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St. Elmo News

ANNOUNCEMENTS
Thursday, August 4
• Registration at St. Elmo Jr.-Sr. High School and Elementary School, 10 a.m.-6 p.m.
• St. Elmo Business Association, noon, Mary Ann’s Restaurant.
Friday, August 5
• Registration at St. Elmo Jr.-Sr. High School and Elementary School, 10 a.m.-6 p.m.
Monday, August 8
• American Red Cross blood drive, 2-6 p.m., St. Mary’s Catholic Church Parish Hall. Donors of all blood types are needed. All presenting donors will receive a St. Louis Cardinals T-shirt, while supplies last.
• St. Elmo Lions Club, 6 p.m., Mary Ann’s Restaurant.
Tuesday, August 9
• St. Elmo Labor Day Parade float applications are available at the City Hall starting today.
• Avena Township Park Board, 7 p.m., St. Elmo Community Park Centennial Building.
• American Legion Post #420, 7 p.m., Legion Home.
• Fayette County Board, 7 p.m., Fayette County Courthouse, Vandalia.
Thursday, August 11
• Lunch Bunch, noon, Mary Ann’s Restaurant.
• St. Elmo Public Library District Board, 7 p.m., St. Elmo Public Library.
• Effingham Chapter #110 Order of the Eastern Star, 7:30 p.m., Effingham Masonic Temple.
Fayette County HCE
At the July 25 Fayette County Home and Community Education Board meeting held at the Vandalia Extension Office, updated membership reports were given out to the units – one is available for each HCE member in the county.
The June 2015 membership started with 104 members and during the year, 12 joined and two died, leaving a 214 membership at the end of May. Twelve didn’t rejoin, so June 2016 started with 102 members. At the Sefton June meeting, Jeanne Holt of Vandalia joined, so the county membership now is 103.
Shut-ins (homebound or in nursing homes) are: four from the Vandalia Day unit, one from the St. Peter Unit, one from the Sefton Unit, one from the Wheatland Unit and one from the Wright’s Corner Unit.
Other members in the units are the following: Bingham/Ramsey, seven; St. Elmo, 13; St. Peter, 14; Sefton, 25; Vandalia Day, 25; Wheatland, five; and Wright’s Corner, eight.
Though the Wheatland Unit members are paid through May 2017, the unit is dissolving – there are major illnesses in two of the families. Those who are able are urged to attend other unit meetings.
President Flo Allen opened the meeting, with all giving the Pledge of Allegiance. Those present were Allen and Panzi Blackwell of the Sefton Unit, Donna Blair of the Bingham/Ramsey Unit, Carol Bridges, Ashley Davis, Debbie Segrest and Anita Smith of the Vandalia Day Unit, Anna Jean Rhodes of the St. Elmo Unit and Karen Hyde of the Wheatland Unit.
County HCE members who entered items at the Fayette County Fair were Segrest and Joyce Mueller of the Vandalia Day Unit and Rhodes and Karen Wegscheid of the St. Elmo Unit.
The sales of the Streak-Less microfiber cloths are doing well; the cloths sell for $4 each and are still available from the units in the county. The handmade baby quilt raffle will continue until the October International meeting. The tickets are $1 or six for $5.
After the meeting closed, Allen, Bridges, Davis, Hyde, Rhodes, Segrest and Smith ate lunch at Denny’s in Vandalia.
Lions Club
Present at the July 25 meeting of the St. Elmo Lions Club held at Mary Ann’s Restaurant were Dave Cox, Don Crawford, Pee Wee Denton, Max Hollinshead, Holly Huffer, Bob Lowe, Richard Lowe, LeMar Marchman, David Maxey, Al Nevergall, Lloyd Stanley and Bob Wells.
Maxey led in the Pledge of Allegiance and Richard Lowe gave the meal blessing.
Announcement was made that Lloyd and Mona Stanley are celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary.
Hearing testing for elementary children was discussed.
Labor Day parade plans also were discussed. Application for parade floats will be available on Aug. 8.
Barn Renovation – Future Events
The barn renovation at the St. James Summer Breeze Wine House is almost completed. The barn has been expanded, the screened-in room has been enclosed and they have added heating and air conditioning. It can now accommodate 200 or more guests for weddings and events.
A Barn Dayz Wine & Fall Festival will be Saturday, Sept. 3, from 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Food, antique and craft vendors are now being accepted for the festival. Live music will be performed by “American Originals,” Tom Fedrigon and more.
