There is almost always something going on somewhere inside the Danville Public Library.
On a typical night just last week, a library mentor could be found helping two grade-school-age siblings with their homework on the main floor, with members of the Audubon Society taking up business in a room on the other side of the building.
Regular patrons and daily-newspaper readers staked out cozy spots
and computer terminals throughout the library.
Upstairs, a book-discussion group of almost a dozen people went over the finer points of the classic novel “To Kill A Mockingbird” and the accompanying biography of author, and Truman Capote confidante, Harper Lee.
While about 600 patrons visit the library in a typical day, what you are least likely to find inside are teenagers.
Library officials are out to change that.
“We’re trying to give them positive activities and someplace to go, rather than them being loose ends at home or out on the street,” said Library Director Barbara Nolan.
Library staff have unveiled several programs in the past few months they hope will lead teenagers through the library’s electric doors, and Nolan said there are plans to continue the outreach until they find something that works.
One of the programs, the mentoring and homework program aimed at teens, has been slow to catch on, with just the two siblings attending a session last week.
“This is a way to test the waters and see what the needs are,” she said.
Staff members have been trained to help students with everything from homework to technology services by the library. The program is sponsored with money from the Secretary of State’s
office.
“The hope is some of these students will feel like they are getting help and they will tell they’re friends,” said Nancy Huff, a newly trained “mentor” and children’s librarian who is helping with Teen Homework Night.
She said while current students enjoy all of the special attention, she looks forward to a time when she can help a larger group of kids.
“It’s not a bad thing, being able to do one on one,” Huff said. “We just want to help as many kids as we can.”
Huff said the key to successfully providing help is patience and the realization each child approaches a problem differently.
“This is a good way to see what they need, and parents can feel safe because their kids are being supervised,” she said. “We’re trying to find ways to get them to use the library more often, but at the same time make sure they are being supervised.”
Nolan said she realizes the library is at a disadvantage in many areas when it comes to competing against a myriad of activities available to today’s youths, as well other local teen-outreach
programs.
For one thing, Internet stations must be monitored by an adult if a child is under 18, a rule that is strictly
enforced.
“We expect the parents to be the filters,” Nolan said.
While the focus on teens comes from a state effort, a federally funded drive called “Project Next Generation” is designed to help libraries to stay viable in the future. The library is partnering with Danville Area Community College and other groups to cross-promote literary-themed events.
For example, several events have been put together to celebrate the stories behind “To Kill a Mockingbird,” including a planned visit next month at DACC from the author of the Lee biography, a planned showing of the movie at the library and dramatic readings and other events held elsewhere.
The “Big Read,” as it is called, has been very successful in bringing together many groups under a common theme, she said.
“We’re proud to be a part of it and it’s great to see everyone work together,” she said.
Nolan said she thinks such events will expose more people to what the library has to offer, and the teen programs have already generated a buzz. To help things along, the library has begun sending out fliers to local school attendance centers.
“It’s not like there are no teenagers coming here,” she said. “We’d just like to see more. I’ve noticed more teenagers who just appear to be studying. I think the word is getting out.”

