St. Elmo News

ANNOUNCEMENTS
Thursday, August 16
• First day of school. Early dismissal will be at 11:30 a.m.
• The Vit-Em-In Sunday school class potluck will be held at 6 p.m. in the Fellowship Hall of First United Methodist Church.
• The Friendship Quilt Club, 7 p.m., St. Elmo Public Library.
Saturday, August 18
• The Lions Club-sponsored hearing screening will be held from 9 a.m.-noon at the Phillips Building.
Sunday, Aug. 19
• The Owen-Miller reunion will be held at noon in the Phillips Building. All relatives and friends are invited to attend.
Monday, August 20
• Historical Vandalia Inc. Board of Directors meeting, 6:30 p.m., Fayette County Museum, Vandalia.
• St. Elmo Board of Education, 7:30 p.m., unit office.
Wednesday, August 22
• St. Elmo Unit of Home and Community Education will meet at 10:30 a.m. in St. Mary’s Catholic Church parking lot to go to Copper Deck near Pocahontas for lunch.
• Royal Neighbors of America #5784, 1 p.m., Phillips Building. Articles for the Vandalia Lighthouse Pregnancy Center will be collected at the meeting. Accepted will be clothing for newborns to age 3 and items for new mommies.
Thursday, August 23
• The Illinois Home and Community Education Districts 6 and 7 annual meeting will be held at the Mt. Vernon Holiday Inn. Registration will be at 9 a.m.
Future Announcements
• Saturday, Aug. 25, the Central Illinois Food Bank will be at the Pinnacle Factory, starting at 9:15 a.m.
• The Lilly-Wright reunion will be held in the First Church of God S.H.E.D., with a noon potluck, on Sunday, Aug. 26. Fried chicken, beverages and table service will be provided. Those attending are asked to take covered dishes.
A business meeting and white elephant sale will follow the meal. Those attending are asked to take sale items the day of the reunion. A raffle for a cross-stitch picture will be held with tickets at $1 each or six for $5.
Birth Announcement Corrected
Karen Denning of St. Elmo has become a great-grandmother. Her granddaughter, Sasha and husband Clint Althoff of Effingham, became parents of a son at 2:15 a.m. on July 30, 2012, at the Mattoon Sarah Bush Lincoln Hospital. He weighed 7 pounds, 7 ounces; was 21 inches long; and was named Harper Riley.  
Paternal grandparents are Don and Carol Althoff of Effingham. Maternal grandparents are Jeff and Susan Murphy of Effingham. Deceased maternal great-grandparents are Glen Denning, and Ralph and Delores Murphy.
Fayette County Museum
The special exhibits for August in the Fayette County Museum in Vandalia feature historic documents from the museum’s collection that are only displayed occasionally; labor and industry in early Vandalia, the Depression era and mid-1900s; and the popular Tanner Drive-In exhibit, which is being held over another month.
A total of 217 visitors were welcomed at the museum in July. Groups included Quest School from Mt. Vernon, Homemakers Extension from the Pocahontas area and a Boy Scout group from Fairfax, Va.
Tickets are now available for the Season of Events. This season’s events are: Martha Washington, presented on Sept. 16 by Barbara Kay of Glen Carbon; Historical Family Stories, presented on Nov. 4 by storyteller Linda Dust of Assumption; and French Creole Traditional Music and History, presented by Dennis A. Stroughmatt of Albion on Jan. 13, 2013, when he entertains with his fiddle.
Restoration continues in the museum’s upstairs area. Gooseberry pies may still be ordered from the museum. To schedule tours, order pies or tickets, call 283-4866.
Smith Reunion
R. W. and Mary Smith were at the Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri from Aug. 3-6 to attend the Emma Smith family reunion held in the Windemer Baptist Convention Center. More than 40 in attendance included the brother of R. W., John Paul of Arizona. Emma had nine children, and in addition to R. W. and Paul, the other two still living are Geryl Wurl of Missouri and Beatrice Cooper of Pennsylvania, both of whom were unable to attend.
John Paul’s daughter, Karla and her husband Steve Jackson, are missionaries in Mozambique, Southeast Africa and, with their children, Christa, Abby, Bethany and Jared, have been on furlough, but are to return to Africa by the end of August.
Friendly Neighbors
Instead of having an August potluck, the Friendly Neighbors went to Mary Ann’s Restaurant for lunch on Aug. 7, with the following present: Mary Belle Ledbetter of Brownstown; and Ina Abendroth, Irene Reed, Larry Reed, Bob and Joanne Owen, Rosemary Owen, R. W. and Mary Smith, and Laverne and Leona Wright, all of St. Elmo.
They had no program, just visited.
The September meeting of Friendly Neighbors will be a potluck at noon on Tuesday, Sept. 4, at the Phillips Building.
Lunch Bunch
Present for the Lunch Bunch get-together held at noon on Aug. 8 at Mary Ann’s Restaurant were Karen Denning, Mary Harrison, Marjorie Sarver and Sue Stites, all of St. Elmo; Pat Porter of Farina; and Wayne and Sandra Lovett of Brownstown.
Rhodes-Side Gleanings
The birthday for my granddaughter, Soo Jin Lea, is Aug. 20, and I always try to visit with her sometime during the month. She, her parents and sister, Dr. Prentiss and Phyllis Lea and Chae Rin, live in Green Oaks. When I got there at 11:30 a.m. on Aug. 7, my son Steve Rhodes and a friend, Scott Edmond, both of Chicago, had arrived just before I did.
That evening, when Phyllis returned home from attending one of the gardening/landscaping classes she has been taking several times a week this summer, we celebrated Soo Jin’s 14th birthday with a birthday cake and she opened several gifts.
Soo Jin will start high school this month as a freshman. She will go to Libertyville High School, where her dad is the superintendent. Chae Rin will be in seventh grade at the elementary school in Green Oaks, just a few blocks from where the Leas live.
I returned back to St. Elmo on Aug. 9.
Library Board
The St. Elmo Public Library District Board met at 7 p.m. on Aug. 9 at the library.
After approving the minutes and paying the bills, the board was invited by Lana Potter to the fundraiser that the Friends of the Brownstown Branch Library is sponsoring. It will be a program by Nadine at 7 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 15, at the Vandalia Moose Lodge, and there also will be a 50/50 drawing.
JoAn Evans reported that the Beecher City Branch Library needs a few repairs, including replacing two computer chairs. Brad Reed is working on the new bookshelves. The Methodist Church would like to use the library grounds for their Kids Club kickoff on Sept. 20.
Billie Enlow reported that she and Kim Karnes received the plaque for the CEFS 2012 Community Service Excellence Award.
The Cookbook Committee has been meeting and the board was given recipe forms.
People wanting to contribute recipes to the cookbook need to put them on recipe forms, which can be picked up at the St. Elmo Public Library, Brownstown Branch Library and Beecher City Branch Library.
The new system (SHARE) has the librarians weeding books that haven’t been checked out in five years, and its start date is April 9, 2013.
There is a workday in Mascoutah on Aug. 29 to learn new cataloging.
Forty-six children and 18 adults attended the Glow-in-the Dark Juggling Show on Aug. 8 at the St. Elmo Public Library.
The Penny Severns Grant is finished. Final report is due Sept. 1.
The library has received 12 Kindles, five USB cables and five audio cartridges from the Digital Divide Grant. Enlow will check on other libraries’ procedures for Kindles and report next month.
Due to IHLS regulations, the board rescinded two motions from the July 12 meeting offering out of district library cards at a lower rate to students and senior citizens.