I3145029.............................................................0 - 3 - 5

CLASSIFIEDSCOUNTY JOURNAL | FEBRUARY 20, 2020PAGE 24

Phone: 618-497-8272Fax: 618-497-2607

Email: cjournal@egyptian.netDeadline: Tuesday At 2pm

A P A R T M E N T SAVAILABLE FOR RENTPERRY COUNTY

FOR MORE INFO CALLPerry County

Housing Authority(618) 542-5409

In

LEGAL NOTICES

FOR RENT IN SPARTA: 2 & 3-bedroom mobile homes in park. Also mobile home lots in park. Private mobile home lots for sale. Call Ronnie Johnson. 618-443-3325.............................. 0-x-xFOR RENT: Nice 2-bed mobile home. Steeleville Mobile Home Park. $360/mo. No pets. 573-355-1298.............................. 0-x-xFOR RENT: 2-Bedroom house in Percy. No smoking and no animals on premises. Call 618-497-2641.............................. 0-x-xFOR RENT: 3-bedroom, 2-bath doublewide in monile home park. No pets allowed. Call Ronnie Johnson, 618-443-3325............................. 0-x-x-

FOR RENT

I Buy Houses!Any Price. Any Area.

Any Condition.Local Investor

(618) 559-3525southernillinoishomebuyers.com

REAL ESTATE

FOR SALE: Bu i l t -Mor Buildings. 24x40, $9,718; 30x50, $14,160; 40x60, $21,419; 50x70, $31,685. Erected, choice of colors. 732-8704 or 316-9278 or go to builtmorbuildings.com.............................. 0-x-xPECANS FOR SALE: $1.25/lb. Can deliver locally. 618-559-0844............................1-2-27

FOR SALE: Bu i l t -

FOR SALESERVICESB A B Y S I T T I N G I N MY HOME: Christian woman has openings for babysitting on 2nd & 3rd shifts & one on day shift. Excellent references. Sparta area. 618-967-4990. Rel iable and excellent references............................1-2-27

HELP WANTED

Now taking applications

for 62 years or older, disabled

or handicap regardless of age, for one bedroom

apartments.Free water, sewer

and trash pick up, off -street

parking, laundry facilities on -site and appliances

furnished.

For Rent InCHESTER

This institution is an equal opportunity

For additional information, contact the

Property Manager at

(618) 826-2802

Equal Housing Opportunity.

provider and employer.

Now taking applications

for 62 years or older, disabled

or handicap regardless of age, for one bedroom

apartments.Free water, sewer

and trash pick up, off -street

parking, laundry facilities on -site and appliances

furnished.

For Rent InSTEELEVILLE

This institution is an equal opportunity

For additional information, contact the

Property Manager at

(618) 965-3676

Equal Housing Opportunity.

provider and employer.

FOR RENT: 1 & 2-bedroom apartments in Sparta. Water & trash provided. No pets. Background check, references & security deposit required. Broker owned. $425/mo and $550/mo. 618-791-3289.............................. 0-x-xAPARTMENT FOR RENT: 1 Bedroom, 1 Bathroom. $425/Month. Steeleville. 618-978-8906. ...........................1-2-27

IN THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE TWENTIETH JUDICIAL CIRCUITRANDOLPH COUNTY, ILLINOIS

FIRST NATIONAL BANK OF AVA,Plaintiff , v. OSCAR CARMONA-GALLEGOS, ERIKA S. HARO, UNKNOWN OWNERS and NON-RECORD CLAIMANTS, Defendants.

No. 2020CH3

NOTICE OF PENDENCY OF ACTIONNotice is hereby given to Unknown Owners and Non-record Claimants of the Complaint for Foreclosure fi led in the above case on January 27, 2020, and they are named De-fendants in the above-entitled case, pursuant to the provisions of Illinois Compiled Statutes, Chapter 735, Act 5, Sections 2-206, 15-1218 and 15-1502, and that the above-entitled mortgage foreclosure suit is now pending in said court and unless you fi le an appearance or answer to the complaint the day on or after which a default may be entered against the above-named parties for failing to fi le an ap-pearance or answer is March 14, 2020, and the following information applies to said fore-closure proceeding:

