by Steve Dunford

I have struggled whether or not to write this or not.  I am going to get a little personal here.

If there was not Jerry Kill, I am confident that McAndrew Stadium would have succumbed to the wrecking ball.  Not because Saluki Stadium was built, it would have been SIU would have dropped football.

During his nine year tenure, I kept a very close eye on Saluki Football.  I went to at least one game a year.  It was great to see the program at the top of the heap of the Gateway Conference (now the Missouri Valley football conference) as well as being one of the top programs in division 1-AA.  (I still call it that)

He is my hero not because of his rise from Emporia State, to Southern Illinois, then he landed his first D1 job at Northern Illinois then Minnesota, went to the athletic office at Kansas State, and now he is back in the Big 10 as Rutgers offensive coordinator.

As an alumnus, I take pride in the coaches that have advanced in their coaching careers after leaving Southern Illinois.  I root for Purdue in basketball because of Matt Painter.  It is still a sore spot after the Fighting Illini fired Bruce Webber.  I now root for K-State.

I shared his impressive résumé of his coaching career.  The reason why he is my hero?  We both suffer from seizures, only a different type.

He is diagnosed with epilepsy.  For a few years they thought I had it.  My seizures are migraine induced, from the result of a moderate stroke I had back in 2010.

Talking with a lot of men over the years, they tell me there is a time their heart gets softer.  This usually occurs after a mid life crisis, which I believe all men go through at a certain extent.

This could also be from all of the things that I have gone through neurologically, but I tear up at the drop of a hat.  On my walk here other day, I came up on a kitten that was ran over.  It brought tears to my eye immediately.  There was no one around in the houses I came up on.

The day he had his last seizure on the sidelines, I noticed it on the crawl below, as I was working on the website, and when the crowd would get loud, I would stop and watch a few plays.  I am secure in my manhood to admit it made me cry.

His latest seizure is not like anything in the past, and he was calling plays from the sidelines.  Here is a link from New Jersey Online with the story.

http://www.nj.com/rutgersfootball/index.ssf/2017/09/jerry_kill_seizure_at_rutgers_last_week_nothing_li.html

I have only shared this with my pastor Lloyd Whittaker and his wife Karen one Sunday night after church.   At one time they held season tickets for SIU football and basketball.  We got on the subject of when Coach Kill had the first seizure on the sidelines against ISU.  It was a blowout and they left early.  As soon as they got to their vehicle, they heard Mike Reis tell about it and the longtime voice of the Salukis was shook up.

I told them this story that night and I have not shared it with anyone else.

There was one Saturday afternoon, I was feeling very rough and just got out of the hospital.  I was feeling sorry for myself.  I was watching a Minnesota game on the Big 10 Network.  It hit me if Coach Kill can go on you can to.

That was one event in several that had me change my mindset.  I lost a vision for my life.  I thought this is it.  My life is going to consist of the only thing I can be is a couch potato watching TV.

The day my license was pulled I thought life was over.  I have adjusted.  I shared this in another column a few months ago.

Anything you face, the Apostle Paul said his (Jesus) grace is sufficient.  If you do not have a vision for the future, you are living and not existing.

I am going to share a couple of verses that talk about vision

Proverbs 29:18  Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he. (KJV)

Have you a vision, do not deter form what the truths are in God’s word.  This is were true happiness comes from, following God’s plan for your life.

When you have a vision write it down,

Habakkuk 2:2  And the Lord answered me, and said, Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it.

You know who will be reading that vision, it is you.  I have wrote several down on yellow legal pads at first.

Here are a couple visions that I have.  First, is to have short podcasts that I would put online interviewing local coaches, which is a need around here.  The only coaches that are interviewed in the county on a weekly basis are Ron Winemiller and Bob Pankey.  It would not be a show, it is something that will be posted online 24-7.

The next is one day I plan on writing a book.  When you are limited on what you  accomplish, it robs you of your manhood.  It is something that is impossible to totally understand if you have not been there.

The basis of the book will be encouragement not to give up and don’t let it destroy you.  There is light at the end of the tunnel.