The open prairie of the Midwest is poised once again to reclaim the fairgrounds of Vermilion County.
At least that’s the word from the Danville Area Convention and Visitors Bureau, where officials recently inked a contract to bring back an American Indian celebration that attracts enthusiasts from across the country.
National Powwow ’08 will be July 9-12 at the Vermilion County Fairgrounds. The triennial event was last staged in Danville in 2005 and brought an estimated 6,000 people here.
“There is absolutely no question it will be bigger than the last one,” said Craig Jones, Powwow ’08’s chairman. “This time we’re doing an incredible amount of promotion nationally.”
An American Indian publishing house and several trading posts specializing in Native American items all have signed on as national sponsors, sending out thousands of fliers a day to clubs and enthusiasts throughout the world.
Another draw to this year’s event will be the music.
Professional drum groups, which include singers as well as musicians, have been contracted. The featured groups, Cozad and Young Kingbird, each have their own albums and will convene the north and south American Indian styles of the powwow.
“We had good music last time, but not this caliber,” Jones said. “We have hired the best groups out there and people are going to come here just to dance to their music.”
An event
Activities at the powwow will go almost nonstop, and public participation is part of the show.
While there will be lots of sights and sounds to sit back and take in, Jones said, there also will be plenty of hands-on activities to keep those attending interested.
“It’s very social, so everybody’s welcome,” he said.
That means attendees can participate in some of the dancing, learn what the dances mean from experts on hand, and even sign up for various seminars explaining nuances and meanings within the powwow and Native American culture. A camp of traditional teepees highlighting daily American Indian life also will be set up for anyone to observe, a kids’ powwow will be staged and there will be an art contest.
“This is old friends getting back together and meeting new friends,” he said.
The group of enthusiasts is comprised of not only Native American people, but is an “inter-tribal” event, which means all races and creeds are welcome.
Jones, of Florida, works for an elevator company himself and became interested in American Indian culture following a Boy Scout component when he was a member. He learned about the powwow after becoming friends with an anthropology professor.
“It’s just people who are interested in the culture,” he said. “American Indian culture is like all cultures — it’s continually evolving and changes.”
That means that while tradition will rule this year’s powwow, there is always room for personal interpretation.
You’ll be able to tell the enthusiasts from the public because they are sticklers for correct dressing styles, spending as much as $1,000 for just the materials and taking several years to make their traditional clothing.
But the powwow has evolved during the years, from different dances to the addition of an American flag ceremony, which has kept it fresh every three years the group gets together.
“When you come to this you are going to see something in a dance that at first glance seems good and old,” Jones said — only to find out later it was something adapted from modern dance.
Local coup
Officials in Danville are practically giddy about beating out several other towns in bidding for Powwow ’08.
“We get to host it again,” said Jeanie Cooke, executive director of Danville Area Convention and Visitors Bureau, which brokered the deal. “It’s just fabulous for Danville.”
The event has been staged all over the country, including bigger cities such as Dallas and Denver.
“What I would call it is a family reunion for them,” she said. “It’s very family-
friendly.”
And that family orientation could pay dividends for the local business community. The hope is the thousands who come to Danville for the four-day event will eat and spend money here.
Jones said hotel rooms were booked solid during the powwow’s last visit, which makes it the kind of event that Cooke’s bureau said they would like to attract more often in the future.
“Sometimes we do the bids ourselves, sometimes we assist others,” she said. “We can’t chair everything we bring in.”
She said one of the new services being provided by the bureau is a Web site (http://www.danvillearea
info.com) that allows local people to post and promote their events. She said there is the hope the site becomes a clearinghouse of local-event information.
One of the selling points for Jones’s organization was how willing community contacts were to help with intangibles like trash pick-up and general services. He said his organization depends on sponsorships and that any profit “goes right back into the program.”
Cooke said volunteers here have already carried much of the load in the local organizational process.
For their part, powwow organizers plan to have collection barrels at the fairgrounds to collect dry and canned goods for the Danville Area Food Bank.
Jones said there are still several local sponsorship opportunities, from banners on the announcing booth to signs on event golf carts. Having a high-enough level of sponsorship would allow the group to rent a circus big-top tent to protect performers from a feared rainy
weekend.
“The reason we decided on Danville is because of the support from the community, and the convention and visitors bureau,” he said. “They went above and beyond.”

There are lots of ways to keep a marriage fresh. Danville’s Nora and Terry Ross, married for 30 years and counting, have developed their own system.
“He goes up there sometimes, turns the heat on and I don’t see him all day,” Nora said looking upward from the bottom of the attic stairs inside the couple’s home.
Terry said he’s not the only one driven to distraction.
“When she watches TV, she doesn’t really watch,” he half-complained.
But don’t mistake their long separations for proof they don’t enjoy each other’s company. Separation is not their secret.
Their secret is they both share the addiction of collecting, and they are about as like-minded as two people can be.
Different directions
When Terry goes up the stairs to the converted attic, he is entering a world of his own creation.
The stair walls are covered with antique-looking metal signs and photographs of cars. He has collected miniature cars for years, and you can see them neatly parked against the angled walls as you crest the top stair. They take up almost every inch of one full room.
But his pride and joy sits in the adjoining room — rather, is the adjoining room.
Ross has constructed a scale-size mountainous trail for his numerous train sets, which he has also collected for years. Clouds are painted on the
ceiling.
There are bare spots to place more track, more trees, a lake and a
mountain village not yet
incorporated.
He already is writing his own version of the book of Genesis in his head, but only after enacting Revelations and tearing the entire set down when the couple moved from another house in Danville a few years ago. They moved here from Rossville in 1992.
The track features several exchange loops, crosses a three-foot-high bridge at one point and shows all of the signs of a work in progress.
Terry is not alone in his diversions. For Nora’s distraction in front of the TV can also be traced to her proclivity to collect.
She has become a property mogul, in miniature proportion, building more than 20 1/12-scale, model dollhouses. She also has her own room.
Much of her TV time is shared cross-stitching items for one of her houses (cross-stitching is another love of Nora, having won awards for work that hangs around the couple’s home), or making clay food to include in some of the scenes she creates inside them.
“You kind of make little stories in your head as you go along,” she said.
Though Ross has offered up some of her dollhouses for charity fundraisers, all standing 2- to 3-feet tall and made of plywood from pre-cut kits, her second-floor room, just down the hall from the attic stairs, still has about a dozen decorated houses in various stages of completion.
Most are of Victorian design, though she also has also constructed a one-room schoolhouse and church, and is currently working on a modern-design house.
“There are four in boxes that I haven’t even started,” she said. “I told my husband when he bought the first dollhouse that he was opening up a hornet’s nest.”
Common thread
The hornets’ nest that provided the collecting buzz in the couple was actually first stirred after they moved to Danville and both retired.
Terry has always had a weakness for purchasing “dream cars” — the real, drivable ones — but after retiring three years ago he switched to a more-serious pursuit of miniatures. That led to trains.
“I can remember when I had a train, so I just wanted to try it once again,” he said.
Nora’s first dollhouse, an
already-built model, was purchased on the sly by Terry after she had admired it during a shopping trip.
“He made all the arrangements and didn’t even tell me,” she said. “It just took off from there.”
Nora has been retired for 10 years and has filled many hours assembling and decorating the houses.
And that’s where the two arrive at the same imaginary town together — they are constantly on the lookout for accessories either for the dollhouses or the train set. They make shopping trips to far-flung doll store locations and look forward to the next collector’s magazine.
While some of the specifics on the houses, like wallpaper and lampshades, can be printed on computer, and other items like the food can be made by hand, some of the custom-built furniture has been too nice to resist.
“I just see something that hits my fancy and I usually know where I want to put it,” she said. “Or sometimes I find something I really like, buy it, then figure out where to put it.”
Details of some of rooms get specific enough to include wall paintings that are so small they must be painted by hand with a straight pin.
“It does get frustrating sometimes,” she added. And expensive. One of the reasons the Rosses make many of their own items is that custom dollhouse can run as high as $400 for something as small as a living room chair.
“If I had known things were that expensive I probably wouldn’t have gotten that first one,” Nora said. “Our dining room table became a clay-food factory for about a month-and-a-half.”
Way of life
The hobbies have kept the couple creative and active in their retirement years, and they’ve been able to do it together while still getting private time to pursue their own passions.
“We work on this together,” Nora said. “It’s just the fun of doing. It’s another outlet for creative thinking for us.”
Terry has even been won over by Nora’s construction projects, building and furnishing several pieces on his own, including a scale-model auto-repair shop, a southern plantation and a series of log-cabin scenes. They are starting to edge out a clean-shot view of the car collection.
It keeps them both thinking, even during an evening of television, about the other worlds that sit just at the top of the stairs.
“I know what I need in a lot of them, so one of these days I’ll just get up out of nowhere and go make curtains,” she said.
“If at all possible, I prefer to make it myself, too,” Terry added. “It means more.”
Even if it takes all day.

