I was en route to broadcast a high school baseball game on Monday afternoon when I heard about the explosions that rocked the area near the finish line of the famed Boston Marathon.

As we have become accustomed (or calloused) to, the news broadcast was giving sketchy details about the the incident – details that here in the 21^st Century we know will get worse.

After I arrived at the press box at Eovaldi Field at Benton Community Park I went about the task of getting my equipment set up with that old familiar question rolling through my mind: What is wrong with people? And like I did please feel free to drag the word ‘wrong’ out. It seems to help me with the helpless, hopeless, irritating, frustrating, infuriating madness that we now know is a way of life at any location on the globe.

And really I can’t say I was surprised because I have feared, dreaded is a better word, the day that sporting events that are such a part of our makeup and fabric, were targeted by insanity. For the umpteenth time, the red line of the unthinkable has been moved again.

I went ahead with the ballgame – Benton vs. Murphysboro – which of course was the only thing I knew to do. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps and get going, is what my dad would have told me, so that’s what I did. I mentioned at the top of the broadcast the old standby line, ‘our thoughts and prayers are with the good folks in Boston’ and then I trudged ahead.

It was a good ballgame with the Rangers falling behind early 2-0 but then rallying for 5 runs in the third inning on some timely hitting and base running. Benton tacked on three more runs late and won 8-4. The Rangers had dropped three in a row coming in so it was nice to see them get back on the winning track.

I take a 60 second commercial between every half inning and I found myself scouring the news apps on my phone to try and get an update (or perhaps make sense) after the tragedy in Boston. A day of celebration and triumph in one of America’s greatest cities will now forever be marked by a tragedy. The date April 15, 2013 will now be linked with a growing list of dates and locations, an infamous list of dates and locations where evil and terror showed up to try and destroy innocence and a way of life.

But that won’t happen. Never. Ever. Never.  And let me explain why that won’t happen.

As I went about the task of unhooking my equipment and putting it neatly away I glanced out the press box window at Benton Community Park, which was a virtual beehive of activity. Games or practices going on at five fields and players and coaches raking and working on Eovaldi Field where the game had just been completed. I could see people walking dogs, using the concrete walking track that winds around the sprawling park.  Young girls in a group huddled up talking, children in the playground area. Life goes on, I thought.

As I walked to my truck a girl’s softball game was in progress, the good smell of the concession stand filled the air and the sun broke through a cloud cover and shined brightly. People were relaxing in lawn chairs, visiting, watching children and grandchildren learn the very American games of baseball and softball. I’m a decent wordsmith but I would have trouble trying to describe the feeling that this scene gave me.  In the words of the old country song, ‘I guess you had to be there.’

But there was one sight that stood out to me and caused me to stop before entering my truck and just watch and take it all in.

On Field 2, a field I had coached young boys on many years ago, I watched a coach give instruction on running the bases. ‘Catch the inside of the bag with your foot,’ he properly instructed the youngsters that I guessed to be seven or eight years old. And as each youngster ran the bases and crossed home plate he was greeted with a high five and a pat on the back. Again, there were people in lawn chairs taking in the practice, watching, chatting, living.

As I stood and watched these young boys learning the wonderful game of baseball – a game that they will teach their children to love someday — it crossed my mind that this is why cowards working in the shadows cannot destroy our way of life.

They might be able to blow up a building, a car, or an airplane but they cannot blow up our way of life. And the people that are hellbent on trying to destroy our way of life know nothing about the makeup of Americans or they would know just how futile their attempts are. There are thousands of recreational facilities just like Benton Community Park that dot the landscape across our great country where the same activities I witnessed played out yesterday and will continue today, tomorrow and forever.

While the cowards slither off into the darkness of their miserable life to plan their next terror attack Americans will move forward – proud, unwavering, resilient and a maybe a little defiant – knowing that a gutless act of terror will not change us or our way of life. Let me say it again. Never. Ever. Never.

It’s a new day. God Bless America … and batter up!