1. The names of all Plaintiff s and the case number are identifi ed above.

2. The court in which said action was brought is identifi ed above.

3. The names of the title holder of record is: Oscar Carmona-Gallegos.

4. The legal description of the real estate suffi cient to identify them with reasonable certainty and the mortgages sought to be foreclosed are as follows:Beginning at the Northwest corner of the Southwest Quarter of the Northeast Quarter of Section 6, in Township 5 South, Range 5 West of the Third Principal Meridian, Ran-dolph County, Illinois, and running East along a line 205 feet; thence Southwest 25 feet to a point; thence Southeast 210 feet; thence North 60 feet to the place of beginning, also being described as part of Lot 5 surveyed November 22, 1886, beginning at the North-west corner of the Southwest Quarter of the Northeast Quarter of Section 6, in Township 5 South, Range 5 West, running East on the Quarter Section line 3.57 chains; then South-west 2.50 chains to the Northeast corner of Curry Lot; then West along the North line of Curry Lot 3.63 chains; then North to the be-ginning; EXCEPT any part of Lots 3 and 4 in Block 1 of John N. Smith’s Addition to the City of Sparta included in the above descrip-tion, but intending to include all of Lot 1 and 2 in Block 1 of John N. Smith’s Addition to the City of Sparta, as shown by the plat dated May 16, 1895, recorded September 9, 1895, in Plat Book “E” at Page 35 in the Recorder’s Offi ce of Randolph County, Illinois. Permanent Index Number: 19-078-004-00Commonly known as 414 North Miller Street, Sparta, Illinois 62286.

Date of mortgage: November 4, 2016Name of mortgagor: Oscar Carmona-Gallegos and Erika S. HaroName of mortgagee: First National Bank of Ava

FULL AND PART-T I M E D I R E C T CARE POSITIONS A V A I L A B L E : I n residential setting in Chester, working with intellectually disabled adults. Offering shift differentials, accrued vacation time, flexible scheduling. If you enjoy working with people, teaching daily living skills and helping others to access the community, this is a great opportunity for you. Computer skills required and must be able to pass an IDOT physical. Applications available at any Human Service Center location or call 618-826-4531, option 1 for Carol. EEO...........................0-2-20

IN THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE TWENTIETH JUDICIAL CIRCUITRANDOLPH COUNTY, ILLINOIS

NEW RESIDENTIAL MORTGAGE, LLC, PLAINTIFF, VS.BRIAN M SCHILLING A/K/A BRIAN MATTHEW SCHILLING, A/K/A BRIAN SCHILLING; TASHA K SCHILLING A/K/A TASHA KRISTEN SCHILLING, A/K/A TASHA DIGGS, A/K/A TASHA K DIGGS; UNKNOWN OWNERS AND NON-RECORD CLAIMANTS, DEFENDANTS.

IN THE CIRCUIT COURTTWENTIETH JUDICIAL CIRCUIT

OF ILLINOISRANDOLPH COUNTY, ILLINOIS

IN THE MATTER OF JEFFREY MICHAEL SMITH CHANGE OF NAME TO: TRINITY ANNA SMITH.NO. 2020-MR-20

NOTICE OF FILING OF PETITION FOR CHANGE OF NAME

Notice is given you, the public, that on Mon-day, April 6, 2020, at 11:00am, a hearing will be held on a Petition for Change of Name asking the Court to change my present name of Jeff rey Michael Smith to the name of Trin-ity Anna Smith. The hearing will take place at the Randolph County Courthouse, One Taylor Street, Chester, Illinois.

Dated: February 11, 2020Jeff rey Michael Smith

David H. Friess #6269775Arbeiter Law Offi ces 139 South MainPO Box 8Red Bud, Illinois 62278Telephone: 618-282-4599Fax: 618-282-4605.............................................................0 - 3 - 5

IN THE CIRCUIT COURTTWENTIETH JUDICIAL CIRCUIT

OF ILLINOISRANDOLPH COUNTY, ILLINOIS

In the Matter of the Estate of:JAMES E. KING, DeceasedNO. 2020-P-7

CLAIM NOTICENotice is given of the death of James E.

King. Letters of Offi ce were issued on Febru-ary 13, 2020 to Homer Lee King, PO Box 387, Percy, IL 62272, as Executor, and whose at-torney of record is Arbeiter Law Offi ce, 1019 State Street, PO Box 367, Chester, Illinois 62233.

Claims against the estate may be fi led in the offi ce of the Clerk of the Circuit Court, Ran-dolph County Courthouse, 1 Taylor St., Ches-ter, Illinois 62233, or with the representative, or both on or before August 20, 2020, or three months from the date of mailing or delivery of this Notice to creditors, whichever is later, and any claim not fi led on or before said date is void.

Within ten days after fi ling of the Claim with the Clerk, the claimant shall cause a copy of the Claim to be mailed or delivered to the representatives of the estate and to the rep-resentative’s attorney of record.

Dated: February 13, 2020

Homer Lee King, RepresentativeBy: Arbeiter Law Offi ce

Attorney.............................................................0 - 3 - 5

DOING BUSINESS ASDBA

CERTIFICATE OF PUBLICATIONPublic Notice is hereby given that on Feb-

ruary 13, 2020, a Certifi cate was fi led in the offi ce of the County Clerk of RANDOLPH COUNTY, Illinois setting forth the name and post offi ce address of all persons owning, conducting and transacting the business known as: A Flair for Hair located at 210 E. 1st St., Ellis Grove, IL 62241.

