Are you ready for a new pet in your life? All of these animals are available for adoption at Iredell County Animal Services, 430 Bristol Drive, Statesville.
All of this week’s pets have been spayed or neutered and are looking for their forever homes. Come and meet them.
A $20 adoption fee for cats is available at PetSmart. Regular fees are cats/kittens, $65, and dogs/puppies, $80. PetSmart adoption fees are always $20. All adoptions include spay/neuter, age appropriate vaccines and microchip. Business hours are from noon to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday and 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday. Access from 10 a.m. to noon Monday through Friday is by appointment.
Currently all dogs and puppies that have been at the shelter for 14 days or more are available for $20 and all cats/kittens are available for an adoption fee of $10.
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All adoptions take place during business hours.
For appointments, please visit https://www.iredellcountync.gov/FormCenter/Animal-Control-17/Appointment-Request-Form-260
The animal shelter will be closed Thursday, Friday and Saturday for the Thanksgiving holiday. It will reopen on Nov. 27.
Want to help, but you aren’t ready to adopt? How about volunteering? Volunteer coordinator Tracy will be on hand Saturday, along with several ICAS volunteers, to answer any questions you may have about the program. See actual volunteer training in real time as our current dog enrichment volunteers-in-training will be there working with their volunteer trainer KayLeigh, as well as Highland Canine Training. This is just one of many opportunities available to approved volunteers. We are looking for long term volunteers willing and able to give of their time ideally weekly, for let’s say… forever? If you are only looking for short term hours or a certain amount of hours for school service, community service project, special interest or others, please come see us this day, too. For those only needing short term or limited hours, our volunteer program may not be for you, but we have other options available. We can tell you this for certain… ICAS Volunteers are THE best and we can’t do what we do without them.
The Books & Buddies reading program is now running. No appointment is necessary. Reading times are from noon to 5 p.m. weekdays and 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturdays. Bring a book or borrow one from the shelter and grab a stool.
The Books & Buddies guidelines are:
Children of all ages and adults are welcome to read.
Children 15 and younger must be accompanied by a parent or guardian.
Do not put fingers in the kennels.
Do not run or make loud noises around the animals.
Sit sideways to the dog kennels when reading.
One person can be reading in the cat room at a time.
Readers must track their own service hours. Any staffer can sign off on service hours.
To become a volunteer, a foster owner or both, visit co.iredell.nc.us/149/animal-services-control, call the volunteer coordinator at 704-878-5424, ext. 3507, or stop by the shelter for an application from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays.
Fostering is a great way to get the animals out of the shelter for a reprieve and a great opportunity to get them in front of potential adopters they wouldn’t see while being in the shelter.
Urgent: The shelter’s feline foster program is running dangerously low on wet and dry kitten food and cat litter.
Fosters are true lifesavers in providing the tender loving care that the cats and kittens so desperately need for the animals’ best possible outcome.
The shelter doesn’t want the fosters to have to provide for the basic care items needed to care for the animals. To donate, the shelter’s address is 430 Bristol Drive, Statesville.
As for size of dry kitten food, 3.15- or 6.3-pound bags are easiest for fosters to handle.
Animal Services also holds drive-thru rabies clinics from 6-7 p.m. the second Tuesday of each month. The fee is $5, cash only.
For information, call the shelter at 704-878-5424.
Long past its painful peak, inflation in the United States may be heading steadily back toward its pre-pandemic levels, without the need for further interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve.
Such a scenario became more likely, if hardly guaranteed, after Nov. 14’s surprisingly tame report on consumer prices for October. The Labor Department’s data showed a broad-based easing of inflation across most goods and services. The price of gas? Down. Appliances? Down. Autos? Down. Same for airfares, hotel rooms and doctors’ fees.
Overall inflation didn’t rise from September to October, the first time that consumer prices collectively haven’t budged from one month to another in more than a year. Compared with a year earlier, prices rose 3.2% in October, the smallest such rise since June, though still above the Fed’s 2% inflation target.
Excluding volatile food and energy prices, so-called core inflation was just 0.2% last month, slightly below the pace of the previous two months. Measured year over year, core prices rose 4% in October, down from 4.1% in September, the smallest rise in two years.
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“The inflation fever has broken,” said Bill Adams, chief economist at Comerica Bank. “Rising petroleum production is holding down gas prices, house prices are rising more slowly after mortgage rates surged in 2023 and rents are also rising more gradually” as more apartment buildings are completed.
October’s milder-than-expected price figures make it much less likely that the Fed will impose another rate hike. Many economists now say that the Fed’s most likely next move will be to cut rates, likely sometime next year, though that would depend on whether inflation continues to cool.
What’s driving inflation lower?
A major factor has been a big improvement in the supply of many things — workers, housing and components for manufactured goods.
Millions of Americans have come off the sidelines in the past year and flooded back into the workforce, seeking and (mostly) finding jobs. Immigration has increased, too, and with it more people looking for work. With more hires available, businesses haven’t had to raise wages as much to fill jobs, thereby easing the pressure on those businesses to raise their prices.
At the same time, the largest number of new apartment buildings nationwide in decades are being completed, a trend that is helping slow rent increases. Rental costs, after a spike in September, rose at a much more gradual pace last month.