Owners and operators Mark and Tammy Lash of St. Elmo said, “Our first wedding of the year was on July 24. We are so excited for our upcoming weddings this fall. We are already booking weddings for 2017.”
A Central Illinois Wedding Show is scheduled for 11 a.m.-4 p.m. on Sunday, Oct. 2, and it will be hosted in the newly renovated barn venue. Vendors for the wedding show are also being accepted now. Those attending will get discounted rates with some vendors if they are booked that day. There will be a grand prize for one lucky bride.
A Halloween party has been tentatively scheduled for Friday, Oct. 28.
RNA School Collections
Royal Neighbors of America #5784 collected grade school supplies at the July 27 meeting held in the Phillips Building. They plan to deliver them on Aug. 10 to the St. Elmo and Beecher City elementary schools. Anyone willing to help the students have a good start to this school year may do so by giving any school supply item to any RNA member or call Della Stewart at 829-3394.
Needed are backpacks, notebooks and note paper, but RNA will appreciate anything you would like to donate.
These items were collected at the RNA meeting: 11 bottles of glue, six glue sticks, six sizzlers, 29 one-subject notebooks, two rulers, one binder pouch, one pencil box, three packages ink pens, 14 packages of pencils, nine paper folders, one box colored pencils, three boxes colored markers, one box erasers, 17 boxes crayons and four small note pads.
Present at the meeting in addition to Della Stewart were Jean Brown, Anna Ruth Lilly, Marjorie Sarver and Leona Wright.
Polio Survivors & Friends of East Central Illinois 2005-2016
Some of those who had the dread disease of polio in the 1930s-1950s (until the polio vaccine shots started to be given in 1957) who were paralyzed, who had many surgeries, who moved out of the iron lungs, who were able to overcome the need for crutches, canes and walkers and for some who seemingly escaped paralysis, the after effects – post-polio syndrome – is affecting many.
Many have been experiencing new weaknesses, fatigue, pain that continues and ever-increasing disability, the need to now use canes, walkers, crutches, power chairs, wheelchairs.
An organization, Polio Survivors and Friends of East Central Illinois, was started in 2005 by Annie Barber of Charleston who is a nurse at the Sarah Bush Lincoln Hospital, Mattoon.
Her father, Bill Heise, had polio at age 12 and had been diagnosed with post-polio. He wasn’t able to attend the meetings in person, but did attend by phone.
People known to have had polio were contacted to become a member of the group to share their post-polio stories, symptoms and experiences. Some had polio when a tiny baby, some were in grade school, some in high school, some in their 20s and one was 28 when she had polio. Each one was affected in different ways.
Finally a questionnaire was given to each one to write a story; a book of the stories has been given to the members. At many of the meetings, there was a guest speaker who talked about the disease and post-polio symptoms.
When first started, the meetings were held on the second Thursday evenings at the Mattoon Sarah Bush Lincoln Educational Center and usually had 10-20 attending. A few years ago, the meetings started being held at 1 p.m. on the first Saturday of each month and attendance was dwindling to 5-10.
In 2015 only three Saturday afternoon meetings were held. The last meeting of the group was a Christmas get-together at Ryan’s Restaurant in Effingham Dec. 5 and only five were able to attend.
Through the years, about 50 Polio Survivors and Friends were from the following towns: Altamont, Beecher City, Charleston, Champaign, Cook’s Mills, Effingham, Greenup, Lerna, Lovington, Marshall, Mattoon, Neoga, Oakland, Rantoul, St. Elmo, Sigel, Sullivan, Toledo and Wheeler.
Many of those who first attended started having post-polio symptoms and over the years several have become homebound, several are in wheelchairs, several have to use canes or walkers and several have died. All survivors now are age 50-plus.
The organization members hope that polio doesn’t become active again – everyone still needs to take polio shots or vaccine because the disease is only a flight away – three foreign countries still have polio.
This year, Polio Survivors and Friends had a bank balance of $450, which was given to the Charleston Rotary Club, which can help continue the club continue its “Help Stamp Out Polio” fundraiser program. Rotarians nationwide are working together to eradicate polio.
Books about post-polio syndrome written by professionals, books written by polio survivors and their families and VHS tapes have been available in the Polio Survivors and Friends of East Central Illinois library and are being donated to those who would like and need the materials.
After serving as president or chairman of the group for several years, Barber retired and Glee Helms of Charleston took over. Mary Lou Replogle of Charleston has been the treasurer.
 

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