The Center for Rural Health and Farm Safety at Carle Foundation Hospital is pleased to offer two free American Heart Association HeartSaver CPR certification courses to the community from 1-4:30 p.m. and 5:30-9 p.m. Feb. 18 at the University of Illinois Extension, 12190 U.S. Route 150.

Topics will include infant, child and adult choking and CPR as well as Automatic External Defibrillator (AED) use.

Courses will include hands-on instruction and a workbook. Those who successfully complete a skills demonstration and written examination will receive a certification card.

Space is limited and registration is required. Participants must be older than 14 years old. For more information or to register, call the Center for Rural Health and Farm Safety at Carle Foundation Hospital by Feb. 12 at 383-4606. To learn about other classes offered by the Center for Rural Health and Farm Safety, call 383-4606.

Community Blood Services of Illinois will sponsor a blood drive from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Feb. 18 at Poolside Health and Wellness, 3733 Poolside Drive which will serve as the host site for this local blood drive.

Donors must be older than 17, weigh at least 110 pounds, and be in good health. A photo I.D is required to register for blood donation. The entire process takes about 30 to 40 minutes.

Donors should not skip any meals that day and keep well hydrated. Snacks will be provided to all donors after blood is given. All donations are completely confidential.

For more information, call Gretchen Elliott, event coordinator, at 466-9283.

Blood drives will be held regularly at Poolside Health and Wellness, with future events planned for June 27 and Oct. 31.

The Community Church of God, 535 S. Bowman Ave., is offering the Angel Food Program. You may order a regular box menu for $30. The order dates are: 1-4 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 31 and 9:30-11 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 2.

You need to come in person and pre-pay your order at the church. Cash, money orders and Link cards are accepted. Parking is available in the lot behind the church. The date of pick up food is Feb. 16. A $3 donation is accepted to assist with this ministry.

For further information, call the church office at 446-7289 from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday.

Big Brothers Big Sisters will have a Big Star Event from 5-7 p.m. Feb. 8 to be held at Illini Skateland, 9 Brewer Road.

The Big Star program was established to give children who are waiting for a mentor an activity to let them know we still care. Big Brothers Big Sisters will match the children with a caring adult volunteer for the event. It gives the children and adults an opportunity to be a part of Big Brothers Big Sisters for a minimal amount of time for a specific activity. The activities are monitored by Big Brothers Big Sisters staff and board.

This Valentine’s Skate will be packed full of fun. Mentors and children will be treated to two hours of free skate time, food and valentine craft activity. To find out how you can volunteer for this event, call Big Brothers Big Sisters at 446-6601. A background check is required for all volunteers.

The Vermilion County Home and Community Education Association is offering a bus trip March 14 to see the musical “Mid-Life, the Crisis” at the Little Theater on the Square.

Parking will be at Heavenly Square shopping center (New Life Church of Faith) at the comer of Bowman Avenue and Voorhees Street. Park on the southeast side of the Banquet Center. Arrive by 10 a.m.