Dated this February 13, 2020Melanie L. Johnson

Randolph County Clerk.............................................................1 - 3 - 5

PUBLIC NOTICE

Peabody Coulterville Mining, LLC, 12968 SR13, PO Box 369, Coulterville, Illinois 62237 has fi led an application for a renewal to a Coal Mining and Reclamation Operations Permit with the County Clerk’s Offi ce in Ran-dolph and Perry County, Illinois. The mining surface facilities are located in all or part of: Section 26 and 27 of Township 4S Range 5W in Randolph County, Illinois. The mining area is located in parts or all of the following:

Township 4 South Range 5 West Sections 13,14,23,24,25,26,27,34,35,36

Township 4 South Range 4 West Sections 16,17,18,19,20,21,27,28,30,31,32,33

Township 5 South Range 5 West Sections 1,2,10,11,12,13,14,15,22

Township 5 South Range 4 West Sections 4,5,6,7,18

Written comments, objections, or requests for informal conferences and public hearings regarding this application may be submitted to the Illinois Department of Natural Resourc-

es, Offi ce of Mines and Minerals, One Natural Resources Way, Springfi eld, Illinois, 62702-1271. The Offi ce of Mines and Minerals ap-plication number is Renewal #7 to Permit No. 51............................................................0 - 3 - 1 2

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March 2, 2020. Residency requirements apply. Applications can requirements apply. Applications can

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COUNTY JOURNAL | FEBRUARY 20, 2020 PAGE 25

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County Journal | february 20, 2020Page 26

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The Sparta Senior Center celebrated Val-entine’s Day February 14 with the crowning of Burnis Chitwood as king and Amy Reese as queen.

Chitwood and Reese received 209,691 votes.

John Clendenin and Georgeann Henderson placed second with 136,370 votes and Keefe and Edith Huddleston third at 30,632.

All participants re-ceived gift cards to lo-cal establishments.

Votes were cast by pennies, and all money raised benefited the senior center.

Kevin Wilson, senior center director, not-ed that the amount of money raised, $3,766.93, was an all-time record for the event.

“Thank you to every-body who supported

this and contributed,” Wilson said.

Sparta Valentine king and queen crowned

Sitting are Queen Amy Reese and King Burnis Chitwood. Standing from left are retiring King Brock Hicks and candidates Edith Huddleston, Keefe Huddleston, Georgeann Henderson and John Clendenin.

A delegation from Calvary Church in Sparta returned Feb-ruary 5 after spread-ing the gospel for 12 days in Ghana, a small country in northwest Africa.

Nine members of the church were led in their mission by Rich Cowan, associate pas-tor.

“I have a real heart for the missions of our church,” said Cowan.

The mission was to bring Christianity to the villages around a town called Kpandai.

“A church member worked with a mission-ary and went to Ghana two years ago as part of a medical team to Yendi,” said Cowan.

That missionary was Emmanuel Mustapha who lives in Yendi.

His effort led to the most recent trip.

The Sparta team spent time in Yendi and in the Kpandai area about 70 miles south.

“It was a very ru-ral area,” said Cow-an. “There were few churches there.”

Cowan said Ghana is heavily Muslim, but they are not militant.

“They don’t want to kill Christians,” he said.

The group would go to various villages, talk to the chief, and get his permission to talk to the people.

“Then we would hold a service and encour-age the people to form a Christian church congregation,” said Cowan. “We went to nine different villages and set up nine con-gregations.”

Cowan said the na-tive groups that gath-ered would start sing-ing, taking secular songs and changing the words to represent the Bible and Chris-tian themes the Ameri-cans spoke about. In turn, more people would gather, creating a group of about 100

people, and the Sparta church group would hold a short sermon.

“A missionary would ask the group if they wanted to hear more about Christ and fol-low him,” said Cowan. “We had 80 to 90 per-cent of them come forward. They will be

the first generation of Christians in their ar-eas.”

Until the Sparta group arrived, Cowan said, the people of Gha-na had little knowl-edge of Christ.

“They don’t really have much connection to the outside world,”

he said.Poverty is unbeliev-

able in the villages, ac-cording to Cowan, so a Bible is worth a lot of money. The group left Bibles with the people, including ex-tras to be distributed as the Christian word spreads.

“The Christian move-ment is going forward in Africa,” said Cowan. “For us, the most en-couraging thing was in those who made the commitment to show up for leadership train-ing. They are staying with it. Everybody is super encouraged.”

Those who made the trip to Africa are, from left, Pastor Tim McIntyre, Rich Cowan, Micah Bradshaw, Donnie Hobbs, Chris Klingeman, Jeremy Kempfer, Cory McClurken, Tim Howe and Joe Green.

Spreading the word in Ghana