 

 

 

 

Finding the right college to fit individual needs is critical, and one size does not fit all.  Only thoughtful personal consideration should guide decision making.  However, some issues cannot be overlooked.
The college search doesn’t have to begin and end with the Ivies and the name brand schools. There are many schools out there to choose from — some known and some less known, all worthy of your attention.
Martha O’Connell — How to Choose A College That’s Right for You
___________________________________________________________________________

By Walter Wendler

The New York Times carried an article by David Brooks on April 4, 2013, entitled The Practical University.

The thrust of Brook’s reflection focused on the conflicts and possibilities of delivering content based on technical knowledge and its relationship to applied knowledge online. The argument goes that technical knowledge is reasonably well transmitted through online education. However, applied knowledge and the social skills and abilities that go along with the application of knowledge are best learned on site, with and through others.

The concept of a student-focused, functionally driven institution, where distinctions are made not between technical and applied knowledge, but by what’s necessary for student learning and a more enlightened and prosperous life, should be paramount.  Indeed, some of the frills provided on college campuses get in the way of any learning, be it technical or applied, that can be personally beneficial.
I would offer the following thoughts.

First, visit the campus.  If you do not meet a tenured, full-time faculty member, an advisor or staff person who supports academic work, and at least one academic leader — a department chair or a dean expert in the field you wish to study — beware that you may be at a place that puts something between you and your learning experience.  I don’t care how many energetic, sprightly student leaders you meet — and recruiting new students is an excellent opportunity for current students who value community engagement to practice it — they are not faculty.  They don’t have the professional qualifications and experience you seek to make learning valuable; they don’t teach classes; they don’t make assignments; and they don’t set expectations.  If the academic enterprise does not have time for you on the way in, why would it when you get there?   Make an academic investment at an academic institution.

Second, if student fees for nonessential aspects of study, athletics, various organizations, Disneyland-like facilities are unrelated to academic excellence but exceed the cost of tuition: Look out. The institution is investing incorrectly and fees are a way to increase revenue while appearing to hold tuition low – and can sometimes constitute carefully considered deceptions:  accounting manipulations, not academic investments. A $300 million football stadium at any university that does not have a research library ranked in the top 10 nationally is a fundamental misfit.  I don’t care what university you are considering.  But be careful, the University of Michigan is one of the best public universities in the world, and it charges athletics fees, but at a fraction of other institutions.  And it has an excellent intercollegiate athletics program and a first-rate library too. Find out a university’s priorities.

Third, read every ranking and comparative assessment system you can find regarding the universities you are considering attending.  Trust none of them – at least not a single one — but pay attention to all of them, and study each as a means to help shape your opinions.  We read Consumer Reports for a week before we buy a $100 coffee pot.  A $100,000 life investment demands a little scrutiny too. Tuition and fees, library quality, faculty achievement and honors, faculty salaries, scholarships, alumni giving rates, endowments, research funding, student clubs and organizations, student debt, student work opportunities, the nature of student government… all this stuff matters.  And make sure you compare apples to apples…don’t look at a national research university in the same way that you look at a regional college.  Different institutions have different purposes, which address different aspirations, for different students, at different costs with different benefits. Know what you expect from the university, and what it will provide.

Fourth, if the headlines from a university don’t trumpet learning and student achievement, be careful. Here’s a headline from the Star-Ledger, Monday, April 8, 2013: “For Rutgers, Big-Time Scandal Will Mean Big-Time Costs in Dollars, Reputation.” When priorities are contorted everything is affected:  “Wealthy supporters are threatening to close their checkbooks.

The disgraced coach and the tarnished athletic director are walking away with university-funded golden parachutes of more than $1 million each. In less than a week, a middling basketball program has turned toxic.” Not all of these failures can be laid at the doorstep of leadership — as was the case at Penn State — but universities that twist priorities away from academics eventually diminish value to current, future and past students.  Athletics is sometimes an easy target.  Other forms of malfeasance, machination, and misappropriation are also embedded in university leadership.  And mistakes can become cultural:  “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.” Luke: 6:45.  Understand a university’s culture, its heart.