VCHEC members are $50; guests or non-members, $55. Send reservations to Meni McNeese, 15869 E. 580 North Road, Georgetown, IL 61846 by Feb. 22. Make cheeks payable to VC-HCEA.

The Knights of Columbus 754 will have family fish and shrimp dinners every Friday through Lent at the K of C, 310 Bryan Ave.

Dinners will be served from 5:30-7 p.m. unless customers are still in line.

Fish dinners are $5. Shrimp dinners and children meals will be available. Cole slaw and french fries or baked potatoes will come with dinners.

The Danville Jaycees Circus will be Feb. 12-13 at the David S. Palmer Arena.

Show times are 4:30 and 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 12 and 10:30 a.m., 4:30 and 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 13.

Acts will feature elephants, teeterboard act, the Flying Ponces, Seven Motorcycles in the Globe, The Wheel of Destiny and more.

Tickets are $14 for adults and $12 for children.

Sally Parker, Edison School music teacher, will make a presentation to the Danville Lions Club at noon Tuesday, Jan. 29 at Vermilion Place, 14 N. Hazel St.

 

The Allen Chapel AME Church will have their 43rd annual Lincoln-Douglass-King Banquet at 6:30 p.m. Feb. 9 at the Days Inn, 77 N. Gilbert St.

The speaker will be Debi Thomas, figure skating Olympic medalist, an orthopedic adult reconstruction specialist at Carle Clinic in Urbana.

Tickets are $25 per person and can be purchased from Virginia McKinney at 446-5639 or any Allen Chapel member or call the church at 446-5133.

David Schnelle, city engineer, will speak to the Golden K Kiwanis Club at 2 p.m. Monday, Jan. 28 at CRIS, 309 N. Franklin St.

Schnelle will speak on Danville infrastructure work and other projects.

The Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 728 will sponsor a dinner and dance Friday, Jan. 25 at the VFW, 8 Pine St.

The Highway 341 Band of Wallace, Ind., will play from 6:30-8:30 p.m. Dinner will be from 6-7 p.m. includes scratch noodles and chicken or spaghetti, mashed potatoes, vegetables and desserts. The cost is $7.

By John Dreher
Danville Community Development Manager

Finding the right person(s) for your remodeling job and then having it go smoothly is largely up to you. There are many things you can do to save yourself time, money and heartache when hiring someone to work on your property.
Personal reference is one of the best ways to locate a contractor. Family, friends, co-workers who have had a pleasant experience with a contractor are a great way to start, plus you can view the work to see the level of quality.
Home improvement companies rarely buy a lot of advertising. Yard signs in front of current jobs and yellow page ads are about as far as many home improvement contractors go with advertising. The following steps for sizing up a contractor and entering into a good agreement can help.
Universal laws
There are a few things that are always true when employing builders and craftspersons.
n The contractor is neither your friend nor your enemy, it’s business. Don’t let your personal feelings get involved and you will both be better off.
n Changing your mind about anything after the job has started will cost you money. Make your fundamental design decisions before you call in a contractor.
n We all like to believe we have some innate ability to detect a con-artist, but none of us has foolproof instincts.
The interview
Start your first meeting or phone call with a contractor by conducting an interview. Do it as if you were a personnel director hiring an employee.
Don’t take up his whole day, just a few minutes should do.
It’s good to do this before looking at the work area and it helps loosen both of you up to communicate with each other.
You’re going to need that once discussion of the work
begins.
Receiving calm, confident relaxed answers is a good sign. Beware of braggarts and know-it-alls. Beware of a contractor who speaks ill of competitors or skirts around simple, sensible questions.
References are good, but another thing I like to do is get an address of a current job from either the contractor or building permit records.
Do not bother the homeowner, just drive past and take a look at the grounds.
Is it tidy and organized or does it look like a combination of a lumber yard and a landfill?
Tidiness tells much about a contractor’s level of
 organization.
Expensive custom painted trucks and trailers might only mean the contractor is deep in debt.
However, if the contractor is driving a bomb with no muffler and broken windows, this may be an indication that he operates his business entirely out of his left front pocket and that’s bad for you.
Go with solid clean vehicles in good repair, even if they are old or ugly.
View the work area
If the contractor makes it through the interview, take him to the work area. Describe what you want. If he listens and jots down notes, that’s a good sign. If he points out details or features related to your plans that’s good also.
If he begins dismissing your ideas and inserting his own, thank him for his time and show him to the door. It’s your house and your job.
Anything you can do to help the contractor understand your level of expectation is good for both of you. If, for instance, you have some trim work in one room of your house that you find the surface finish pleasing, take your contractor there, let him examine it and tell him that you expect the new trim he installs to be like that. When he knows what it takes to satisfy you, you are more likely to get it.
Obtaining bids
Always get more than one bid. Ask first to be sure the contractor bidding provides free
estimates.
It is not customary for contractors to charge for estimates, but some do.
If you feel confident to do so, write down each of the things that you want accomplished using straight-forward concise language and put a blank beside each one for a price. Never assume anything will be done that isn’t written down. Following is an example of a good specifications sheet for the replacement of a furnace and a poorly written specification list for the same furnace:
n Good example: Remove the existing furnace and dispose of off-site. Install a new, 86 percent efficiency rated, 90,000 b.t.u. gas-fired forced air furnace according to manufacturers recommendations and all applicable codes. Utilize the current air-return and delivery ductwork with appropriately sized connections. Remove and dispose of the current thermostat and install and connect one new programmable thermostat in the same location.
n Bad example: Install new furnace
Background info
You can inquire about previous consumer complaints against a contractor from two sources, your state’s attorney general (not to be confused with State’s Attorney), and the Better Business Bureau. Each can report the number of complaints that have been filed against a contractor. Be careful how you interpret this information. You will not know whether the complaints were justified, their distribution over time or how they may have been resolved. Even the best business can get a complaint filed against it occasionally.
Make sure anyone bidding on your job provides you with proof of contractors liability insurance, not less than $500,000 minimum. Contact your city or county building codes department to see if they require licensure and confirm that your bidders are in compliance.
Do not ask local code officers to rate contractors or recommend, it is not appropriate for them to do this. Keep in mind many licenses are issued for a fee and do not verify ability.
You also should ask the contractor to provide you with proof of Worker’s Compensation Insurance on his employees. Many people don’t know this, but if a worker falls from your roof while working for your contractor and Workers Compensation Insurance is not in place, you could be liable for the worker’s lost wages.
Also, any so-called contractor who does not have liability insurance and Worker’s Comp is not truly, seriously, in the
business.
He could be someone with no real assets who, after wrecking your house will simply stand before a judge, turn his pockets inside out and smile.
Don’t make it hard
Always remember anything that causes your contractor inconvenience, time, extra effort will cost you more. Even words or actions that cause him to be afraid these things may occur are going to cost you more. Contractors add percentage points to bids to allay their fears. So, save yourself money by letting the contractor know right up front what you are willing to do to help him work efficiently. Here are some cost saving ideas.
n Let him know that while workers are in the house, you will secure pets and children away from the work area. It’s much quicker to get materials into the house if workers don’t have to trip over or worry about accidentally releasing Fluffy.
n Let him know you will have furniture and belongings cleared from rooms to be worked on each day if you have prior notice. If he has to pay his workers to move your stuff, you will pay for it, quite possibly in both cash and nicks and scratches.
n If you can offer him a garage, porch or other secure area to store materials from day to day, this will save you money. Do not offer the use of tools, ladders or equipment unless you just enjoy being sued.