Rents and other housing costs are likely to keep coming down, economists say, as the cost of new leases continues to fall, according to real-time data providers such as Zillow. Those lower prices show up in the government’s data with a lag.
And the supply chains that were badly snarled during the pandemic have pretty much unwound. An ample availability of products, parts and components help keep a lid on their prices. Automakers, for example, are having a much easier time finding semiconductors.
Partly as a result, new car prices declined last month, defying fears that the now-settled autoworkers’ strike would reduce dealers’ inventories and send prices higher. Used car prices, too, are down. They fell for a fifth straight month in October and have tumbled 7% from a year ago.
“We’re finally undoing that and getting the benefits,” Austan Goolsbee, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, said Tuesday in remarks at the Detroit Economic Club.
Separately, consumers are widely expected to pull back on spending after a blowout summer, with credit card debts — and delinquencies — rising and average savings falling. Cooler demand should force businesses to compete more on price.
Gas costs have kept falling this month, with the national average price at the pump averaging $3.35 Tuesday, down 42 cents from a year earlier. Those prices declines could push overall inflation, measured year-over-year, below 3% by December.
Aren’t things still pretty expensive?
Yes, inflation is still painfully apparent in many areas. They include auto and health insurance and some groceries, like beef and bread.
The average cost of auto insurance, which jumped 1.9% just from September to October, has soared nearly 20% from a year earlier. As new and used vehicles have grown more expensive, so has the cost of insuring them. And health insurance prices rose 1.1% last month, though that was largely due to a change in the government’s methodology.
But even as overall price increases slow, it doesn’t mean inflation is reversing or that most prices are falling back to pre-pandemic levels. The consumer price index, the most widely followed measure of inflation, remains about 20% higher than it was before the pandemic.
Milk prices, which have ticked down compared with the past year, are still 23% higher than they were pre-pandemic. Ground beef prices are 31% higher. Gas prices, despite a steep decline from a year ago, are still 46% higher than before the pandemic.
Many economists say a key reason why so many Americans hold a gloomy view of the economy despite very low unemployment and steady hiring is that these prices — on items that they buy regularly — remain much higher than they were three years ago.
Are paychecks keeping up?
Barring a deep and painful recession, prices aren’t going to fall to their pre-pandemic levels. Instead, economists say, Americans’ wages need to rise to help pay for the higher costs.
Wages and salaries trailed inflation in 2021 and 2022, exacerbating the pain of higher prices. Yet this year, as inflation has cooled, average pay has pulled ahead of inflation. By most measures, average paychecks, adjusted for inflation, are back to where they were before the pandemic.
Yet that essentially means that Americans, on average, have had scant real pay increases compared with three years ago. And while average pay may be back to pre-pandemic levels, many people have received below-average pay raises and are still behind inflation.
How might the Federal Reserve respond?
The Fed will likely welcome last Tuesday’s report as evidence of further progress toward getting inflation back to its target of 2%. Fed officials, led by Chair Jerome Powell, are considering whether their benchmark rate is high enough to quell inflation or if they need to impose another increase in coming months.
Powell said recently that Fed officials were “not confident” that rates were sufficiently high to tame inflation. The Fed has raised its benchmark interest rate 11 times in the past year and a half, to about 5.4%, the highest level in 22 years.
But the central bank has raised its key rate just once since May. Since its last meeting on Nov. 1, a government report showed that hiring cooled in October compared with September, and wage growth slowed, thereby easing pressure on companies to raise prices in the coming months.
Adams, the Comerica economist, said he thinks the Fed’s most likely next move will be to cut rates, likely by mid-2024.
The Fed’s rate hikes have increased the costs of mortgages, auto loans, credit cards and many forms of business borrowing, part of a concerted drive to slow growth and cool inflation pressures. The central bank is trying to achieve a “soft landing” — raising borrowing costs just enough to curb inflation without tipping the economy into a deep recession.
Said Eric Winograd, chief economist at AB Global, an asset management firm: “They look like they are on course to generate a soft landing. There’s no guarantee that they will actually manage to accomplish it. But right now, that’s the story that the data are telling.”
There’s never a Black Friday discount when a piece of Nebraska farmland hits the market in 2023, be it a fertile Platte River Valley field or a vast swath of Sandhills pastureland.
The market’s hot. And corporate farms, both in-state and out, are dipping into their deep pockets to claim increasingly pricey agricultural land.
The nine buyers who spent the most on Nebraska farmland in the past five years are all corporate farming operations, real estate developers or investment firms, a Flatwater Free Press analysis found.
Jeff Burnett runs one of them. His Wyoming-based operation recently paid $20 million for nearly 28,000 acres of ground on the Sandhills’ southern edge. That purchase made his company the second-largest buyer of Nebraska land, by acre, in the past five years.
Ranch hand Mike Goodman, left, and ranch manager Frank Thompson ride through the prairie grass on a ranch located north of Keystone, Nebraska. The ranch is owned by Jeff Burnett of Wyoming, whose operation recently paid $20 million for nearly 28,000 acres on the Sandhills’ southern edge.
And, increasingly, small farmers like Bill Alward strike out. Alward moved to his wife’s native Nebraska a few years ago and started a small operation raising cattle and hogs near Fort Calhoun.