Choose carefully, it will follow, or lead you all of your life.

Maintaining solvency – fiscal health – is always a matter of priorities.  Attitudes toward solvency are evident in actions.  This is especially so with long-term decision making about the direction an enterprise moves.  Solvent universities and other organizations always have lustrous focus.    
Don’t tell me where your priorities are. Show me where you spend your money and I’ll tell you what they are.”

James W. Frick
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By Walter Wendler

Eight universities in Illinois recently had credit ratings downgraded leading to potentially diminished solvency, and it is a national trend.

Solvency in universities is a state to which many aspire but few attain.  Solvency enables an organization to meet current and future obligations based on income flow and assets. That is only accounting however.  A complex organization such as a university, a commercial enterprise, or an arm of government finds its solvency related to the long-term ability to sustain itself fiscally through the value of opportunity, product or service provided. This view applies to education, automobiles, thoracic surgery, spiritual sustenance and police protection. Solvent enterprises sustain themselves only to the extent that they focus.

An analysis of nearly 1,700 public and private nonprofit colleges, recently unveiled by Bain & Company, finds that one-third of the institutions have been on an “unsustainable financial path” in recent years, and an additional 28 percent are “at risk of slipping into an unsustainable condition,” according to a Goldie Blumenstyk’s piece in The Chronicle of Higher Education. Alarmist?  Possibly, but more likely, prudent.

Leaders assuage concerns by reminding us that we all are hurting.  Salve is found by blaming the Statehouse. State revenue machines have ground to a halt to be sure.  But in the end, universities make decisions to either spend money that they don’t have, which requires bonding capacity and borrowing, or belt tightening.

Most elected officials won’t ask state assisted organizations to stay within the bounds of solvency through mission focus.  Instead, they encourage organizations to behave in a way that garners votes.  Solvency is somebody else’s problem. In Illinois, political pension promises are a glowing example of this inconsistency.
A university concerned about its bond rating finds the will, and the way, to focus every spending decision on academic priorities.  The liberty and caprice greased by growth and now evaporated streams of dollars of the last half of the 20th century, are unsustainable.

Community colleges are not immune as their solvency is sinking like a rock. The Public Policy Institute of California reports that, since 2008, enrollments have decreased by 21% in the regular terms and 60% in the summer terms. These are the lowest enrollment levels in 20 years.  All the while the number of high school graduates in the Golden State has increased by 9%. Not attending to these realities undermines solvency.

Many believe that new dormitories and campus edifices will attract students, thereby creating solvency through increased enrollment. And they are, in part, correct — but so was Robert Frost — “Nothing Gold Can Stay.”

A radical refocusing of university purpose is required. A Model T university — “You can have any color you want, as long as it’s black,” — could provide educational opportunity through excellent faculty and engaged students in a cost-effective environment eschewing swimming pools, resort style student centers, concierge dorms, and the other accoutrements unrelated to intellectual attainment. Such refocusing creates solvency.  For the record, Model T’s originally minted in four colors from 1908 – 1914, became available in “black only” to reduce costs: a policy maintained from 1914 -1926.  Mr. Ford understood solvency.

Although extra-curricular activities and amenities should not be put aside, tough decisions regarding purpose, need, want and resources are called for. A million dollar coach or a new facility may work for Institution A, but be fiscally reckless for Institution B.

Moody’s points out in a January 2013 report that federal budget cuts are only part of the problem.  The Chicken Little sky-is-falling mentality of leaders who hide behind government budget difficulties, and the current boogey man, sequestration, is misplaced.

Standard and Poor’s says that they will be “watching tuition, grants, research funding, endowments, and operating appropriations,” and acknowledges that mission changes are having a significant impact on the financial stability of many institutions. All of this explains, but none of it excuses.  Solvency is a matter of fact, not a political talking point.
Solvency requires leadership.

And leadership can’t just blame bonding agencies or lenders for underwriting bad paper.  A few years ago, Wittenberg University in Ohio was downgraded to “junk bond” status by Moody’s for “heavy tuition discounting”: in essence, for providing too much scholarship and aid money in order to boost enrollment.  As a consequence, President Mark Ericson stepped down in spite of the community’s high regard for him.
“All that Glitters is not Gold.”

