Today's News

Tammie Rogers and her husband, Robert, who live and operate their Darn Far Ranch northwest of Brownstown are doing what they love to do best – working with and training dogs…and the dogs’ humans.

Sometimes, a really special dog comes along that is needed by a special person. Tammie recently shared this touching story that has a happy, tail-wagging ending. “Bree” is that special dog and Kevin Boston of Greenville the special person.

Several years ago, the Fayette County board turned down a request from the circuit clerk to increase two filing fees collected by her office, saying that the monies generated by those fees were not being used.

On Tuesday night, as another request was made by the new circuit clerk, the board found out why those increases are needed at this time.

Board members unanimously approved increasing both the automation and document storage fees to $15 after Circuit Clerk Mary Sue Ruot told them about a mandate passed down by the Illinois Supreme Court.

An engineering firm that the city of Vandalia hired two months ago to resolve problems with its raw water intake on the Kaskaskia River says it will need to do an additional study before formulating a recommendation.

Jim Wells of Gonzalez Companies told the city council on Monday that its initial inspection of the intake was delayed by high river levels.

Once the level of the river dropped, Wells said, the engineers found that up to half of a finger dyke near the intake had been washed away.

“War, like the thunderbolt, follows its laws and turns not aside even if the beautiful, the virtuous and the charitable stand in its path.”

– Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman

These are the words that came to mind Friday afternoon when I first saw the fallen "capital" oak, its trunk splintered as it lay on the ground in the Old State Burial Ground in Vandalia, a victim of the strong storms that passed through two weeks ago.