Today's News

The Illinois House of Representatives voted 114-1 to impeach Gov. Rod Blagojevich. Rep. Milt Patterson (D-Chicago) cast the lone dissenting vote, and Rep. Elga Jefferies (D-Chicago) voted "present."

The impeachment comes one month after Blagojevich was arrested at his home by federal agents on fraud and bribery charges.

Blagojevich visited Vandalia twice when running for governor in 2002, but did not come to town during the 2006 campaign.

More people are reaching the age of 100 years these days, but probably few of them are retaining the energy, mental capacity, enthusiasm and appearance of Erma L. Warner.

Erma seems to have put the brakes on aging at about 75, although she reached her 100th birthday on Dec. 17, 2008, and celebrated it with a party.

When Erma was called to set up an interview, she gave detailed directions to her rural home, down to the finer details of “you will cross a crick and go up a hill, to the second mailbox.”

Residents of the St. Elmo and Brownstown school districts will have two opportunities at the end of this month to learn about the proposed consolidation of the two districts.

Meeting three weeks after the state superintendent of education approved an application to put a consolidation referendum on the April 7 ballot, the Committee of 10 that submitted the application set two meetings to present consolidation information to residents.

The public hearings have been set for:

• Wednesday, Jan. 28 – 6 p.m. in the Brownstown Elementary School cafeteria.

For a little more than two years, a dozen residents of the Brownstown and St. Elmo school districts have studied how a consolidation of the two districts would improve the educational offerings for their children. Now, they are anxious to share their findings with their fellow residents.

At a meeting on Tuesday night, the consolidation Committee of 10 hashed out at length just how they can best relay their findings to residents of the two districts.