Action Brown County announced the winner last night of its business competition at Brown County High School.

Five businesses and the public gathered in the high school auditorium. The businesses gave their final public pitch for their business in hopes of winning $20,000 in seed money to start their business.

WGEM reports that Alana Boylen and her Green Flamingo Grill restaurant were chosen as the winners.

The concept consists of a bar & grill location that family and friends “can enjoy a beer and burger” while catching sports on television. The pitch says that the restaurant will specialize in burgers including a “unique hand patty smash burger.”

The first of its kind “Shark Tank” style competition and sponsored in part by the Tracy Family Foundation, started on April 13^th with 17 businesses. Action Brown County hoped the competition will help the local economy through new business interests in the Brown County community.

Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul announced yesterday that Illinois consumers will soon receive payments as part of a $43 million settlement with manufacturers of cathode ray tubes.

The payments are part of settlements Raoul’s office has reached with international electronics companies Hitachi, LG, Philips, Samsung, Toshiba and Panasonic to resolve a 2012 lawsuit that alleged a conspiracy to illegally fix the prices of CRTs in televisions and monitors. The price-fixing conspiracy increased the costs of products containing CRTs, causing Illinois consumers to pay significantly more than they would have if prices had been set through normal competition.

Illinois consumers and businesses submitted approximately 8,000 valid claims for more than 1 million CRT monitors and televisions purchased during the relevant period in 2018. Claimants can expect to recover approximately $14 per CRT television and $42 per CRT monitor. Every claimant will recover a minimum of $20.

Settlement checks will be mailed during the third quarter of 2022. Raoul urges individuals and businesses that receive checks to cash them promptly, as the checks will expire 90 days after issuance.

Additional information related to the settlement can be found at www.illinoiscrtsettlement.com.

Lincoln Square will soon have a new addition to the healthcare community in Jacksonville.

Memorial Health has announced that they will be occupying the former location of Perkins & Lincoln Gardens on the northwest corner of the square with a brand new Memorial Care offering.

Travis Dowell, Memorial Medical Group President and CEO says it’s expected to open next year: “The location being known as Memorial Care is expected to open in February 2023. Right now, we are in the early stages of construction. This will be our seventh urgent care that we have within our system. We have 4 urgent care locations in Sangamon County – 3 in Springfield and 1 in Chatham. We have two urgent care locations in Macon County – both in the Decatur area.”

Dowell says the facility will provide convenient, urgent care for local residents: “Like any urgent care facility, we will be providing convenient care for patients that have minor injuries and illnesses that you wouldn’t necessarily take to the Emergency Room. You don’t need an appointment just like any other urgent care. You can just come to the location and check in. However, if you want to utilize our Memorial mobile app, you can actually get in line prior to arrival. The name of the feature is On My Way, which is available in the Memorial Health app.”

Dowell says that the urgent care facility will accept all types of insurance.

Dowell says the facility will house all new staff that will include nurse practitioners, clinical staff, non-clinical staff, as well as lab and x-ray technicians. The building will encompass 8 exam rooms plus a procedure room.

Like all other Memorial urgent care facilities, the new location will operate 8AM to 8PM seven days a week.

Dowell says the urgent care facility will create a continuation of service from the primary care that Jacksonville Memorial Hospital and its primary care physicians provide: “We just feel like we would like to improve access to healthcare in the Jacksonville community. We have a really strong Primary Care presence in Jacksonville, and this will be a compliment and an extension of that primary care access. I think this will really be well received and high quality. It will avoid that trip to the Emergency Department because we prefer to have our patients and/or our colleagues to be getting this type of care in non-emergency type settings.”

Dowell says that there is opportunity for more urgent care in the Jacksonville area after hearing about the need for more access from patients and Memorial colleagues in the Jacksonville area. He hopes people choose the location when it comes to their non-emergency healthcare needs when it opens next year.

Members of WLDS/WEAI and Country Financial presented checks from proceeds of the annual basketball All Star Classic to New Directions Warming & Cooling Center and Camp Courage today at the Cass-Morgan Farm Bureau Office.

WLDS/WEAI’s Gary Scott says that the All Star Classic is rebuilding: “We gave each of the organizations checks for $400. That puts into well above $20,000 in the total time that we’ve had the All Star game. This year was down a little bit, but we had to bounce through a couple of years of no All Star game. We are rebuilding and hope to give more next year.”

Sarah Robinson of New Directions says that the proceeds will help keep their doors open: “This support is amazing. It’s exactly what we need to keep our doors open and to stay in operation. The community has been great. This is how we do it. We are still operating at half capacity at the shelter because of Covid. We have a max capacity of 10, but we average about 7 people a night. We are waiting on CDC guidelines for homeless shelters to be updated, but so far they have not changed. We are still doing social distancing and masks indoors regardless of vaccination status.”