The turn around in my life started that afternoon by seeing Coach Kill on the sidelines.  That is the reason he is one of my heroes in life.

 

 

 

 

 

 

by Steve Dunford

One of the best ways that I can find out what is happening in the world and getting links to potential stories is to troll social media.  I only do Facebook and Twitter.  I am on Instagram, and still don’t know how.  I don’t plan on getting a snap chat account.  I want to make inroads with people, and not scare them away with my selfies.

I always go through the memories part.  I came across this post about an hour ago.  It was when Jim Muir launched this website.  Here is a link to the initial story that was ran on this webpage.  Click on the link below to read this.

Welcome to franklincounty-news.com

I can tell you exactly where I was when I read this post.  I was sitting in what was an office/den that I had.  I was watching Cardinal Baseball on a portable TV and was scrolling trough Facebook.

Five years later, I had no idea that I would be working on this website, let alone a member of the media.

My life has changed drastically since that time.  I lost my drivers license because of health issues.  I live alone.  I live in West Frankfort now.

I know I butcher the English language bad at times, but when I look back at things that I have written from the day I started until now, I have came a long way.

I was a C English student in College.  I had to take the ACT four times in High School for two reasons.  First I was trying to get a 25 to become an Illinois State Scholar.  Second to get my English score high enough to avoid taking remedial English at Rend Lake College.

I never had one journalism class in my life, but I hope that over the nine months that I have worked on the site, is to give you the news and information that you the people of Franklin County need to know in your everyday lives.

I know the owner-publisher Jim Muir went into this field at mid life as well.  He did what most people did in Franklin County at the time after high school, or shortly after, went to work in the coal mines.

When Old Ben 21 shut down, Jim reinvented himself, and through taking some courses at Rend Lake College became a long time award winning member in print and broadcast media.

There are days that I wonder how I am going to keep the website full, and there are days that I am like where do I begin.  Today, is one of those where do I begin days, and I love every minute of it.

I might not drive, but at one stage or another, I have had ties with nearly every community in this county.  There is not a back road in the county that I have not traveled.

I want to give recognition to who recognition is due, and want to know what is going on in each of your communities.  You can contact me by sending me a message on Facebook. e-mail me at sdunford1970@hotmail.com, call me at 937-0253, or send me a text at 513-1274.

To continue and improve, we will need some more sponsors of this site.  An aggressive advertising campaign will be launched soon, with possibly an account executive that will be added.  The website has over 5,000 followers on its Facebook page, and an average of 25,000 households, on any given week, will be reached in Franklin and the surrounding counties.

At this time, this website is the only daily publication in Franklin County.

The sky is the limit for potential growth.  I want to thank all of you whether reader or advertiser, for the past, current, and future success of this website.

I also want to thank you all for over the last nine months in the confidence you have placed in me for giving you accurate news to the best of my ability, especially in the crisis and emergency situations that we as the people of Franklin County have faced over the last nine months.

As a reader, and over the last few months as a news/sports reporter it has been an excellent five years, again thank you.

 

.

I Am A Coach’s Wife

(Renae Zimmer-  Here is an excerpt from her blog.  Please click on the link to read the full story.  Here is an excerpt.

I am a coach’s wife.  I signed up for it, back when we were young and stupid and didn’t have a penny to our name.  I said yes to an awesome guy and yes to being a coach’s wife.

I love sports, that is the beauty. I can follow my husband’s job and cheer on his team.  I’m invested.

Some of the disadvantages, however, are seeing the struggles of coaches these days from all levels, but on the high school level, it can be brutal.  We have seen the good, the bad and the ugly in the past 20 plus years.

 

 

by Steve Dunford

Tomorrow night Friday Night Lights begin.  I am pumped as it is my second year of covering High School football.   Before then, I have been a stringer on a few games.

I have been to a few games before, but this is the day I fell in love.  I was at the old football field in Zeigler for a state semi-final game in 1982.  Through the playoff trail, I began to follow the Zeigler-Royalton Tornadoes in the pursuit of the class 1A State Championship.  Before that day, I have listened to every playoff game, as Mike Murphy followed them on WJPF.