“The place to improve the world is first in one’s own heart and head and hands.” — Robert Pirsig, author of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
And that is exactly where a group of local military veterans intends to start. The newly formed American Legion Riders say 2008 will be a year of achieving several goals they’ve set for helping veterans from the area.
“It’s about vets helping vets,” said Mike Gose, one of the founders and director of the new group, and member of Danville’s Curtis G. Redden American Legion Post 210.
“We are an arm of the American Legion,” said assistant director David Switzer, “but our main focus is a bunch of guys who like to ride (motorcycles).”
The group formed locally at the end of 2007 after being called on to help with the Justin Penrod funeral, a local soldier killed in Iraq.
They are an extension of the Patriot Guard Riders and plan to work with that organization in providing services for returning and fallen veterans and their families.
And while the motorcycle groups are known for providing a perimeter of protection against war protestors interrupting military funerals, local organizers say they have plans to provide much more in the future.
“Sometimes when a soldier is coming home, they’d just like to have a party for them,” Switzer said.
The American Legion Riders, a nationwide group formed in 1993 after the first Gulf War, will provide escorts for coming-home events and funerals, as well as any service requested by family members for returning soldiers, including temporary guarding of families’ properties soon after a soldier’s return.
“We’ll do whatever we can to assist them, whatever our manpower will allow,” Gose said.
Calls for assistance are coordinated through a statewide leader, who sets up individual road leaders based on the location of a request. The assistance can come anytime, though with cold weather members may opt for four-wheel vehicles instead of motorcycles.
“We love to do it, and we’re willing anytime,” Gose said. “But if given the choice, we’d rather not get out (on bikes) in the winter.”
The group isn’t just for older members, either. Goss and Switzer said one of the ideas behind the motorcycle group is to get younger veterans to join the group and the Legion to combat dwindling numbers.
“Many of them, when they get out of the service, their adrenaline is up and they’re looking for something to do,” Switzer said.
“There’s a camaraderie here they can still feel after they leave the armed forces,” Gose said. “We understand what they’ve been through.”
That’s one of the biggest draws for military fraternal organizations, they said, though the local Legion is conscious of creating an atmosphere in their group that allows spouses and children to be included in activities.
“We have a lax attitude, but we have bylaws and we have decorum,” Gose said. “You feel safe bringing your spouse or daughter here,
but it’s also a place to be with
like-minded people.”
They also said the American Legion is good for younger veterans because the older vets can offer advice on everything from dealing with the difficulties of readjusting to non-military society to the variety of services available to them.
“There is a misconception that the American Legion is a place to just come and drink,” Gose said. “While it is a social organization, it’s much more than a bar.”
The new American Legion Riders group thinks 2008 is the year their organization will make a large impact on Danville and its veterans. Plans were discussed for several activities planned over the new year in an organizational meeting held Sunday.
Gose said this year is a Biblical “year of completion.” There has been discussion of joining the national motorcycle gathering for Missing In Action/Prisoners of War in Washington, D.C., on Memorial Day, or the possibility of joining an annual ride to the Vietnam
Memorial Wall.
Whatever they decide to do, they will be doing it together.
Gose said things had changed for the good since Vietnam veterans of the 1970s were spit upon and shunned after returning home from an unpopular war.
“The shame we felt as a nation over Vietnam has finally changed,” he said, noting that even anti-war people this time around have at least, for the most part, supported the returning troops.
“Even the media seems like they’re behind them, and they’re usually not,” Switzer added.
Gose said veteran treatment has even improved in the arena of continued health care, though there is still much to be done for soldiers who have given up their lives and limbs for the country. For one, Illinois ranks last of the 50 states in benefits handed out to veterans.
“The facilities at the Veterans Administration (hospital) is better than 30 years ago, but we can do more of course,” Gose said. “There are still veterans in Danville who aren’t getting what they deserve.”
The local American Legion chapter approved the Riders’ group formation unanimously, which Gose and Switzer said is due to the fact the local group is always looking for a way to provide veteran services. The Legion already holds several events throughout the year that focus on veterans.
While the Riders will supplement and add to those services, both said providing the escort for a fallen soldier is the most difficult job they do — especially when they are the only ones standing between a family who has lost a loved one and protestors.
“We can’t stop what they say,” Gose said, “But we can rally around the family and protect them from it.”
Switzer said members try their best to be professional, even in some of those difficult circumstances.
“You’re listening to all of this and it makes you angry,” he said. “It’s hard to hold your composure.”
But that’s exactly what they do, unflinching in their protection of a fallen comrade.
“That’s where the military discipline kicks in for you,” he said. “Our mission is to make sure that everything we can possibly do for them gets done.”

