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Stories by Tom Stafford
Warder was an early environmentalist
Today, on Earth Day 2013, the most burning environmental issue is global.In 1875 — 95 years before the first Earth Day was founded — the eldest son of Springfield’s most influential family launched the nation’s first environmental crusade in response to the deforestation crisis on the North American continent.John Aston ...
I’m a sneaking, croaking scoundrel
For me, the highlight of the Clark County Historical Society’s third annual Civil War Symposium came when retired brigadier general and now Civil War historian Parker Hills recalled Union Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman’s description of journalists as “sneaking, croaking scoundrels.”Ever since, I’ve been singing “I’m a sneaking, croaking scoundrel ….” ...
Witt to cut 29 faculty spots
Wittenberg University leaders will soon decide which 29 of the current 141 faculty positions should be cut to help address the university’s $7 million budget shortfall.Spread over five years, the 29 reductions represents five more positions — and about $300,000 more — than the faculty’s Educational Policy Committee had recommended ...
Post office reduces window hours
Next week, the Springfield Post Office will reduce the hours it staffs its service windows by 30 minutes on weekdays, closing at 6 p.m. instead of 6:30 p.m.Tuesday, people in the post office lobby, which is open 24 hours a day, were using automated services and getting materials for online ...
Pediatrician fighting cancer headlines Sisters United event
Two things are crucial for Dr. Neysa Heyward as she faces down her aggressive HER-2 breast cancer: One is the drug Herceptin; the other is her family and friends.The 1969 South High School graduate will talk about the importance of the medical and emotional support she’s received when she speaks ...
Business of death has changed since 1840
The Cincinnati College of Mortuary Science does not offer classes in cabinet making. No one would expect it to … today.But in William H. Coles’ time, even Springfield’s village idiot knew the connection between the two undertakings.“It took a cabinet-maker to make a coffin,” said Coles, who likely didn’t start ...
Attitudes create incubator for violence
Others rush to Winkie Mitchell’s defense.As we’ll see, they offer solid reasons.But Mitchell, an RN who has spent a career in Springfield working with physically and sexually abused children and the problems they tend to carry with them through life, won’t have it.She won’t hide behind justifications.As she tells her ...
Dayton-born comedian Jonathan Winters dies
Jonathan Winters, the Dayton-born improvisational comic best known for unique sound effects, quirky characters and unpredictable comedy sketches, died Thursday at age 87. Winters died from natural causes at his home in Montecito, Calif., long-time family friend Joe Petro III said. The comedian’s son, Jay, and daughter, Lucinda, were with ...
Springfield legend Winters dies at 87
Jonathan Winters, the Springfield-raised comic genius who once told his wife he’d come back to Ohio and sell farm equipment if his comedy career in New York didn’t pan out, has died. Winters, 87, died Thursday evening of natural causes at his home in Montecito, Calif., long-time family friend Joe ...
Springfield food bank need reaching crisis level
A relentless rise in hunger in Clark, Champaign and Logan counties has the Second Harvest Food Bank planning to provide as many meals this year as it did when it was in crisis mode at the height of the nation’s financial crisis.It’s a major reason the Springfield agency operated by ...
Hiltz: Hospital could help attract jobs
Community Mercy Health Partners CEO Paul Hiltz on Monday said a Springfield Regional Medical Center that can provide high-quality health care at a lower cost “could be a key selling point” for those trying to bring businesses and jobs to the community.Speaking to an attentive meeting of Springfield Rotarians in ...
Large distribution part of area Catholics’ event
Fifteen Catholic parishes in the Springfield deanery will celebrate the “Year of Faith” with special events and observances Thursday through Sunday, including the largest distribution of free food undertaken by the local Second Harvest Food Bank.“It is part of our local response to the call of Pope Benedict XVI to ...
Author puts young readers on the field at Gettysburg
When she sat down to write “Tillie Pierce: Teen Eyewitness to the Battle of Gettysburg,” Springfielder Tanya Anderson knew her ultimate audience: readers 11 and older, who might be drawn into the past by Tillie’s account.But during the writing itself, Anderson’s mind was focused on the subject of her book ...
Here’s why we have to take change personally
Please read the following question carefully, and answer it as truthfully as possible.In the past few years, my work life has gone through more changes than:A. An overcrowded nursing home.B. A remote control in the home of family of seven all suffering with obsessive-compulsive disorder.We’re told — and tell one ...
First nursing school class to be honored
The alumni group of Clark State Community College-Springfield Regional School of Nursing will honor the 98 members of the school’s first graduating class at a banquet scheduled for 11 a.m. to noon April 20 at the Courtyard by Marriott in downtown Springfield. Juanita Jenkins, interim president of the alumni, said ...
Civil War symposium to examine Gettysburg
The Battle of Gettysburg wasn’t a turning point in the Civil War.“It wasn’t even a turning point in the East,” Kent Masterson Brown will argue April 13 at the third annual Springfield Civil War Symposium.Brown contends that’s so because Gen. Robert E. Lee’s masterful retreat from the battle saved his ...
Hospital seeks to raise low satisfaction scores
The new Springfield Regional Medical Center faces a crucial year to regain community confidence eroded by a lengthy, painful consolidation during a prolonged economic recession.Statistics in the Patient Satisfaction section of Medicare’s Hospital Compare website show that just 53 percent of patients give Springfield Regional a rating of 9 or ...
Could St. Jude be the patron saint of journalists?
To pray is one thing.To pray for journalists?There’s an act of faith.I wasn’t in the main room at the Hollenbeck-Bayley Conference Center on Monday when Kenith Britt asked Springfield Rotarians to bow their heads for that prayer.And the smart-alec in me wants to say that saved us both from a ...
Flood relief poured out from Springfield
In other circumstances, Springfielders might have been preoccupied with their own problems: with the industries closed down, the bridges washed out and the people wading through East Columbia and East North streets checking on their chilled, water-logged families.But dramatic details of the degree of death and devastation in Dayton during ...
Flood stories still harrowing 100 years later
Ralph Kretzer, manager of Springfield’s Lyric and Hippodrome theaters, was in Columbus in March 1913 when the flood waters began to rise.The 40 motor boats brought from nearby Buckeye Lake gave the Columbus crews a huge advantage over rescuers in Dayton, who had only rowboats and their arms with which ...
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