Mt. Vernon Register-News - Big Hall's Notepad

Changes abound

If you haven't noticed his byline or read his introductory column, allow me to introduce you to our new sports editor. Paul Wilcoxen comes to us from Linton, Ind., where he served as sports editor of the Greene County Daily World.
Paul shares our commitment to local sports coverage and already has jumped in and increased our local content. We look for good things from our sports desk under the direction of Paul.
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We're gearing up for our local Super Tuesday coverage. To help preview the local primaries, we have sent out questionnaires to candidates and will print their responses the weekend before the Feb. 5 election. The candidates are gathering tonight for a forum being staged by the local BPW. Things could get interesting tonight.
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Congratulations to Mt. Vernon boys basketball coach Doug Creel, who recently surpassed legendary Stanley Changnon as the school's second-leading all-time boys wins leader. Creel has downplayed the accomplishment, and I last week wrote a column saying as much. While I said Creel was every bit a part of Rams basketball lore as Changnon, some disagreed. So let me further explain my statement. While you cannot compare the apples and oranges of different centuries, I feel Creel has earned his spot as one of the school's most noted coaches not only for the wins, but for the fact that he is Mt. Vernon basketball. He was a player who fans enjoyed watching because of his hustle and work ethic. And his teams win by playing the same way. Creel has spent 13 years as a head coach and nine more as an assistant. When you add that up, he has been involved with Mt. Vernon basketball — including some very successful seasons — for a total of 26 years. That is what I meant by saying Creel's legacy is cemented within local history.
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We're always looking for interesting feature story ideas. If you have one, e-mail me at jeremy.hall@register-news.com

January 15, 2008 09:41 am

They have brightened our season

Kandace and Tesa have been working to complete feature stories on those we chose as our 2007 Register-News Christmas Angels.
These stories have been fun to read and a joy to share with readers. It is nice to learn the great deeds people in our community have done not only this year but in years past.
Some of the people I knew of, but not about, until reading the stories.
In short, it has been a pleasure to deliver the Christmas Angels this season.
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Before visiting McAndrew Stadium on the campus of Southern Illinois University-Carbondale on Saturday, the Delaware Blue Hens football team stopped in Mt. Vernon. The Blue Hens actually held a pregame walkthrough at Mt. Vernon Township High School, according to their hometown media.
•••

With two staff members on extended leave from the newspaper, we have been scrambling to keep up in the newsroom. We have been able to not miss a beat by having the help of a temporary fill-in who has done a tremendous job behind the scenes.
Kelly Banks joined our staff last month and has proven an immeasurable asset to the Register-News.

December 12, 2007 02:09 pm

Refreshing Veterans Day services

It was refreshing to see the communities surrounding this newspaper unite for the various Veterans Day services held over the weekend.
At Times Square Mall in Mt. Vernon, those gathering for the Buddy Poppy Salute to All U.S. War Veterans heard of the 13 folds of the U.S. flag and what each fold represents.
At Waltonville, that village's annual parade drew its normal crowd, and reports are the parade was again a hit.
I applaud all of you who went out of your way to help make these events successful.
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I received a couple of CDs today from Mike Young of the local band "Farm." The band will play on Nov. 24 in downtown Mt. Vernon.
I had read a lot about the band on our message boards and had heard of it from locals for as long as I have lived here. People seem excited about having the band members reunite for the "one-time-only" show.
Check out the paper later this week for more information on the reunion show, and visit RN Radio on this Web site to hear some of Farm's songs.
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Al Thompkins, in his daily column for The Poynter Institute, today criticizes the striking Hollywood writers not for their decision to walk out on their jobs, but rather for their inability to come up with more creative picket signs.
Some of his suggestions:
"Writers On Strique"
"Subjects + Verbs = Our Fair Share"
"One Word — Fairness — Worth a Thousand Pictures"
"To strike or not to strike — Shakespeare would carry a sign"
"Pay us our fair share — and we'll write like the Dickens"
"What do we do when our nose is on strike? Picket"

November 12, 2007 11:29 am

More on Oza

My column in today's print edition of the Register-News talks about how I feel the legacy of Dr. Yagnesh Oza extends well beyond the Center for Comprehensive Cancer Care that he brought to Mt. Vernon.
It tells of how I believe Oza's real legacy is his passion for those he treats, as well as their families. I hinted in the column of my personal experience with "Doc Oza."
Here is the rest of the story:
My father was diagnosed with lung cancer in October 2004, and died eight months later in St. Louis. He absolutely adored Oza despite not knowing him but for a very brief period of time. I first began hearing my dad talk about the "little guy" when he was driving himself to Oza's office for treatments, and later discovered for myself what he was talking about when I had to drive him to the office.
Near the end of my father's life, Oza had to ask me under which circumstances to allow him to be connected to life-clinging machinery. It was the first and only time I've ever had to answer such a question. I will never forget the patience Oza had with me that spring day, or the careful and thoughtful explanations he gave me as he walked me through various scenarios.
With the cancer center still under construction, Oza was forced to send my dad to St. Louis for treatment that could not be performed here. My dad died less than a week later. The treatment had not been performed, and when I called Oza and told him my dad wanted to come home, he fought through layers of bureaucracy to have him released. Unfortunately, it was too late. But Oza certainly did his part to help.
During those few months that I dealt with Oza, I learned to appreciate him as much as my dad had. His attitude made him fun to be around in a time that, quite simply, was not fun.
My dad talked of the cancer center and how he wished it had been complete before his treatments began. When he died, his fellow Walgreen's employees made a donation to the center in his name. And I was given a brick by then-marketing director Julie Long of St. Mary's Good Samaritan Hospital. The brick is to join others at the cancer center in memorializing those who have suffered the disease.
Crossing paths again with Oza this week reminded me that I never wrote on that brick and took it out there.
I think I'll do that this afternoon.