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He’s trying to expand. He can’t afford it.
“There were some tracts that were available when we first moved here, and I kind of regret not pursuing those because now it’s completely off the table,” Alward says. “I mean, the price per acre … it’s insanity.”
The average price of Nebraska farmland has shot up 41% since 2018, to a record $3,835 per acre, according to a University of Nebraska-Lincoln annual survey.
The buyers of that land — especially the biggest chunks — include multinational corporations, out-of-state corporate farms and out-of-state investors, according to five years of land sales gathered by a UNL journalism class and analyzed by the Flatwater Free Press.
Seven of the top 10 buyers of land are located outside Nebraska, the analysis shows.
Together, those seven out-of-state buyers spent $246 million.
Investor-driven purchases, to some degree, contribute to the overall price increase, said Adam Pavelka, a Hastings broker and farm manager for farm real estate agency Agri Affiliates.
The Flatwater Free Press spent months analyzing 12,700 sales of Nebraska ag land made in the open market between 2018 and 2022, then navigating a maze of limited liability companies that often hide the actual buyer. Among the findings:
The single biggest buyer of ag land by acre in Nebraska is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly known as the Mormon Church, through a nonprofit tied to a P.O. box in Utah.
North Carolina-based Great Plains Farms spent the most money — $65 million — on land. Belltown Farms, No. 2 in money spent, is an organic farming company with operations in Illinois, Michigan, New York and Texas.
Gov. Jim Pillen’s company Platte Center West was among the top spenders after acquiring hog farms. The sale amount included buildings and other infrastructure in addition to the land.
Some farmland purchased is no longer farmland. The sales show real estate developers buying ag land to build homes and apartments, and companies like Facebook and Google spending millions to build data centers.
Oft-rumored foreign buyers like China did not appear in the data, but buyers from Canada and subsidiaries of several multinational corporations, including shipping behemoth ULINE, are among the top buyers of Nebraska land.
There are caveats to these findings. The sales data, compiled from county records and provided by the Nebraska Department of Revenue, contains errors. The records sometimes list the incorrect sale amount and are sometimes duplicated. Flatwater Free Press reporters manually corrected data entry errors when possible.
But the data still offers insight into where these buyers are from.
Four of the five biggest buyers who acquired the most acres in open-market sales are giant, multistate operations headquartered in Utah, Wyoming, Wisconsin and North Dakota.
Out-of-state individuals and companies make up less than 10% of the total number of buyers of Nebraska land in the past five years. But out-of-state buyers are prominent at the highest levels: Nearly a third of the 100 buyers who bought the most land were people or companies from outside Nebraska.
This series, “Who’s Buying Nebraska?” will dive into massive farmland purchases by churches, foreign companies and notable buyers like billionaires Bill Gates and Ted Turner. It will seek to answer who’s buying land and why — and how these purchases shape the reality of modern Nebraska agriculture.
Spiraling land prices are, of course, good for sellers. But the reality is that many buyers who can afford to pay the highest farmland prices don’t themselves plant soybeans, brand cattle or harvest corn.
“Most people can get pretty much the same price for grain, but where competition plays out is who can bid most aggressively for land,” said Chuck Hassebrook, former director of the Center for Rural Affairs. “So it is the price of land that keeps ordinary folks out.”
For as long as there has been Nebraska farmland for sale, there have been land barons scooping it up.
William Scully, an Irishman and one of the original foreign owners of Nebraska land, bought up more than 65,000 acres of farmland in Gage and Nuckolls Counties in the 1880s. Starting in 1888, cattleman Bartlett Richards claimed, bought and, in some cases, illegally fenced an estimated 500,000 acres of Sandhills ranch land while co-founding the iconic Spade Ranch.
But for much of Nebraska’s history, it remained possible for residents to make a living on small plots of land that they owned and passed through generations.
Hooper-area farmer Sharon Thernes, 85, remembers her father raising a family of four children on 80 acres, growing crops and raising cows, chickens and pigs.
Today, she says, it would take 10 times as many acres to support a family that size. And the land would be lined exclusively with row crops, she said.
Technology spurred this transition to specialized monocropping and concentrated livestock production, says Bruce Johnson, retired UNL agricultural economics professor who started and ran the Nebraska Farm Real Estate Report survey for nearly 40 years. It’s one reason, he said, why farm and ranch operations are expanding in size while dwindling in number.
Johnson started noticing this trend toward bigger and fewer ag operations in the 1970s.
It accelerated during the 1980s farm crisis, as more and more farmers sold land amid plummeting crop prices. In the aftermath, some financial management companies began to specialize in farmland investment, wrote sociologist Madeleine Fairbairn in her book “Fields of Gold,” a history of farmland financialization.
Federal government reforms in the next decade provided a cushion for ag producers. It also reduced the risk of farmland as an investment, Johnson said.
Buying up farmland as an investment vehicle picked up steam after the 2008 financial crisis, Fairbairn wrote. Many investors now see it as a hedge against inflation.
In 1982, Nebraska voters passed a law that reined in corporations’ ability to own ag land. But in 2007, a federal circuit court struck down that law, known as Initiative 300. Nebraska now has virtually no restrictions on corporate ownership of land — fewer restrictions than the seven other states that at one point passed an Initiative 300-like law, said Anthony Schutz, a UNL professor specializing in agricultural law.
