Thank school board members on Nov. 15

Dear Editor,

School board members deserve a heartfelt thank you for their time and dedication to the local Oregon School District.

November 15, 2012 has been designated as School Board Member Day in Illinois.

This is a time to show appreciation and to begin to better understand how school board members work together to provide leadership for our schools.

In their daily lives members may be farmers, bankers, doctors or small business owners, but each member has one thing in common: extraordinary dedication to public education. Everyone knows that board members attend meetings, but those hours represent just a fraction of the actual time that they devote to leading the district.

Members attend extracurricular events to support the schools; they attend seminars to learn how to be better board members, and are often involved in other community activities to help represent the community they live in. 

Many of these school and community-related activities take them away from time that could be spent with their own families.

School board members must also listen to the voices of their community and craft a vision and mission for the district to accurately reflect those voices in the design.

Our district’s mission is to “Educate students to be lifelong learners who are productive, responsible citizens.” 

Our members focus on this mission with each decision ensuring the best learning environment for our students while also working to be responsible to our taxpayers.

Help us join others throughout Illinois in giving a big thank you to the men and women who provide the basis of governance for public schools.

Make a special effort to tell each school board member his or her hard work has been noticed and is very much appreciated.

Tom Mahoney

Superintendent

Oregon School District

4H Club’s tree killed by vandals on Halloween

Dear Editor,

My children are part of the Leaf River Soaring Eagles 4-H Club. As a group, we decided to plant a tree at our community center.

All summer long my family faithfully watered this tree to ensure the roots would take and the tree would flourish.

As we all know the temps reached some terribly high numbers and yet we continued to lug the heavy hoses up there and stand outside for 30 minutes each day (for 3 months) to water that tree.

Our efforts paid off and the tree took hold in the earth and began to grow and the leaves even changed!

Here’s the bad part - on Halloween night some person decided to snap our beautiful tree off at the root!!

Are you kidding me?

This really angered me and even worse hurt my kids’ feelings.

We planted this tree as a club to do something nice for our town and the building that we all enjoy using.

How awful that some people get enjoyment out of wrecking other people’s things. What could they possibly get from breaking our special tree?

I really don’t like mean people, this was uncalled for. I hope someone saw something and if you did...let me know.

Dawn Plock

Leaf River

Concert series was a success in Mt. Morris

Dear Editor,

The final concert of the 2012 season of Friday Nite Concerts on the Square, held on the beautiful historic bandshell located on the old college campus in downtown Mt. Morris, was held in the auditorium the Pinecrest Community Center on Saturday evening Nov. 3 at 7 p.m. 

The 2-hour concert featured local musician David Warkins and the Country Tyme Band. 

The full house attendance enjoyed some wonderful old country music from over the years bring back memories of music we have enjoyed over our lifetime. 

Country Tyme’s normal concert was rained out Sept. 21 and we really wanted to finish our season so we worked to secure an indoor location to use. 

We were fortunate and want to thank Pinecrest and their staff for working with us to bring the concert to Mt. Morris and surrounding areas. 

We saw folks from all over Ogle County.

The seasons concerts were very popular for the overall season that began in June and ended in late September. 

We want to thank everyone that attended our concerts and also for their generous donations to help us fund future concerts. 

Concerts were free with a freewill donation.

Our committee is now busy working on plans for the 2013 season which will be announced in the spring time as budgets and bands are finalized. 

It is our goal to bring additional outdoor concerts to Mt. Morris and surrounding area to enjoy throughout the summer. 

We might, as budget allows, have a mid winter or early spring concert held indoors if details can be completed. 

We will soon have information on the Mt. Morris website (mtmorrisil.net ) detailing not only the Friday Nite Concert season, but also the Wednesday evening traditional band concerts led for many years by Warren Reckmeyer.

We will have photos from some of the past concerts posted as well as information on future concerts. 

We also encourage checking the Community Calendar and the Community Bulletin Board for the many events held in Mt. Morris.

Jerry Stauffer

Mt. Morris

Hospice access for veterans is important

Dear Editor,

Americans across the country celebrate Veterans Day on Nov. 11, a special day to salute the men and women who have bravely served our country in the military.

These fellow Americans have made profound sacrifices in defense of freedom and they deserve our heartfelt thanks and appreciation.

Honoring our nation’s veterans includes supporting them throughout their entire lives, especially at the end. 

As our nation marks Veterans Day, Serenity Hospice and Home deepens our commitment to increase veterans’ access to the compassionate, high quality care available from the nation’s hospice and palliative care providers.

One of the ways we’re making this happen is through our active involvement with We Honor Veterans, an innovative program of the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization that we created in collaboration with the Department of Veterans Affairs.

There is something else that’s important for every American to do – and that is to say, thank you to our country’s veterans. Not just on Nov. 11 but all year long.

Ask your friends, neighbors, coworkers and others in your community whether they have served in the military (you may be surprised how many have)—and thank those who have served for their sacrifice.
It surprises many Americans to learn that every day, 1,800 veterans die.

That’s more than 680,000 veterans every year – or 25 percent of all the people who die in this country annually.