Keeping it real

Mbanna Kantako is still on the air

Mbanna Kantako is on a roll.From his rental house just off North Grand Avenue in Enos Park, the 54-year-old blind man talks about the advent of spring and the need to till the soil. He speaks of pollu

A beloved teacher, counselor and activist commemorated

The Caryl Towsley Moy, Ph.D., Endowed Fund for Collaborative Research

One day while she was a professor at what was then Sangamon State University, Dr. Caryl Moy came upon a woman standing in front of a frosty window. The woman had cleared a space and was gazing out at

A century of service

From the Women’s Suffrage March of 1913 to serving in Congress, the women of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., have served both their communities and their nation. The group, formed in 1913 by 2

Megaminds

The search for the world’s best memory athletes

A man in a fedora walks into an empty classroom on the second floor of a building on Washington University’s campus and waits in the darkened room. He has never been here before – not to t

The Cinema Snob

Bad movies are beautiful to Brad Jones

Brad Jones doesn’t stand out amid 100 or so vendors at HorrorHound Weekend in Indianapolis earlier this month.He is a diminutive, bearded, 30-year-old guy from Springfield in baseball cap and gl

Injured, he helps others with brain injuries

After sustaining a brain injury in a 1987 bobsled accident, William Shea strives for understanding

William “Bill” Shea’s wheelchair sits in the corner of his basement. It is both a reminder of the past and a foreshadowing of the future. At 59, Shea embodies the qualities of an Oly

The ballad of Tom Irwin

A songwriter’s long, winding road from high school rocker to Sangamon Songs

To call Tom Irwin a fixture on the Springfield music scene would be something of an understatement. Beginning in the mid-1970s as a bass player and eventual frontman for various local rock bands, stra

Holy warrior

On the ice and in the pulpit, Bishop Thomas Paprocki takes hard shots

The office of Bishop Thomas John Paprocki is a veritable shrine to hockey.On a table sits a miniature Stanley Cup, next to a photo of him posing on the ice with members of his beloved Chicago Blackhaw

A creative visit from Vachel Lindsay’s granddaughter

The spirit of Vachel Lindsay was alive and well in Springfield Nov. 5 in the form of his granddaughter, Louisa Lindsay-Sprouse. She was visiting from Eugene, Ore., to promote creative writing in Sprin

Rounding out her career

Jackie Jackson releases her magnum opus, Vol. 1

Jacqueline Jackson still tends a herd of cows but nowadays they’re figurines on her mantle.Raised on the Dougan Guernsey Dairy Farm near Beloit, Wis., in the 1930s and 40s, Jackie decided at age