“Absent some legislative change or something of that nature, I think the investor pool is gonna continue,” said Pavelka.
These investors often hire local helpers — sometimes farm managers like Pavelka — or rent out the ground.
It’s common for beginning farmers to start by renting land. But for Alward, it’s proven a challenge to find the 150 acres he’s looking to lease next year for his cattle and pigs. Having pastures next to each other would save him serious time. Owning those pastures would over the long haul save him money.
Bill Alward, 37, feeds his hogs earlier this month at his farm near Fort Calhoun, Nebraska. Alward thinks his operation could run smoother and ultimately be more profitable if he had more land but can’t afford it.
His dilemma is one understood by many younger American farmers.
About 10,000 young farmers and ranchers surveyed nationwide reported owning slightly more than 80 acres on average, according to a 2022 survey. Nearly half don’t own any land, instead working as managers or hired hands.
Owning land is key, largely because it helps agricultural producers withstand market turbulence, said Hassebrook.
“Even if you’re not super wealthy, that ownership of land … becomes an enormous value to you in weathering the dry years and low price years,” he said.
It can pay for a lifetime, or several. Ranch land is often bought in large chunks and added to existing ranches, Johnson said. That land may stay in a family for generations.
“As you have larger-sized holdings, the … available land to buy and the ownership transition becomes less and less,” Johnson said.
Burnett isn’t looking to sell anytime soon.
His Wyoming-based operation uses the 28,000 acres in Keith and Arthur Counties to graze cattle from spring until fall. The Sandhills is in a different weather belt than other land, and thus offers him drought protection.
A ranch road cuts through the grass of a Nebraska Sandhills ranch owned and run by a Wyoming-based ranching operation.
Technology is another big reason buying large amounts of Nebraska land makes sense for his business, he said. Forty years ago, hauling animals hundreds of miles would have been unimaginable. Now he receives iPhone alerts when his livestock water tanks at the Nebraska ranch run dry.
He wants to make sure he’s building an enterprise with opportunities for the next generation of ranchers in his family.
“We’re long-term players,” said Burnett. “For the cards that I can see today, I would say we’d be more apt to be on the buyer side than on the seller side.”
He doesn’t see himself as an absentee owner, living just across the Wyoming border and visiting often.
The change in Nebraska’s farmland ownership structure, experts say, can have a long-lasting impact on the environment, food production, local economies and the lives and livelihoods of rural residents.
In some eastern Nebraska counties, more than half the farmland is titled to an absentee owner, Johnson said. The latest U.S. Department of Agriculture landownership survey shows that a third of Nebraska agricultural landlords have never farmed.
In neighboring Iowa, 27% of agricultural land purchases last year were connected to an investor buyer, up from 21% in 2019, according to an Iowa State University survey.
These absentee owners do contribute to the local property tax base. But they don’t live in the community, shop at the grocery store or send their children to the local school.
Instead, they extract value from the land and send the profits elsewhere, which can “impair the health of rural communities,” said Jessica Shoemaker, a UNL law professor.
“When an owner is instead an investor making decisions in a boardroom in Chicago or New York, we worry that … (they) may not care as much about local impacts,” Shoemaker said.
A higher rate of absent ag landowners in an area corresponds to lower local employment rate, a 2021 USDA report found.
It’s often hard — but not impossible — for midsized Nebraska farmers to buy land.
In 2020, Hooper farmer Sharon Thernes took out loans to buy 230 acres of land she had rented for more than 50 years.
Sharon Thernes, 85, farms with her family near Hooper, Nebraska. Thernes and her late husband, Louie Thernes, started farming here in the late 1950s.
Thernes’ grandson Tyler now runs the day-to-day operations on her farm. He also recently bought 74 acres himself.
Thernes has spent a lifetime heading out on the family farm “at two o’clock in the morning to see if the cow is having her calf and carry it to the house to warm it up.”
She’s not optimistic that her family will retain that full control for many more generations to come.
“Eventually … it will be huge conglomerates that are owning the farm,” Thernes said. “And our grandchildren will be employees.”
The Flatwater Free Press is Nebraska’s first independent, nonprofit newsroom focused on investigations and feature stories that matter.
Our best Omaha staff photos & videos of November 2023
Jaye’real Coppage 12, dibbles a basketball in the gym at the Salvation Army Omaha North Worship & Service Center located at 2424 Pratt St, on Thursday, Nov. 9, 2023. Paint from the mural on the wall is peeling.
Atlas Swan, 3, helps his mother, Eryn Swan’s plants on the porch of their Bemis Park home on Wednesday, Nov. 8, 2023.
Kids play basketball in the gym at the Salvation Army’s North Corps Community Center, 2424 Pratt St., on Nov. 9.
North Dakota State’s Ryan Sletten (24) tries to stop a Creighton’s Ryan Kalkbrenner (11) dunk at CHI Health Center on Saturday, Nov. 11, 2023.
Police escort a truck carrying the Durham Museum Christmas heads north on I480 toward Woolworth Avenue on Monday, Nov. 13, 2023.
