St. Elmo News

ANNOUNCEMENTS
Thursday, April 2
• Canceled – St. Elmo Women’s Civ Club salad supper at St. Mary’s Catholic Church.
Sunday, April 5
• Canceled – Wolf Creek Cluster UM Churches Lenten service.
Tuesday, April 7
• Canceled – Council of Catholic Women at St. Mary’s Catholic Church.
Cancellations
• Church services may be canceled – check with your church.
• The Fayette County Extension Office in Vandalia is closed; it may or not reopen April 8.
• St. Elmo Public Library was closed until April 1; it may or may not reopen now.
• St. Elmo Lions Club has canceled all forthcoming events until further notice, including the sponsored Easter egg hunt scheduled for Saturday, April 11.
• The Fayette County Museum in Vandalia is closed until further notice.
• The Fayette County Home and Community Education has asked units to cancel their April meetings.
• The Fayette County HCE Get-Acquainted Day scheduled for Wednesday, April 15, has been canceled.
• The Fayette County HCE-sponsored public program on bees scheduled for the evening of April 17 has been canceled.
HCE Announcement
With the Covid-19 virus going on and concern about our members, the Fayette County HCE Board has made the decision to postpone our bee program and Get Acquainted Day. We will inform everyone when we reschedule everything.  I know that for years we have done things in the same way, in the same month and week, but this is beyond any of our control. I hope you all understand that this is being done for the safety of all our members.
As your county board president, I will leave it up to the president of each unit as to whether you hold your April meetings.
Please get the information out to your unit members as soon as possible. Thank you all for your support and help in all this. Be safe.
Ashley Davis
President of Fayette
County HCE
Obit of a 1952
Graduate of SEHS
Wynona Bowen Odell, 84, of Ft. Collins, Co., died early Sunday morning, March 15, after a brief battle with pancreatic cancer. She was preceded in death by her husband of 58 years, Dee L. O’Dell, in 2013.
Survivors include a son, Randy, of San Francisco, Calif., and a daughter and son-in-law, Rhonda and Howard Mackert, of Gig Harbor, Wash.
Wynona worked at H&R Block for more than 35 years. She was an avid reader and is remembered by many for her sweet, kind spirit.
A celebration of life service will be held at a future date.
Missionary Megan Maxey Dixon Update
A current email newsletter from Megan Maxey (who was married to Mitchell Dixon last fall) states, “After two years of interning with CRU plus some part-time for me, Mitchell and I applied and were officially accepted as full-time staff with CRU.
We love working for CRU and the people we work with are part of the reason. We are so excited to be full-time missionaries with CRU, and are very thankful to you all for your ongoing support and prayers.”
CRU’s new staff training was originally scheduled for April 29-May 10, but because of COVID-19.  The in-person training was canceled.
Megan said, “We are in ongoing conversations to figure out when/how they will train us as a new staff.”
Megan and Mitch live in Manhattan, Kan. In the summer of 2019, Megan was with CRU on the Ivory Coast of Africa.
In December, a group of students from Central Kansas schools went to CRU’s Winter Conference in Denver, Colo., and it was a reunion of Ivory Coast students and staff.
Megan said, “One of my jobs at Winter Conference was to share about interning in Ivory Coast. The event, called STINT Lunch, is where I decided to intern overseas when I was a student! Our group of 175 students was learning how to ‘multiply’ their faith.”
“Sad update: One day shy of our departure, our 10-day Vision trip to Ivory Coast to do ministry over spring break was canceled because of Coronavirus.
This would have been Mitchell’s first time in Africa, and my chance to reunite with and do ministry alongside old friends plus new ones. We are sad about the cancel, but thankful for the wisdom of CRU staff that have our safety in mind.
“Because of our canceled trip, we were able to take a short weekend trip to Illinois to surprise my mom and dad and little sister for their birthdays. Big family picture with all spouses plus baby Vaughn.”
Vaughn was born in January to her older sister and brother-in-law,
Megan is the daughter of Michael and Brandi Maxey, and granddaughter of Dave and Joann Maxey, all of St. Elmo.
 

The Illinois Association of Home and Community Education annual Conference was held March 10-12 at the Thelma Keller Convention Center in Effingham. At the March 10 awards banquet, Fayette County was second runner-up of the 13 counties (with a membership of 76 or more-Fayette County’s membership was 86) that filled out the County-of-the Year report form. Above, state IAHCE President Jane Chapman of Perry County presented the certificate to Fayette County HCE President Ashley Davis.