Letter to the Editor and the Hornbuckle Family

Posted October 29, 2017

Dear Editor:

This letter is directed to the Hornbuckle family.

These lovely people are deserving of our condolences, and I have sent mine, privately. That is not the purpose of this letter. Instead, this is intended as a message of gratitude.

When Clint was diagnosed, you must have been both devastated and terrified. I can’t imagine. In fact, I don’t like to think about it. But when you received the news, you could have shut yourself off from the world, and no one would have faulted you for it. You could have thanked everyone for their concern, but said that this was a family matter and that you were choosing to focus your energies on your son exclusively.

You did not do that. Instead, you recognized how important your son was to this community. You created the Hornbuckle Warriors page on Facebook, and a movement was born. You took uncomfortable pictures and shared medical information and personal moments, all combined with daily updates as to Clint’s progress. His fight became our fight. And your hope became ours as well.

While the updates themselves were appreciated, so were the comments. When I would get down, I would go to the page and see everyone’s messages. It made me feel better to see others as upset as I was. Maybe that is a strange thing to be grateful for – I don’t know. But sometimes, in times of sadness, company can bring comfort.

Clint was my friend. Cindy is my friend. And by extension, their family is my family. But I am not someone who would have warranted daily calls about his condition. And I wouldn’t have asked. I would have given you your privacy and waited for news. I wouldn’t have had a place to remind myself just how much Clint meant to people. Your selfless decision to share your son with us, and to keep us up-to-date on his progress, made me feel as if I were there, getting to spend some last time with someone I cared about. And someone I will miss.

I don’t know if creating and writing that page brought you any comfort. I hope that it did. But to be honest, what kind of comfort can there be for such a devastating loss? I can only hope that as time passes, you will return to that page, read the comments, and know that Clint was loved. Losing him is nothing short of catastrophic. But I hope that you can see that your son touched the lives of hundreds of people.

Maybe this letter is inappropriate. I hope not, and am sorry if so. I don’t intend it to be. And I don’t intend it to make light of this devastating loss. My pain is incomparable to yours. But I, for one, am grateful for your decision to allow us to be with you on this journey. Your choice, and that page, reminded me why I love this community I will always call my home. Your loss is now our loss. My heart reaches out to you, and I offer you my sincere thanks for sharing your last days with Clint with all of us.

Love,
Sara Clark

Springfield, IL

As President of Taylorville Kiwanis for the 2017 - 2018 term I want to bring an awareness of what Kiwanis is about to our community.  Bottom line is…… Kids need Kiwanis!

For more than 100 years, Kiwanis International has been active in communities around the world. In our community, the Kiwanis Club of Taylorville was established October 26th, 1954 and has been helping kids for 63 years.

You might know some of our members. You’ve probably seen us in the neighborhood, in church or at the grocery store. Our members aren’t just dedicated to helping children, but dedicated to helping our community through a number of excellent community organizations.  We’re the do-gooders in the community—the ones who arrive early to help set up an event and stay late to clean up. Sometimes we serve pancakes and sausage or offer peanuts to help raise money to support our efforts to help kids.  Taylorville Kiwanis members provide annual support for the following activities. 

Provide coats, hats, and gloves for children in our community
Support the Pediatric Dental program in Taylorville
Award college scholarships to Taylorville High School graduates
Support the local YMCA
Donate to the CEO program
Help stock the shelves at local food pantries
Make needed improvements and repairs at Kiwanis Park
And provide help to many more projects that support the Kiwanis mission

As Kiwanis members, we believe we can make a difference in the world, in our community and in the life of a child. Along with clubs for adults, Kiwanis offers clubs for kids in elementary (K-Kids), junior high (Builders Club), high school (Key Club) and even in college (Circle K). We also have a club focused to give developmentally disabled adults the opportunity to volunteer in their community (Aktion Club). Kiwanis members believe everyone can benefit from helping others.

To be honest, we’ve struggled with membership over the years. The demands of a family, a job and a social life can interfere with the best of intentions to help others. Yet more kids than ever before need our help. With more Kiwanis club members we can help more kids. And we know kids need our support. In an effort to strengthen our club we ask the question, “Can we count on you?”

Call us at (217) 827- 5342 or visit our Taylorville Kiwanis Club Facebook page to find out how you can help. Kids need Kiwanis—and Kiwanis needs you.

In Kiwanis service,
Martin Vota
President – Taylorville Kiwanis Club

Letter to the Editor

Posted October 4, 2017

Dear Editor:

Let this be my official statement: As Chairman of the Christian County Tea Party, I will NOT be supporting Governor Rauner for re-election for his stance on funding abortions and making IL. a sanctuary state. This goes against my firm beliefs in respecting LIFE and the rule of LAW.

Thank you,

Ray Koonce

Taylorville, IL

Letter to the Editor

Posted October 1, 2017

Dear Editor:

It’s truly disgusting to see how two-faced the Pana City Council truly has been for decades, but even moreso when they discussed extended liquor sales during the month of September.

On September 11, the council vote 5-4, with a tiebreaker vote from Mayor Don Kroski to authorize city attorney Steve Mahrt to prepare the potential changes to the ordinance. Two weeks later, it gets shot down 5-3 without any valid or logical reasoning why liquor sales can’t be extended to Sundays. There were absolutely no valid arguments presented in the September 27 issue of the Pana News-Palladium on WHY the council decided to back out two weeks later.

From our economic perspective, Aldermen Butch Hocq, Joe Wiss and Tim Eddy cast their votes as an attempt to save the city’s crumbling economy. If you haven’t checked, Downtown Pana is a ghost town as compared to its former glory 25 years ago when it seemed there was a business in every building. Now, over half of the buildings are empty with one of them recently declared as condemned (with many more to come, including the former Metzger Drug building). These three men voted from an economic perspective that expanding liquor sales to Sunday would benefit not only the businesses that would serve on Sunday, but also the city regarding sales tax revenue. You can’t shame these three for truly looking out for the local economy.

The nay votes from Aldermen Glenn Schneider, Jerry Jordan, Ronald Miles, Leon Goff and Kirk Woods can easily be construed not only as caving in to pressure from the religious right but also as an anti-economic, anti-commerce vote. While Woods originally voted in favor of drawing up the potential revisions, we truly don’t understand why a businessman of his stature would flip-flop on the idea that the city could have benefitted from added sales tax revenue in his most recent vote.

It’s because of status quo politics why the City of Roses and Christian County can’t ever get ahead anymore. For as long as the Sunday ban has existed in Pana and in Christian County, both governmental bodies have allowed millions of dollars in potential sales tax revenues go to neighboring communities and counties that don’t impose a Sunday ban. If Pana doesn’t make a step in the right economic direction, your residents will keep purchasing their alcohol in Nokomis, in Tower Hill, in Shelbyville, in Vandalia, in Moweaqua and now in Ramsey on Sundays. These communities benefit from not imposing liquor sales bans.

Aldermen Hocq, Wiss and Eddy: keep fighting the good fight for the local economy. Aldermen Schneider, Jordan, Miles, Goff and Woods: you ought to be ashamed of yourselves for being against your local economy, especially when the Sunday ban is oppressive and detrimental to said economy.

Jake Leonard
Chapter Chairman & SOC Representative | Tri-Counties Libertarian Party
Deputy Communications Director | Libertarian Party of Illinois
Libertarian Candidate | Illinois State Senate, District 48
Website: www.tricountylibertarians.org
Nokomis, IL 62075