A Union Pacific climbs out of a tree after securing it to a crane on Monday, Nov. 13, 2023.
A sign warning motorists about lane restrictions on Dodge Street at 76th Street on Monday, Nov. 13, 2023.
Creighton’s Steven Ashworth (1) celebrates a three-point basket against North Dakota State at CHI Health Center on Saturday, Nov. 11, 2023.
North Dakota State’s Ryan Sletten (24) tries to stop a Creighton’s Ryan Kalkbrenner (11) dunk at CHI Health Center on Saturday, Nov. 11, 2023.
Nebraska’s Ty Robinson (9) walks off the filed following the college football game at Memorial Stadium in Lincoln on Saturday, Nov. 11, 2023. Maryland won the game 13-10.
Nebraska’s Blaise Gunnerson (97) stretches out to try an block a pass from Maryland’s Taulia Tagovailoa (3) to Maryland’s Roman Hemby (24) during the first half of a college football game at Memorial Stadium in Lincoln on Saturday, Nov. 11, 2023.
Nebraska’s Harper Murray (27) watches as Nebraska’s Merritt Beason (13) misses the ball in the Northwestern vs. Nebraska college volleyball match at the Devaney Center in Lincoln on Wednesday, Nov. 8, 2023.
Brooke Holloway, Matthew McMullen Bill Holloway and Cindy Holloway cross the Red Cedar river on their way to Spartan Stadium prior to a college football game between the Nebraska Huskers and the Michigan State Spartans in East Lansing, Mich. on Saturday, Nov. 4, 2023.
Nebraska and Michigan State fans react differently on a penalty call against Michigan State during the first half of a college football game at Spartan in East Lansing, Mich. on Saturday, Nov. 4, 2023.
Nebraska’s Omar Brown (12) sits in a hall before playing Michigan State in a college football game at Spartan in East Lansing, Mich. on Saturday, Nov. 4, 2023.
Nebraska’s Heinrich Haarberg (10), Nebraska’s Jeff Sims (7) and Nebraska’s Chubba Purdy (12) have a moment in a hall before playing Michigan State in a college football game at Spartan in East Lansing, Mich. on Saturday, Nov. 4, 2023.
A member of the Michigan State marching band drums upside down during the second half of a college football game at Spartan in East Lansing, Mich. on Saturday, Nov. 4, 2023.
Omaha Skutt raises their trophy following the Norris vs. Omaha Skutt Nebraska State Volleyball Class B Championship match at the Devaney Center in Lincoln on Saturday, Nov. 4, 2023. Omaha Skutt won the title in three sets.
Sumner-Eddyville-Miller’s Katelynn Reiter (6) serves the ball in the O’Neill St. Mary’s vs. Sumner-Eddyville-Miller NSAA Class D-1 volleyball state quarterfinal match at the Pinnacle Bank Arena in Lincoln on Thursday, Nov. 2, 2023.
TODAY
Prep Girls Basketball
Seeger at South Vermillion, 5 p.m.
Covington at Western Boone, 5:30 p.m. (varsity only)
Crawfordsville at Fountain Central, 5:30 p.m. (varsity only)
Urbana University High at Georgetown-Ridge Farm, 6 p.m.
Paris Thanksgiving Tournament: Champaign Central vs. Danville, 6:45 p.m.
Salt Fork at Gibson City-Melvin-Sibley, 7 p.m. (varsity only)
Prep Girls Swimming
Attica, Covington, Fountain Central and Parke Heritage at North Vermillion, 5 p.m.
Men’s College Basketball
Marquette at Illinois, 7 p.m.
WEDNESDAY
Prep Girls Basketball
Timberwolf Tip-Off Classic at Cissna Park: Bismarck-Henning/Rossville-Alvin vs. Watseka, 6:30 p.m.
GCMS Tip-Off Tournament: Salt Fork vs. Paxton-Buckley-Loda, 7 p.m.
Men’s College Basketball
Rend Lake College at Danville Area Community College, 7 p.m.
Women’s College Basketball
St. Peter’s at Illinois, 11 a.m.
Franklin College JV at Danville Area Community College, 5 p.m.
ON THE AIR
TODAY
Men’s College Basketball
Wisconsin at Providence, FS1, 5 p.m.
Duke vs. Michigan State, ESPN, 6 p.m.
St. Francis at Penn State, Big Ten Network, 6 p.m.
Marquette at Illinois, WDAN-AM 1490, WDNL-FM 102.1, FS1, 7 p.m.
Illinois-Chicago at Loyola (Chicago), NBC Sports Chicago, 7 p.m.
South Dakota at DePaul, FS2, 8 p.m.
Iowa at Creighton, FS1, 9 p.m.
National Hockey League
Tampa Bay Lighting at St. Louis Blues, Bally Sports Midwest, 7 p.m.
WEDNESDAY
Men’s College Basketball
Merrimack at Ohio State, Big Ten Network, 6 p.m.
Eastern Illinois at Illinois State, Marquee Sports Network, 7 p.m.
Georgetown at Rutgers, FS1, 7:30 p.m.
College Volleyball
Ohio State at Illinois, Big Ten Network, 8 p.m.
National Basketball Association
Orlando Magic at Chicago Bulls, NBC Sports Chicago, 7 p.m.
