Commentary

10 years ago May 22, 2013 Since October 1966, the “home” of local scouting youth has been the Nunn Scout Building, located at 200 South Ohio Street. Currently, as many as 50 Club Scouts, 25 boy scouts and 25 girl scouts at ages utilize the building. During the school year, most of those scouts meet…

By Craig Hastings I don’t know if you heard but, of all news media outlets, CNN hosted a town hall meeting in St. Anselm College in New Hampshire last Wednesday night and invited Donald Trump as their guest.  Of the several experienced moderators available at CNN they tapped Kaitlan Collins to moderate this town hall. …

10 years ago May 15. 2013 The Hayes Branch improvements to the flooding district are well underway with storm sewer installation all but completed and the detention basin finished in the area where Owen Tucker is building a housing subdivision. The final piece of the puzzle will be drainage district officials signing off on the…

By Craig Hastings “Everyone is innocent until proven guilty.”  (Unless your last name is Trump anyway)  I believe the alleged criminal evidence piling up on the Biden family has become insurmountable.  Before I say anything else, under these same circumstances I wouldn’t try to defend Donald Trump or Ronald Regan.  No, this has gone beyond…

10 years ago May 8, 2013 Disaster has struck Douglas County, Garrett and Atwood specifically, and officials from throughout the county sit around a table in the county highway department shed in Tuscola, laptops lined up in front of them and maps of the affected areas dominated one side of the room, plotting strategy ajd…

By Craig Hastings I hope you read last week’s column because this one picks up where that one left off.  Tonight is day nine since my total hip replacement surgery.  I reported to Carle Hospital at 5:00 a.m. last Wednesday for a scheduled 7:30 a.m. surgery.  The surgery took place on time and about two…

10 years ago April 24, 2013 The weather in East Central Illinois was perfect last week if you were a duck. For those of the web-footed persuasion, it was just plain wet and more than a bit miserable. Rain deluged the area over a two-day period starting out Wednesday, April 17 and continuing in earnest…

By Craig Hastings Two Walmart stores in Portland Oregon closed last week and this week Walmart announced they will close four stores in Chicago.  Multiple other large chain stores and restaurants have already done the same in larger cities.  Is it the state of our economy that caused these closures?  No.  Was it a problem…

10 years ago May 1, 2013 After hearing testimony from a dozen people, spanning over two hours, Judge Micahel Carroll, on April 30, said he would make a ruling later in the week regarding whether to grant bail to Timothy Little of Villa Grove, who is accused of making threats to harm North Ward schoolchildren…

By Craig Hastings Well, I’m going to talk to you tonight about me getting older.  I want to tell my story because I don’t want any of you to make the same mistake I did.  In the spring of 2022 as I became more active outside and in my yard I started to feel like…