November 08, 2007 11:46 am

A tough call

I was not surprised to see the press release announcing that the International City/County Management Association had decided to publicly censure former Mt. Vernon city manager Roy Payne. I was, however, taken aback by the timing of the announcement. Payne has been out of office for several months now, and the city has moved on.
That said, how do you play such an item within a newspaper? My gut instinct was to merely do a brief and stick it inside somewhere. But this was a story that drew a lot of interest as it was unfolding. Therefore, I asked a reporter to write the article. And as I chose stories for the front page, I figured the story was among those that would reach the most readers. So I placed it on the front, above the fold.
I am not crazy about the placement, or the story at all. That is not a knock on Tesa's report, but the subject matter itself. But when we prepare the pages and online content, it cannot be about our personal opinions. And I honestly believe this was a big story, or at least another development in a big story.
So I stand by the decision to place it on the front page, though I feel we contributed to unnecessarily "piling on" someone who has already been through the ringer.
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SHAMELESS PLUG: I'll be writing my column this week on local doctor Yagnesh Oza, who recently received the 2007 Rural Physician of Excellence Award. Those of you who do not know Oza cannot imagine what you are missing, or what a gem the community has in him.
A reception to honor Oza will be held 4-7 p.m. today at the Schweinfurth House in Mt. Vernon.

November 06, 2007 11:42 am

Citizen journalism

The process has hit light speed.
While we have routinely fielded our fair share of rumors and speculation, today offered an interesting twist.
Someone posted a message on our forum asking whether something they heard was rumor or fact. While our ears perked up and we started gathering information from various sources, many others posted messages on the forum with their takes and accounts.
Before long, City Manager Ron Neibert posted a message denying the rumor. The city manager went a step further and defended a city employee he felt was being unfairly attacked in the forum.
It was nice to see this thing play out on our forum and reach its pinnacle quickest to those of you who choose to visit this site and keep up to date through our message boards.
We will not have a story on the rumor, but those of you online got to see the process unfold first-hand and at the speed of a pecked keyboard.
This is citizen journalism, folks.
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We had a lot of fun Saturday morning at our ping pong drop. 'Santa' dropped thousands of ping pong balls off of our roof and onto our parking lot, where hundreds of residents scurried to collect them as quickly as possible.
The ping pong balls were labeled with numbers that coincided with various discounts and giveaways provided by local businesses.
One guy jumped to the ground as soon as 'Santa' released the ping pong balls, and lay there waving his arms like an inverted snow angel, collecting as many of the yellow balls as he could and keeping them within his grasp.
Before the drop, there was time for dancing and conversing. R-N advertising reps dressed up as elves, while publisher Bob Dennis took on the main character's role in the production.
Again, it was a great time. Hope to see more of you there next year.

November 05, 2007 02:45 pm

Why the erroneous hyphenations in Web copy?

If you've spent time on this site reading our stories, you've undoubtedly at least once happened across a word that was incorrectly hyphenated. An unpublished example: "Dennis said he was sur-prised to learn of the change."
Obviously, surprised is one word and needs no hyphenation.
I will try to explain how this happens in as few words as possible. Reporters log their stories onto their machines in a program called NewsEdit Pro. From there, they save the stories onto our server, in specific folders where they can be accessed by paginators and myself. Once edited, the stories are placed on a page created in QuarkXPress. Quark is used to create all of the pages in the print R-N. Sometimes text doesn't flow well around photos or in narrow columns. Letters of a word might space out to fit a column or skip lines altogether. So we who design the pages force hyphenation of words to make the text flow more freely, or be easier on the eye without overbearing gaps and spacing. This is normally the final step before a page is sent out for final proof.
We copy the stories off of the Quark document - as they are the versions that received all sets of eyes on them and are the final version - onto the Web site. And when the copy fits onto the text area of the Web site manager, the words flow much wider, meaning the words we forced hyphenations on are extended and look like the "sur-prised" usage shown above. We make every attempt to catch all of these, but please forgive us if we don't.
Additionally, as we push to get stories on the Web as soon as we can, we often copy text from e-mail or straight from NewsEdit before they even receive a first round of copy editing. This is to provide news as quickly as possible and editing is done as a story is already published.
I hope this makes sense and thank all of you for your patience as we move forward with our Web site and other adjustments within the Register-News.