Note — some events are subject to blackout rules and regulations
CONTACT US
Editor: Chad Dare (217) 477-5151
Reporter: Marvin Holman:(217) 477-5210
E-mail: sports@dancomnews.com
Note — The Commercial-News sports desk is staff Monday through Friday from 5 p.m. until 10 p.m. All results and information should be reported during those times.
CHAMPAIGN — It’s only the first week of the men’s college basketball season, but the Illinois Fighting Illini are already thinking about March and how they can be successful.
On a night when nothing came easy on the offensive end, the Illinois defense stood the challenge for the Oakland Golden Grizzlies in a 64-53 victory Friday night before 15,544 at the State Farm Center.
“On a night when we did make free throws, we didn’t make layups, we didn’t make dunks and we didn’t make 3s … it’s important to find a way to win a game when none of those things go your way,’’ said Illinois coach Brad Underwood. “It was really ugly and I love that. You wish you made a few, but we didn’t. You have to find a way to win ugly games. Tonight, we did that with an unbelievable defensive effort.’’
Illinois (2-0) shot a respectable 47 percent from the field (26-of-55), but the Illini were just 4-of-16 from 3-point range and 8-of-16 from the free-throw line.
Because of those shooting woes, the Illini found themselves trailing the Golden Grizzlies 45-42 with 10 minutes, 46 seconds left in the contest after a basket by Oakland’s Trey Townsend.
Over the next 16 possessions, the Golden Grizzlies managed just two 3-pointers and a conventional field goal as the Illini outscored them 22-8, including a 16-0 run fueled by six points from Quincy Guerrier, who recorded the 14th double-double of his career with 13 points and 10 rebounds.
“We were just locking up on defense, playing together and communicating,’’ said Guerrier, who became a father on Thursday. “My goal is find a way to help us win games.
“Defense is going to be a big key for us to win games. Like today, we were not shooting the ball well, free-throw percentage was terrible. So we have to find a way to win the games when shots are not falling.’’
Guerrier wasn’t the only Illinois player coming up big on both the defensive and offensive ends of the court.
Terrence Shannon Jr., who scored a team-high 15 points, was responsible for holding Oakland’s Jack Gohlke to six points on 2-of-6 from 3-point range. Gohlke had 18 points and 18 3-point attempts in the Grizzlies 79-73 loss to the Ohio State Buckeyes to open the season.
“This is a game that I stressed over a lot,’’ Underwood said. “Gohlke is a difficult defend because he’s always off the ball. It takes a lot of mental focus to handle that and I thought Terrence did a tremendous job.’’
Shannon admitted it was an all-around solid defensive performance by the Illini.
“We did a good job of grinding and defending,’’ he said. “Honestly, teams are going to score. We just stayed locked in and figured out our mistakes. Sticking to our principles and staying solid.’’
That defensive effort not only pleased Underwood, but Oakland coach Greg Kampe was also very impressed.
“Wow, they can guard,’’ he said. “I thought you saw two really, really good defensive teams. We guard goofy and they just go guard you. They took Gohlke and (Blake) Lampman out of the game.’’
In addition to his team-high 15 points, Shannon also dished out five assists and grabbed three steals. Sophomore Ty Rodgers had his third double-figure scoring game of his career with 10 points, while Dain Dainja also had 10 points to go with seven rebounds.
Up next No. 4 Marquette
The Illinois defensive mentality will face one of its biggest tests Tuesday night when the fourth-rated Marquette Golden Eagles come to the State Farm Center for a 7 p.m. contest as part of the Gavitt Games.
“It’s an unbelievable challenge, as I thought it was really going into the Oakland game,” Underwood said. “This is a team that has elite passing, and they’re an elite cutting team. So I think you can’t relax away from the ball. And I think those are two of the important things that we talked about.’’
Marquette (2-0) returns more than 80 percent of its scoring from a team that was a No. 2 in last year’s tournament.
The Golden Eagles backcourt duo of Kam Jones and Tyler Kolek are averaging 31.5 points per game, and last season they combined to score 28 points per contest.
Illinois figures to use Shannon on one of those guards as the senior has recorded five steals in the first two games this season.
“It’s a big reason that we’re as good as we are, is the job Terrence does defensively,” Underwood said. “His commitment level on that end is extremely high.”
Thousands of people pass by the Robert E. Jones Municipal Building on Main Street without giving much thought to who Robert E. Jones might be. Well, they should.
Jones helped lead a fundamental change in Danville’s city government, and helped the community recover from a significant economic loss in strong fashion.
Longtime city residents might remember Jones as the owner of the former Colonial Parkway restaurant or as the 40-year owner of the Dairy Queen on East Main Street. Others might recall the three terms he spent as Vermilion County treasurer.
Jones, who turns 85 this month, received the honor of having city hall named after him through his leadership as the city’s mayor for 16 years. City council members and the public deservedly honored Jones recently with an open house and presentation of a key to the city on Nov. 7.
Jones took over as mayor in 1987, the first mayor elected after a federal court mandated a change in the city’s government as a result of a civil rights lawsuit. The ruling abolished the commissioner positions that had controlled the city and instituted a mayor-aldermanic system that remains in place today.