Our universities must look within — to leadership — and accept responsibility for charting directions that support educational purpose, or pay the piper.  University solvency hangs in the balance:  And boldness, honesty, and transparency are the mandate of the hour.

By J. Larry Miller

March 27, 2013

I saw a sign the other day that read “old man winter go away.” How many of us could agree with that statement? What a difference from a year ago when some corn had been planted in the county and we already were in a drought that lasted until a few weeks ago. Hopefully warmer temperatures will arrive and spring will be a little more prevalent.

Wheat fields are growing ever so slowly and farmers are applying some nitrogen and soon garlic will need to be sprayed in those same wheat fields. Wheat production has become a high management crop as nitrogen, herbicides, fungicides and their timeliness of application are critical to higher wheat yields.

The next question is when will corn planting begin and the answer is when the ground dries and temperatures warm soils to about 60 degrees. That could happen in the next 10 days but more likely toward the middle of April.

Cattle producers are eyeing hay supplies and are hoping that pastures will provide some needed forages before the hay supply is gone. In spite of the cold temperatures grasses and fields are seeing some growth but warmer temperatures will spur more rapid growth. I haven’t seen anyone mowing yards but that too is coming.

I suppose everyone has heard the news that the ethanol plant has been purchased by a group called Bio-Fuels of American Farmers and Veterans. At this point I have little or no information on this group and I do not believe that they have any ethanol production experience or background. I do hope for the best in this venture.

I am starting to see some activity in the township and municipal elections which will be held on April 9^th. This election is all about local government and I encourage everyone to participate by getting to know the candidates and voting. All elections are important but these local elections are basic to our democracy.

The General Assembly is on spring break which means that nothing is happening with the pension problems, same sex marriages, conceal carry and budget issues. On second thought, is that any different than when they are in session because it seems that even then nothing ever happens.

Many believe that there will be legislation that will broaden gun owners’ rights but I do not believe that any significant change will occur. Remember that most gun proponents are from down state but the majority are in the Chicago caucus which is anti-gun rights. Gay marriages will be approved and no substantial pension reforms will be passed. All of this would give the Illinois General Assembly a failing grade again and then we will re-elect them all. Congratulations Illinois!

Remember we are farmers working together. If we can help let us know.

By J. Larry Miller

I keep believing that spring should arrive any day now. I am like a child looking out the window for the arrival of green grass and warm days. The reason is that I am close to running out of hay and it is hard to find any for sale and my cows would appreciate something tasty like green grass. It will happen because it always does about this time every year.

Farmers from throughout Southern Illinois met on Monday in Marion for a Legislative Breakfast. State and Federal legislators and representatives updated those present on issues from the state budgets to the passage of the farm bill. These types of meetings allow us an opportunity to share Farm Bureau’s position on various topics. There were about 50 in attendance.

Speaking of state legislation, the Illinois Farm Bureau has policy that is in opposition of the Same-Sex Marriage Act. Some of our members have been unhappy with the silence that has existed about action on this issue. I have talked with our lobbyists and they have told me that every state legislator has been made aware of Farm Bureau’s opposition to this Act.

There has been debate about why a farm organization should be involved in a social issue. That is a fair question but our policy book has several social issues that have been in our policy book for years and when they were adopted who would have ever thought that something like gay marriages would become acceptable in our society. We as managers have been admonished in the past about any deviation of policy and so now we should follow policy on this issue.

Thankfully, our local legislators are working to prevent the passage of the bill but there is a difference in simply opposing and actively working to defeat the issue. Encourage our local legislators by calling them and letting them know your position.

Some farmers are beginning to apply first applications of nitrogen and as temperatures warm, spraying for garlic control and fungicide treatments will begin. Management of wheat has intensified in the last few years with different timing of nitrogen and fungicide to optimize yields. These practices are showing an increase in wheat yields.

Remember we are farmers working together. If we can help let us know.