Local Columnists

When my phone rang at work this week, I was hoping to hear a certain person on the other end.

Four years ago, several violent, unconnected events began occurring at Northern Illinois University and in DeKalb with just enough frequency to make us feel like the body blows are unending.

In the new year, I have been asked to join some excellent and talented writers in this space. This will be an exciting, and hopefully interesting, journey for us to travel together.

Sometimes at my age, I forget how young people think and act, especially because we have no grandchildren.

Community members and staff members alike agree that technology is changing the face of education throughout the country – and not just at Genoa-Kingston School District 424 schools.

Since money fuels all aspects of government, let’s take a closer look at the money in government.

It’s essential to give our 9-week-old border collie pups plenty of exercise, so I took Bart, Betty and Hector for a nice, long walk through the ice and slush in the pasture. I strode out ahead of them as fast as my stiff, old legs could manage, hoping to wear them out with a steady run.

Three generations older than Generation Y (born after 1980), and about three-and-a-half generations away from Generation Z (born after 1991), was the Greatest Generation.

Wandering over to Malta one day last week, I got to meet former Daily Chronicle columnist Peggy Wogen, who once wrote a weekly piece called “Heart & Soul” in the mid-1990s. She is now better known as the library director of Malta Township Library.

Like many school districts throughout Illinois, Sandwich School District 430 has been addressing various methods of aligning our curriculum to the newly adopted Common Core Standards, or CCS.

I finally caved last weekend and bought a smartphone.

I had put hay out in the four feeders on one side of my feed lot and walked into the barn to cut the twine on another bale. I grabbed about half of that bale and turned toward the loan feeder on the smaller side of the lot.

Cherena Pollard, a sophomore elementary education major at Northern Illinois University,  chose one of the coolest email tags – LadyNIU. Some people exude passion and excitement about doing what they love, and Pollard is one of them. Sometimes we encounter people who we sense will be a success, and Pollard is one of them, too.

The past two weeks I have been overwhelmed by information: First at the Northern Illinois Farm Show, then the first meeting of the DeKalb Area Agricultural Heritage Association and lastly, at the DeKalb County Farm Bureau’s Ag Breakfast featuring Steve Faivre talking about new agricultural equipment technology.

As our community and schools celebrate and learn about the contributions of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Black History during the month of February, it causes me to reflect on the importance of embracing diversity and how essential it is to the core fabric of our community and schools.