Jones and members of his new city council had to navigate the change and uncertainty in the wake of the court ruling. As Jones recently told Bill Pickett on vermilioncountyfirst.com, “Well, I think our first term where we had a change in the form of government … all the aldermen worked together. … I think those were some trying times, but we got through them with everyone cooperating and working together.”
That ability to build a coalition among community leaders paid dividends for Jones when, within a decade of his taking the top job, the community suffered the blow of an announcement from General Motors that it would close the Tilton Foundry with its 1,000 or so jobs. Experts estimated the move would mean another 1,000 jobs lost from local companies that supplied and supported the foundry.
City and county officials worked together to combat rising unemployment rates and put together efforts to recruit new businesses, both industrial and retail. Jones likes to push credit for that success — attracting such community mainstays as McLane Midwest, Sygma, Fiberteq and AutoZone, among others, as well as retail development along North Vermilion from Liberty Lane to West Newell Road — to others. But without Jones leading the way for the city, and the residents he pledged to serve, the local economic scene would not be as robust as it is today.
Jones often worked behind the scenes, working to improve the community without thought to personal acclaim. Personal beliefs could be put aside for the greater good. The late Eugene “Radio” Thompson, who served on the city council when Jones was mayor and stood at the opposite end of the political spectrum, often talked about the two working together toward goals meant to benefit the entire community.
Jones always kept the goal of moving the community forward, of progress for as many people as possible, as his priority. His ability to build compromise, where both sides of an issue could see gains, is a skill far too few elected officials share today. He never claimed credit for successful projects, instead heaping praise on others. His satisfaction came from knowing his community was a better place.
Jones’ commitment to the city goes beyond politics. He helped create a dyslexia center housed in the Masonic Temple in 2008 and continues to support its efforts.
We add our good wishes as former Mayor Jones celebrates his 85th birthday. His legacy and its positive effect on the city he loves will continue for years and years to come. Happy birthday, Mayor Bob, and we hope you enjoy many more yet to come.
This weekly update lists new commercial construction, expansions and enlargements of more than $50,000 in Tulsa. Descriptions of work are described where listed.
Commercial building permits are provided by the city of Tulsa on a weekly basis after entities provide information on upcoming building plans.
They are listed by owner, tenant or building name. Listed cents are rounded up or down to the nearest dollar amount.
The Tulsa World runs this weekly list to inform readers of upcoming or planned projects. For questions, email business@tulsaworld.com.
23-163843 — Tulsa Housing Authority-Pioneer Plaza, 901 N. Elgin Ave., addendum (renovation of an historic 11-story high-rise apartment tower. Includes revisions to the building plans for review), $24,719,788.
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This is part of a $53 million renovation by the Tulsa Housing Authority for low-income tenants, likely saving many of them from homelessness, officials said.
Here are other building permits released last week:
23-158297 — Crossfit Eclipse gymnasium, 9233 S. Mingo Road, Addendum, $1,200,000.
23-161563 — Smoothie King No. 2247, 9679 S. Riverside Parkway, alteration (interior renovation of existing space), $280,620.
23-161401 — 126 Garnett Business Park, 126 N. Garnett Road, Unit H, alteration (personal vehicle repair), $525,642.
23-160231 — Little Light House, 5120 E. 36th St., accessory structure (new splash pad), $165,430.
23-164572 — no entity listed, 575 N. 39th Ave., addendum (submit the pre-engineered metal building plans), $4,756,041.
23-146993 — Facility Fire Brothers, Inc. Marijuana Cultivation Facility, 14720 E. Admiral Place, Unit G, alteration (cannabis grow facility – interior remodel of existing lease space. Minor modifications to existing walls, and addition of three flower rooms), $96,699.
23-160680 — Teens Excelling Beyond Foundation, 234 E. 51st Place, alteration, $197,704.
23-153812 — no entity listed, 3637 N. Birmingham Ave., fence (CMU screen wall), $150,000.
23-151951 — no entity listed, 1738 S. Boston Ave., shell building (build out of an existing lot using the existing walls and an infill on lot 1734), $3,177,892.
23-164347 — no entity listed, 2835 E. Skelly Drive, addendum (new construction of early childhood education facility [daycare]. Fully sprinklered. Includes and ICC 500-2014 compliant storm shelter [not public shelter, only intended for use by staff and children at facility]), $2,694,171.
23-154059 — Seminole Hills Apartments, 2014 N. Utica Ave., 2044 N. Utica Ave., 1637 E. Ute St., 2002 N. Utica Ave., 1651 E. Ute St., 2032 N. Utica Ave., 1613 E. Ute St., and 1601 E. Ute St., alteration (revise unit to meet ADA and ANSI requirements), $87,333 each.
23-153852 — Mohawk Manor Apartments, 3771 N. Birmingham Ave., 3769 N. Birmingham Ave., 3766 N. Birmingham Ave., 2528 E. 37th St., 3764 N. Birmingham Ave., 3646 N. Birmingham Ave., and 2530 E. 37th St., alteration (revise first floor of unit to meet ADA and ANSI requirements), $204,327 each.
23-154190 — Seminole Hills Apartments, 1624 E. Virgin St., alteration (remove office to increase recreation area, replace kitchen cabinets and enlarge front toilet room to meet ADA and ANSI requirements), $1,057,276.
