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Today's Opinions

  • Governor's mansion not always popular

     

     On Monday, along with my son, Ethan, Cheryl and Randy Pollard, Steve Riddle (Vandalia Statehouse site superintendent) and Travis Pence, I had the honor of visiting the Governor’s Mansion in Springfield.

     

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  • Breakfast, parade to welcome Santa

     

    Though the Christmas season in Vandalia got off to a rousing start with the Olde Tyme Christmas event a couple weeks ago, this Saturday marks another landmark in the season.

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  • Shop at home first this year

     

    If you're like most of us, the Christmas shopping season got underway in earnest the day after Thanksgiving. That day – Black Thursday – is huge for the nation's retailers. It sets the tone for the remainder of the season. It's the same for Cyber Monday – the Monday after Thanksgiving – when the online shoppers have their busiest day.

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  • Banks of the Okaw

    This week’s Mystery Banks Photo: In a photo taken a little more than four decades ago, these two brothers are ages 5 and 2.

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  • The Way We Were

    20 Years Ago

    1993 – Vandalia resident Wallace Weicherding, who hosted a Ku Klux Klan rally at his lake home in September, was fired from his job as a sergeant at Graham Correctional Center in Hillsboro for allegedly promoting his racial beliefs while on the job.
    Local artists Kim Shanks and Matt Mayfield dressed up the Vandalia Historical Society room at Evans Public Library by creating a painting of Abraham Lincoln on one of the walls.

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  • Statehouse book gives a look at 1840s

    As a volunteer tour guide at the Vandalia Statehouse, one of the topics that I touch on is the fact that only three pieces of furniture in the building are original to it.
    Two are stoves, both Benjamin Franklin models. The Liberty stove, with an eagle emblazoned on it from the Walter Neuman Liberty Stove Co., was used as the model for the 12 reproduction stoves in the building. The second stove, known as a Sally-Ann model, has a bake oven on top and separate firebox below.

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  • Remember all you can be thankful for

    As we prepare to celebrate Thanksgiving this Thursday, what comes to mind? Are your first thoughts ones of gratitude for the many ways you’ve been blessed? Or is your focus on what you don’t have?
    It’s the old question of whether the glass is half full or half empty.
    The uniquely American holiday of Thanksgiving has a way of forcing us to land on one side or the other of that question.

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  • Banks of the Okaw

    In last week’s Mystery Banks Photo was: Laurna Lowrance.
    Identifying her were: Mildred Morefield, Shirley Cole, Linda Schulte and Jodi Craycroft.
    This week’s Scrambler: veig em ixs rusho ot pohc nowd a eret nad i liwl denps eht rifts urof grenphinsa het exa.
    Can you unscramble it? If so, call The Leader-Union, 283-3374, by 5 p.m. next Monday.
    Last week’s Scrambler: Vision is a compelling image of an achievable future. (Laura Berman Fortgang)

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