November 02, 2007 10:30 am

Morning notes

Our good friend Elvira called to tell me this morning that Paul Tibbets Jr. had died.
Tibbets flew the plane that dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, effectively ending World War II.
Elvira is an enthusiast of both local and world history. She pointed out that over the last seven days she has seen nine WWII veterans die. She said she is worried we are losing our link to that portion of our history. We will be looking into that for mention somewhere in the paper.
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The trick or treating season has come and gone again. Check the Web Gallery section on this site to view photos of homes decorated for Halloween as well as trick or treaters making the rounds last night.
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While reading the preview of the "Get Smart" play being presented this week at Rend Lake College, I was astonished that some of those performing in the play were not familiar with the 1960s adventures of Maxwell Smart, Agent 99 and others. One of the quoted individuals is 27 years old, not much younger than myself. I at least recall seeing the show on reruns as a kid. Oh well. Chalk it up to my quickly advancing age, I guess.
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A neat event will be taking place 11 a.m. Saturday on the Register-News parking lot. Advertisers have put together a number of discounts and giveaways and they will be released to the public in a unique manner. Publisher Bob Dennis will dress up as Santa Claus, with the R-N ad staff serving as elves, and dump ping pong balls containing the discounts or items onto the parking lot. You may have seen the ping pong ball ads in the paper recently. This is where the campaign is headed.

November 01, 2007 10:42 am

Halloween notes

Be safe tonight, everyone, and look out for the ghosts and goblins roaming the neighborhoods.
There are still children dressing up as ghosts and goblins, right? Or am I dating myself with that statement?
Our kids will be a miniature version of NASCAR driver Jeff Gordon and a bumblebee. And the costumes fit the personalities of our 5-year-old son and 2-year-old daughter.
Our dilemma is this: Both my wife and I want to take our kids trick or treating tonight, so we will be forced to miss out on the joy of handing out candy to other neighborhood kids.
Have fun tonight.
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We took the kids to the Junior Master Gardeners' Spooky Garden Walk in rural Bluford on Monday night, and it was a hit.
The walk was not so spooky as to keep the kids up when we got home, yet was intriguing enough to keep their attention and create laughter.
Their favorite part: Getting to decorate pumpkins to take home. My favorite part: It was free.
Theresa Greene, leader of the Junior Master Gardeners, told me money is raised throughout the year for the young gardeners to put on the spooky garden walk.
I know it is late notice now, but this thing is well worth the drive to get there. Kudos to Ms. Greene and the Junior Master Gardeners for their efforts. I know our kids really enjoyed the experience, and appreciate the opportunity to decorate pumpkins this week.
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As a staff, we enjoyed putting together the recent "Fall Fun Zones" series for the paper. I know I personally found it informative, as I read about some of the events I did not know existed while also learning new things about the ones with which I already was familiar.
If we didn't get to your fall fun zone, remember to let us know early next year so we can include it when we do the series again.

October 31, 2007 09:09 am

More on 'Lucky Ol Walt'

1:45 p.m., Oct. 30, 2007
I am the type of person who cherishes each congratulatory or “thank you” card, letter or e-mail that I get. In fact, there is a post-it note on my monitor right now which reads, “I am very glad that Jeremy Hall is back at the R-N!!”
When you hear so often about the mistakes you make in this business, or the inadequacies in coverage, it is nice to remember there are some people happy at least some of the time.
A recent e-mail, however, deserves sharing with readers. I had written a column about Walt Maynor and the book he managed to finish before he died. I met Walt a few years ago while working as sports editor at the Register-News and was immediately impressed with him. Well into his 70s, he was teaching tennis and helping kids get college scholarships.
His book was as interesting a read as I had anticipated, laced with Walt’s gift of storytelling. In my column, I said while Maynor’s book was called, “Lucky ‘Ol Walt,” those of us who met him are the real lucky ones.
His daughter Barbara sent a nice letter of appreciation for the column, and told me the story of how the book came to be. Here is part of what she said in her e-mail:
“Last night I came across a book I had given my dad in 9/05 called ‘Legacy From a Father’ asking all kinds of questions a father can answer and leave for his kids. At the beginning I had written — ‘Let’s start the book.’ I did not realize until last night that he ever even opened it. He had, answered a few questions and then was off and running on his own. He was so afraid that book would never get done.
“There is so much more to the story. He told me he was not going to live long, and he had not been sick at all, just knew. I thought he was afraid about the book so I told my out-of-town company they were on their own and I dedicated that weekend to finish up what he had written.
“The gal that had been working on it had computer problems, nothing was saved, wrong format, you name it. I’m sure she was not happy with me that weekend but through the Internet, we did it. I ran it to Kinko’s to get a copy printed.
“The guy who waited on me, ‘Angel,’ promised it would be ready for me in 24 hours. We Fed Expressed it and they arrived with the copy of the book as the paramedics were loading my dad in the ambulance heading to the hospital. He got to see it done and stayed around long enough to read it and give it his stamp of approval.”
Even Walt’s book itself was an interesting story.

October 30, 2007 01:48 pm