John Hunter of Camp Courage says numbers have been down the last few years, but the donation helps provide campers a memorable experience: “This donation means the world for us so we can continue our program that we’ve had for the last 46 years. It’s an opportunity to get out and have a good time at the camp. We try to cap the number of campers at 35. That’s about the maximum we can handle with the bed situation, with everything that we have, and the counselor situation. Attendance has been a little down the last few years.”

Also on hand to present the checks from the All Star Game were WLDS/WEAI’s Mark Whalen and Country Financial Agent Lucas Turner.

The Village of South Jacksonville Police Department has a new squad car.

The design was made by one of the department’s new officers.

Anley Gerdes started with the police department full time back in February after being a member of West Central Illinois Joint Dispatch.

Gerdes says that the design came together around a black, blue, and white design with the department’s badge on the brand new squad car: “I liked the white squad car that we had with the blue lines, but I like traditional black and white squad cars. It’s just what I enjoy, so I tried to design this one that was different from Jacksonville. We try to distinguish ourselves from Jacksonville. We train together and do a bunch of things together. We work great together, but I kind of wanted us to have a squad car that set us apart from their whole fleet so that it kind of stands out a little bit more down here. The community is really enjoying it. They really like what it looks like. Everyone is stopping me on calls and paying compliments to it.”

Gerdes says the new career switch has come with some adjustment. She says going from the very scripted aspect of being a dispatcher to becoming an officer has brought new enjoyment and challenges: “I miss dispatch dearly. I loved it down there. I loved answering the calls, but it’s a lot different to be out in the field actually responding and getting the ends of calls instead of just the beginning. This is what is happening and then that’s all you get to hear about it while you’re a dispatcher. Knowing how it turns out or how you can follow up on a call and help someone even more has been really cool. I’m a little bit harder on the dispatchers than most people are because I know how what they are supposed to be doing and how it’s supposed to be done. The dispatchers do a fantastic job. I do like the new career switch and being able to be out and helping people instead of just being the voice for them.”

Gerdes says she really enjoyed working on the design for the squad car and is glad that it has attracted positive attention throughout the South Jacksonville community.

A Springfield man will now represent himself in a November 2021 carjacking and home invasion case in Adams County Court.

Muddy River News reports that 35 year old Bradley Yohn was granted the ability to proceed pro se by Judge Roger Thomson today in Adams County Circuit Court. Yohn had previously asked Judge Amy Lannerd to dismiss Public Defender John Citro as counsel back on April 19^th, and again asked visiting Judge Michael Atterberry on April 29^th.

Thomson began proceedings today asking Yohn if he had mended his relationship with Citro since his pleas to defend himself were entered into the court record. Yohn said no and that the wished to proceed representing himself. Thomson asked Citro the same question and he agreed that the relationship between him and Yohn had been irretrievably broken. Citro was then dismissed from the courtroom.

Yohn was then admonished on his charges stemming from two different dates.

Assistant State’s Attorney Josh Jones was then instructed to produce discovery of evidence to Yohn this week. Yohn claimed to the court that he didn’t feel safe in Jones’ presence, citing previous alleged incidents of assault by officers of the Adams County Jail. Judge Thomson denied Yohn’s request for a surveillance room for a meeting with Jones.

According to Muddy River News, Yohn spoke to his father at the backroom as he was leaving the hearing, asking him to contact the Illinois Supreme Court

A trial is scheduled to begin June 21st, with a pretrial hearing set for next Wednesday.

U.S. Senate Democrats have started up a largely symbolic fight on a bill to codify abortion rights into federal law today.

In the wake of a leaked Supreme Court draft decision to possibly overturn Roe v. Wade, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer plans to call a bill codify abortion rights along with certain privacy rights to the floor of the Senate today in spite of not having enough votes to pass it. The bill is likely not going to withstand the 60-vote threshold for a filibuster.

Both Illinois Senators spoke last night on the Senate Floor on the need to protect women’s reproductive rights in the country. Junior Senator Tammy Duckworth said that the Roe v. Wade decision gave her a chance to be a mother through in-vitro fertilization. Duckworth said abortion opponents want to undermine access to contraception and that bills have been introduced in some states to criminalize in-vitro fertilization. Duckworth also spoke about an Oklahoma woman who was criminally charged for having a miscarriage.

Senior Illinois Senator Dick Durbin says that overturning Roe v. Wade goes beyond just the right for a woman to have an abortion: “Justice [Samuel] Alito’s draft opinion in the Dobbs’ case questions the very existence of the right to privacy. It argues that unenumerated rights not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution must be deeply rooted in U.S. history and tradition in order to be recognized as a Constitutional right. Who decides what is deeply rooted in history and tradition? The court’s Obergefell v. Hodges decision established marriage equality only 7 years ago. Will the court’s reactionary majority put that next on the chopping block? What about the right to contraception established by Griswold vs. Connecticut 11 years before Roe? A Republican member of this body recently criticized that decision establishing the privacy right of every individual to choose the methods of contraception right for their family – he described this as ‘constitutionally unsound.’ Rather than settling the debate on abortion, the draft Dobbs opinion would further divide our fractured nation.”