As a child growing up in Danville, Bryan Wilson used to lock himself in the bathroom and pretend he was singing to an audience.
He used to sit on his front porch on Johnson Street and sing, pretending the blades of grass were his audience.
“I was always singing and always imagining doing it in front of people or on television,” he said from his home in South Carolina last week.
That little boy doesn’t have to pretend any more.
He returned to his childhood home over the weekend to perform for the city’s Martin Luther King Jr., celebration and promote his new album, “Second Coming.” On Monday, he planned to shoot a live performance video for the upcoming compact disc in Champaign.
The trip is both professional and personal for Wilson, who still has family here.
“Usually when I come in, I’m just in and out so quickly,” he said. “But this trip will give me the opportunity to go ahead and spend a little more time, to see some different sites. It’s not just for five minutes this time.”
He said the city is responsible for molding him as a child, and it’s where he got his big break in the gospel-music business.
“Danville has been the birthplace for my career and my personality,” he said. “It’s where my family’s from, and it was a time of nurturing and experience for me.”
Second coming
The album title suggests a gospel theme, but it also is a personal testament in double entendre.
That’s because this is the second time around for this 26-year-old performer, who first made a splash in the gospel recording world after his voice was featured on the song, “Eye on the Sparrow,” performed with the Mississippi Children’s Choir when he was 12.
That album eventually broke the Top 40 of the gospel charts, and he was offered his own recording contract from Malaco Records in 1996. The solo effort, “Bryan’s Songs,” went to No. 21 on Billboard’s gospel charts, and the song, “Blessed Assurance,” was nominated for Stellar and Dove recording-industry awards.
“I’d always think about it and dream about it,” Wilson recalled of the recognition. “I just never knew how it would happen.”
He made a second solo album in 1999, but it was not nearly as successful, a fact Wilson’s current manager said was due to a lack of promotion.
Higher learning
Then Wilson took a break — at least from the entertainment world.
Sometime after his Mississippi Children’s Choir fame and his family’s move to Ohio, Wilson followed every other child of his age and went through puberty. His voice lowered, and he was soon unable to even honor audience requests to sing his signature “Eye on the Sparrow” because of the song’s high notes.
While he still loved music, he started thinking that maybe God was pointing him to a different ministry.
Wilson spent the interim of his last two albums earning his bachelor’s degree in religion and philosophy, and is halfway through getting his master’s in divinity from Princeton University. He wants to become a college professor.
But he also still wants to keep singing.
“I want both,” he said. “I want to reach a point where I’m satisfied with my career, but the degree is also a personal goal. I admit that music is my first love.”
A friend from church, Bill Carpenter, convinced Wilson to give it another try and helped put together the self-produced CD and a tour schedule. The goal is to go from the current 40 performances a year to more than 200.
He also wrote the songs himself, a departure from his regular gospel fare, and the album is being produced under his own label with musicians from central Illinois. The actual studio production was undertaken by two well-known engineers, he added.
Wilson said the album has already received interest based on the number of requests for interviews he’s had lately.
“It’s been getting up early every morning and answering questions,” he said.
And while he hopes that people listen to the music and message, he rests assured that he will succeed in his higher-education aspirations and his mission to serve God in whatever capacity he’s called. Right now he’s preparing for whatever the future brings, but is taking a break from school to promote the album and tour.
“This way I can hit the road every day,” he said. “I was getting a little school burnout and a little weary.”
Even if the music doesn’t succeed professionally, it will always be a natural extension of himself.
“Music is and will always be a part of me,” he said. “It’s an innate part of me I couldn’t shake if I wanted to.”
Touring home
While it’s been many years since Wilson lived in Danville, he never seems to stray too far from his roots.
Some of his favorite memories involve coming back late to class after having a “monster burger” with his cousins at the then-newly built Hardee’s restaurant.
His family attended the Mt. Zion Word of Life Church on Fairchild Street, where his mother was a choir director.
“I grew up in the church,” he said. “That’s really where I learned to sing.”
By the time Bryan was 10, he was the only child singing in the adult choir because “I thought they (the kids) weren’t singing (the parts) right.
“I was the littlest one up there,” he recalled.
Wilson’s entire family has musical talents. His grandfather used to pal around with the likes of B.B. King, his mom always had a gospel group going and just about every member has a vocal or instrumental talent.
“I just grew up around music,” he said. “It’s been passed on from generation to generation.”
He said he specifically was getting local guidance from Dr. Stanley Butts in the South View Middle School chorus, as well as one-on-one instruction from Mrs. Cleveland at Douglas
Elementary.
“She noticed something in me and even gave me an award once (for singing),” he said.
And Wilson said he continues to learn, even in many of the music courses he’s taken in college.
He previously was of the belief that gospel singers only had to depend on their talent but has learned that classical training does have its benefits. He said blending styles has allowed him to retrain his voice after puberty’s changes, but enrich his style while allowing him to maintain his gospel-choir roots.
“Now I see how they (styles) all interact and how they intertwine to make something special,” he said. “Now I incorporate it. I’ve gained discipline and it’s made me a better singer.”

