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The chess teams at Evans Junior High School in Bloomington have done something that has never been done before in state history. Its sixth, seventh, and eighth graders have all won state championships in the same year.
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Domestic violence, experimental theater, the corrections system, the environment, municipal government — you name it, Carol Reitan made it better. She was also the first female mayor of Normal.
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The Catholic Diocese of Peoria has backed off a proposal to close Holy Trinity Church in Bloomington, relieving several community members who submitted a lengthy report in the hope the proposed closure would be reversed.
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McLean County had a huge shift to work-from-home employment during the pandemic. In fact, a bigger percentage change than in all but two other counties in Illinois.
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Alpheus Pike campaigned in the eastern theater of the war and, after two years and nine months of service, was captured in May 1864 at a battle near Drewry’s Bluff in the Bermuda Hundred campaign and was sent to a notorious Confederate prison camp.
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Illinois high school basketball teams are grinding through the late parts of their seasons as the state tournament approaches early next month. In this episode of our series McHistory, we learn about the longest-running annual basketball tournament in the state — 112 years and counting.
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Longtime Bloomington-Normal leader Betty Kinser has died. The educator, political activist, and community servant shed a bright light for decades, one she cast as much with her energy as she did her personal warmth and vivid personality.
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Most people know about the letter a little girl wrote to the New York Sun newspaper in 1897 asking whether Santa Claus is real. It prompted the famous response, "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus." Bloomington-Normal children encountered their own slightly more intrepid version of that idea a couple decades later.
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The words of a World War II prisoner of war from Normal show a grim situation filled with privation, guard brutality, and occasional diversions. This comes from Robert S. Hall’s wartime journal, recently donated to the McLean County Museum of History.
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The Peoria-based roots pop band Way Down Wanderers brings its 10th anniversary tour to Bloomington's Castle Theatre on Dec. 16. In the last decade, the group has put out three albums and a couple EPs, hit nearly every state in the U.S. and played in Canada and the U.K.