Schumer said early Tuesday that he wanted to have every lawmaker go on record with their vote on the Women’s Health Protection Act.

Some pundits argue this is a way for Democrats to show progressive core supporters that they are trying to protect women’s rights in Washington D.C. and get a dig in on Republicans ahead of the upcoming mid-term elections in November.

Illinois College is bringing back an annual tradition to celebrate its graduating seniors and alumni this Saturday after a two-year hiatus.

The Osage Orange Festival returns on Saturday from 5 to 7:30 p.m. in the Lincoln Hall parking lot, located on the corner of Edgehill Road and Park Street. This community event is open to the public and admission is free for all to attend.

Entertainment is available for all ages.

Vice President of External Relations Stephanie Chipman says its a tradition that started on the campus more than a century ago: “It’s such a cool story. It started 140 years ago when the president of the college at the time knew that the hedges that surrounded campus needed to be trimmed. The president, the faculty, and the students all took a day and trimmed the hedges and had a big picnic. Quite frankly, everybody had such a so much fun that they decided to do it every year. For the last 140 years, the Osage Orange Festival has been such a huge part of the Illinois College tradition, and we love inviting alumni and the community to join us in that celebration.”

Chipman says that food trucks from Leo’s on Wheels, Foodie Machine, and Los Rancheros will be available to provide food and drinks for purchase. Face painting, inflatables, games, and the band Exit 52 will be providing entertainment throughout the evening.

Osage Orange Festival and Senior Celebration attendees are invited to RSVP online to help with planning but all are welcome to attend. You can RSVP at this website.

The event is a part of a weekend of events leading up to Illinois College’s 188^th Commencement on Sunday.

A Sacramento, California man was sentenced last week in the U.S. District Court of Central Illinois for his role in a drug operation that worked in Pike & Adams County.

28 year old Tommy V. Tran was sentenced to 180 months in federal prison for conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute over 500 grams of methamphetamine and for using a communication facility to commit a drug felony.

Judge Sue Myerscough determined Tran, along with five co-defendants, between August 1, 2018 and February 11, 2019 participated in the operation. Specifically, Tran was responsible for over 1,400 grams of methamphetamine and over 2,500 grams of marijuana. The drugs were shipped from California to Missouri and eventually to Adams and Pike Counties in Illinois. Tran was also convicted of using a telephone, to facilitate the conspiracy to aid in the operation.

Myerscough further found that Tran had acted as a supervisor, organizer, or leader in the criminal activity as he had recruited individuals to send the drugs via the United States Postal Service and commercial carriers and to pay for the drugs via electronic banking transactions. The Court also concluded Tran possessed numerous dangerous weapons.

Previously, co-defendant Shawn Davis was sentenced by Judge Myerscough to 144 months’ imprisonment. Cases against other co-defendants remain pending. Tran was indicted in March 2019 and pleaded guilty in November 2021. He has remained in the custody of the United States Marshals since being arrested in California in February 2019.

The West Central Illinois Task Force; Quincy Police Department; Federal Bureau of Investigation, Springfield Field Office; and Drug Enforcement Agency, St. Louis Division, investigated the case.

The Pike County Sheriff’s Office made 3 major arrests over the past week.

On Wednesday, May 4^th at 6:03 P.M., the Pike County Sheriff’s Department conducted a traffic stop on Illinois Route 106, west of U.S. 54 on a black Toyota Corolla.

Subsequent to an investigation, police arrested the driver, 22 year old Jessica R. Jackson of Indianapolis, Indiana for unlawful possession of methamphetamine and unlawful possession of hypodermic syringes.

She was booked into the Pike County Jail, later posted bond and was released.

On April 4^th, the Pike County Sheriff’s Department initiated a failure to register as a sex offender investigation in Barry.

The Pike County Sheriff’s Department went to the sex offender’s registered address and discovered the sex offender no longer resided there. The Sheriff’s Department then was granted a warrant for the arrest of 23 year old Devon L. Wagner.

On Saturday, May 7^th the Pike County Sheriff’s Department located Wagner in the 200 block of Pleasant Vale Street in New Canton. Wagner was taken into custody without incident.

Wagner also had a second Pike County warrant for failure to appear on charges of burglary, felony theft, unlawful possession of methamphetamine, and obstructing justice.

Wagner remains lodged in the Pike County Jail.

On Monday, May 9^th, the Pike County Sheriff’s Department conducted a traffic stop on County Highway #14.

Subsequent to an investigation, a passenger in the unnamed vehicle, 44 year old William J. Higgins of Griggsville was arrested for warrants in Pike & Adams counties.

Law enforcement officials from the Pike County Sheriff’s Department then executed a court-authorized search warrant at Higgins’s residence located in the 100 block of South Bickford Street in Griggsville. Subsequent to the execution of the warrant, methamphetamine and hypodermic syringes were located.

Higgins remains lodged at the Pike County Jail.