Danville’s Rhodes-Burford furniture store has been the site of many happy scenes in its 100-plus-year history.
It has been the place where newlyweds have purchased their first living room sets and the place they came back to buy furniture for their children’s rooms.
But that happiness isn’t as easy to find these days as longtime owners and employees ready for the store’s final day, which is just weeks away.
“We used to call this store ‘the working man’s store,’” said store manager Shane Darr, whose father started at Rhodes-Burford in 1955.
“The last three months (during the going-out-of-business sale), it’s been like working in a funeral home,” he said with obvious sadness in his voice. “I grew up in this store.”
And it’s the same with most of the employees, many who have been with the furniture store for years.
“We’ve all been here together for a long time,” said 24-year salesman Paul Tevebaugh.
Always here
Owner Richard Van Cleave’s great-grandfather became owner in 1909, mostly because of the store’s debt.
“In those days, stoves and ranges were really important items, especially for fall business,” Van Cleave recalled.
But business had been slow, and Van Cleave’s store owed money to the Buck Stove Company for merchandise that was already sitting on Rhodes-Burford’s floors.
The story is somewhat unclear as to the details, but the two sides traded some assets as part of the debt resolution, and Van Cleave ended up with the Rhodes-Burford store.
“Don’t ask me how that happened, but it did,” he said.
A Van Cleave has been at the helm ever since.
There were several things that made the local store special, and at the height of the company’s popularity there were a total of 12 in the retail chain, including four in Kentucky.
“Things were really hopping back then,” Darr recalled.
Van Cleave said the store is known for being among the first to offer their furniture on weekly and monthly payments, long before Americans became enamored with the concept of
financing.
“We have been in the installment business,” Van Cleave said. “That concept was developed here and was the innovation of A.G. Rhodes.”
Rhodes is credited with implementing the idea in the national Furniture Hall of Fame. Born in Kentucky, he became a successful furniture businessman in Georgia.
“Originally, you could buy three rooms of furniture as low as $19 a week,” Van Cleave said. “We’ve carried our customers’ accounts from the 1960s — until last year.”
That’s when Rhodes-Burford sold off its collection accounts.
“In-house accounts longer than 90 days have just become a thing of the past.”
Darr’s father soon moved to the sales floor, “the best job in the place back then,” and his son soon followed for a 40-year stint.
“I’ve done everything but take a payment,” Darr said.
New era
While the original model of Rhodes-Burford never changed — give customers the highest-quality furniture at the lowest cost, then let them pay for it over time — the consumer landscape has.
Van Cleave, who lives in Louisville, said he started noticing changes in the industry about 12 years ago with the arrival of “big-box” stores and rent-to-own retailers.
But more than that, he said, customers’ needs have changed.
“We don’t have anything cheap, and we never have,” Darr said.
And that is one of the changes as the desire for longer-lasting furniture is not as prevalent as with past generations. People are looking for functional and disposal pieces, not the ones they have to spend a lot of money on and that will last long enough to pass to their children.
“People expect things to last three to five years, no more,” Darr explained.
“The difference between inexpensive furniture and better furniture is almost gone,” he said. “The lines between quality and cheap have become blurred. It’s not as important these days to the customer, but it is to me.”
In addition, increased competition and a waning financing model have left the store clinging to survival for years, Van Cleave said.
“People live in their cars today,” Van Cleave said. “Their habits have changed. The house is not as
important.”
The only room that customers seem to care about furnishing in a quality way these days is the television room, he said.
“I’ve been to expensive houses that have junky furniture everywhere, except for the room where they have the big-screen TV,” he said.
Add the changes in the industry to the general loss of blue-collar jobs in Danville, and the store’s fate was sealed.
The future
Darr, who has held several jobs outside of the store before becoming its manager, said he is currently lining up offers to consider for his future. But he worries he will never find an environment as much like family as Rhodes-Burford.
“This town is losing a lot,” he said. “We’re family here and we’re the exception to the rule — we don’t have turnover.”
Darr said customers will soon notice there is no one around offering the service his store did, whether it be a free replacement leg for a couch or a missing screw given away at no cost just because someone is a regular customer. He said the collective knowledge of everyone from salesmen to servicemen of furniture in general will leave a void.
“People came in here for nuts and bolts and fasteners,” Darr said, “and we’ve never charged anybody for that.”
Van Cleave, who plans to retire with the closing of the last store in the once-large chain, agreed with Darr’s assessment.
“A lot of the reason this store is still open is because of the employees,” he said. “The best thing we could have done for the business was close 12 years ago.”
At one time the store had around 30 employees and competed against as many as eight other stores in Danville, but only a handful are readying the store for its final days.
The permit for the going-out-of-business sale ends Feb. 17.
Darr said the store plans to honor service agreements to the best of its ability, even if that means after the store closes.
“We’re doing our best to honor those because we’re going to do this (closing) with dignity,” he said. “We’re not just going to leave town.”
Van Cleave, who made regular visits to the store, said he is not sure he won’t automatically drive to Danville when he leaves his home after
retirement.
“I’ve got autopilot on when I come to Danville,” he said. “But this is the end of the story.”