23-152840 — CSL Plasma, 824 S. Cheyenne Ave., alteration (removal/replacement existing freezer unit/roof top condensing units. New roof top freezer refrigeration unit/add structural supports. Break room relocation. Locker area modified in area of new freezer. Minimal new flooring/casework) $286,232.
23-163673 — Starbucks Coffee No. 13,634, 9014 S. Yale Ave., alteration (tenant improvement to existing building. New work includes interior and exterior furniture, flooring, paint, lighting, partition walls, plumbing and associated HVAC and electrical work), $294,005.
23-156688 — Express Oil Change & Tire Engineers, 6633 S. Memorial Drive, Unit A, new (new construction of an automotive maintenance and repair shop for non-commercial vehicles. Construction consisting of exterior masonry bearing walls, interior wood framing and pre-engineered wood trusses), $370,385.
23-154034 — Whitlow Town Homes, 1818 N. Rockford Ave., apartments C and D, alteration (revise interior laundry at apartment C to former use of apartment), $149,950 each.
23-153741 — Mohawk Manor Apartments Clubhouse, 3646 N. Birmingham Ave., alteration (replace laundry with offices), $563,761.
23-164582 — no entity listed, 575 N. 39th Ave., addendum (pre-engineered metal plans for distribution facility), $650,000.
23-145423 — SteelTek, 4225 S. Jackson, addition, (permit addition added to existing building without proper permitting. A foundation permit was obtained, no building permit. PEMB was put up in 2020 without authorization), $1,745,726.
23-163242 — Life Time, 10642 S. Memorial Drive, alteration (conversion of five offices into one open office space), $158,190.
23-157295 — Saint Francis Laureate Psychiatric Clinic & Hospital, 6655 S. Yale Ave., alteration (renovation to 1989 building; architectural and electrical updates throughout building; mechanical and electrical updates; renovations in patient care areas on first floor and offices on second floor), $4,019,882.
23-162674 — WPX Building, 222 N. Detroit Ave., alteration (interior buildout of shell space asphalt fuel supply), $2,148,497.
23-163482 — Red Dragon Karaoke, 401 E. Fourth St., alteration (renovating approximately 3,126 square feet into a karaoke bar with no kitchen service), $780,062.
23-161406 — 126 Garnett Business Park, 126 N. Garnett Road, Unit L alteration (bathroom showroom and supplies), $516,251.
This week, the Community Colleges of Illinois launched a new brand campaign, For Every Student, For Every Community, to bring attention to the benefits and opportunities available in communities across the State through local community colleges. We want people to recognize the essential contributions of local community colleges that add up to a stronger and more competitive Illinois and a better quality of life for our citizens.
The message is based on five pillars that are shared by each of the 48 individual community colleges in Illinois. We are individuals with a shared purpose … to make the State of Illinois stronger and create a competitive workforce.
First, on our campuses, everyone belongs. We serve all students and strive to make our campuses welcoming to everyone.
The second pillar is that we are outcomes-driven. Illinois is No. 1 in the nation in terms of its community college students earning bachelor’s degrees and Illinois’ community colleges are the largest providers of workforce training in the State.
Pillar number three is that we open access to more rewarding futures. The State’s community colleges offer affordable tuition, financial aid counseling, faculty mentoring, comprehensive student success services, and flexible class schedules. Community Colleges educate 64 percent of the students enrolled in Illinois higher education institutions.
The fourth pillar speaks to our flexibility, innovation, and agility. We meet students where they are and make the most of their prior learning experiences. We deliver education that’s relevant to workforce needs in the community. We can ramp up and re-engineer programs to help local businesses remain competitive.
The fifth and final pillar is that we’re dedicated and accountable to our communities. We return your investment in us by boosting local education levels, developing new generations of leaders, and being a trusted, proactive partner in local economic development. We are resilient and we help to make resilient, responsible, contributing citizens from our students.
We are launching this new, collective brand message at the same time as most of the colleges are beginning registration for the upcoming spring semester. At Danville Area Community College, we’re offering an Early Bird incentive for those who choose a full-time class schedule for spring. For continuing students, those who have been with us during the fall semester, if you register by Dec. 1, you’ll be automatically entered into a drawing for an iPhone 15 Max Pro. New students who weren’t with us this fall have until December 20 to register. On Jan. 30, 2024, we will draw one name from the continuing student pool and one name from the new student pool, check to confirm that they are enrolled as full-time students, and award a phone to each of them. At last check, each phone is valued at $1,599.
If you are a current student at DACC, there is no reason not to enroll by December 1, and every reason to get in to see your advisor early. If you’ve been considering school, but putting it off, now is a great time to stick your toes in the water. Call it an early holiday gift to yourself. You could win the latest and greatest iPhone by simply choosing not to procrastinate this year.
Please remember that DACC, and all the other community colleges in the State of Illinois are here for every student and every community. We’re here to make life better for you. Now that’s something to be thankful for.
Possible development along U.S. 59 and Blue Creek Road has an El Campo landowner going before the Planning & Zoning Commission.
About 20 percent of the slightly more than 22-acre plot is already zoned for general commercial, but the rest has an industrial use designation.