Habitat for Humanity of Danville will sponsor its 3rd annual fundraising luncheon, “Souper Bowl III,” from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Friday, Feb. 1 in the gymnasium at First Presbyterian Church, 100 N. Franklin St.

This is an opportunity for the community to not only support the local Habitat affiliate, but to enjoy a hearty lunch for a nominal cost, or to take soup home for an easy meal to be consumed during Souper Bowl XLII. Carryout of individual meals is also available Friday.

The meal will consist of a choice of two soups (chicken noodle or vegetable beef), crackers, cole slaw, dessert and a choice of iced tea, coffee, or water. Individual carryout will consist of the same, while the 32-ounce take-home container will be soup only. Advance ticket sales are $5 each. Tickets will also be sold at the door for $6. The take-home containers will cost $10 or two tickets.

Habitat for Humanity of Danville is a not-for-profit Christian ministry that seeks to eliminate poverty housing by building or renovating simple, decent homes for qualified families in the Danville Area. Those partner families pay for their houses with an interest-free mortgage from Habitat.  Payments from existing loans are then used to build more houses.

Thirty-four houses have been completed since the local affiliate was established in 1986. Plans are to complete at least two more houses in 2008, one which will be the "Ray Carter Build," in honor of one of the original board members, who has been one of the affiliates greatest supporters and volunteers for more than 22 years.

Advance tickets for the luncheon are available from Habitat board members or can be obtained at Landmark Credit Union. You may also call Habitat for Humanity at 497-4234 and leave a message.

Big Brothers Big Sisters of Vermilion County is celebrating Thank Your Mentor Day by hosting a breakfast for our mentors from 7:30-9 a.m. Friday, Jan. 25 at the First Presbyterian Church, 100 N. Franklin St.

Past, present and future mentors are invited as well as any other Big Brothers Big Sisters supporters. Mayor Scott Eisenhauer will speak as well as Rose M.J. Henton, executive director of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Vermilion County. The Big Brother and Big Sister of the year will be announced.

The theme is: “Who Mentored You? Thank them…. and Pass it on. Mentor a child.”

Each year hundreds of children in our community go without a meaningful, supportive adult in their life. Research has shown that the presence of a positive adult role model to supervise and guide a child’s behavior is a key protective factor against violence. Evidence further shows mentoring can significantly improve school attendance and performance, reduce violent behavior, decrease the likelihood of drug use, and improve relationships with friends and parents.

Call Big Brothers Big Sisters at 446-6601 to make a reservation.