After That, I spent a lot of Friday nights at Tabor Field and Johnson Field, it was according to whether Benton or West Frankfort was at home.  If both of them were, several of us from Thompsonville would pick the best game.   If both were on the road the gang of us that would be somewhere every Friday night we could, made a couple trips to Christopher, Sesser-Valier, and McLeansboro (before the Hamco days.)

If you have in the past or you are taking the field tomorrow night, you have an opportunity that I wish that I had, the chance to play high school football.

I was putting on a flag football clinic my senior year at Thompsonville High School in P.E. class.  I just passed for something like my sixth touchdown.  The teacher/AD/head basketball coach said the superintendent at the time, O.J Thompson, who played for the Denver Broncos in the 60’s  went over his head and entered a co-op agreement with West Frankfort.

The next thing out the P.E. teachers mouth was, if you are going to be a Redbird, you will not be a Tiger.  I said it is too late for me.  He then said Dunford and went on a two minute tirade, and the only think I can repeat was he called me a pretty boy and a sissy.

I told him, even if I had a “Rudy Moment” (not exact quote at the time, the movie came out several years later,) I would love to put my helmet on and run on the field one time.

The co-op ended when West Frankfort left the South Seven to become part of the Southern Illinois River to River.  Later Thompsonville and Crab Orchard had a co-op with Johnston City.  When it bumped JC from 2A to 4A, and a playoff date with Mt. Carmel, the co-op ended the next year.

Several years later, I had the awesome opportunity to speak to some high school football teams.  I use the Rudy illustration.  I tell them it was a privilege that I did not have.

I received a text from my son in the summer of 2015.  He told me that he was going out for football.  I told him even if you get in one game on special teams, you will fulfill something that I wished I could.

Tomorrow night, I will be in the press box at Johnson field covering the West Frankfort-Anna Jonesboro game.  Because of logistics, my coverage will be heavily on the Redbirds.  However, I will write the story as I am covering the game for both teams.

Each week, I will do a preview of each game of the four programs in Franklin County.  I am going to release the pre-season preview for the four programs either tonight or tomorrow.

I had Monday slated to contact all the coaches in the SIRR Ohio and Black Diamond and preview the whole conference.   I had this on the docket for Monday, but I was a little busy giving traffic reports from places in Franklin County that I never have before.

I have reached out to all four opposing coaches of the counties four programs.  I will hopefully release an SIRR Ohio preview between weeks three and four.  With the Black Diamond, I will have a more extensive preview of the first matchup against C-Z-R or S-V-W-W.

I am pumped  about the start of the season.  For those who will be taking the gridiron as a Devil, Bearcat, Ranger or a Redbird, remember that not only are you an ambassador for your school, but for the whole community as well.

 

 

 

by Steve Dunford

My mom had a saying that drove me nuts as a kid,  if wishers were horses, beggars would ride.  This means people who sit around saying I wish, and never accomplish anything.

This is how I am going to handle the coverage today.  I will be going outside around 11:00 a.m. and look at the sky every 15 minutes or so.  If there is anything to report, I will post it.  Around 1:00 p.m. I am going across the road to the parking lot of Calvary Baptist Church.  I am going to watch the show.  Then, I will follow the same pattern until daylight is restored.

Yes, I started as a sportswriter.  However sharing the news to the people of Franklin and surrounding counties is very fulfilling.  I have never felt more in the will of God than I have right now in this stage of my life.

When I shared a little over a week ago, how communications were strange in 1979 during the partial eclipse, I would be leery if near the event that cell coverage would be weak.  In a perfect world, this is how I will spend the day.

I would love to be out on a lake or a farm.  If on a lake I would love to monitor how the fish would bite before and after the eclipse.  My curiosity would be if channel cats would be feeding right before it.   The perfect spot, would be one of the West Frankfort lakes.  It has been years, but I know in the past where fish bed and where catfish run.

I would love to be on a farm to watch how the livestock behaves, especially if the roosters crow after it is over.

Actually, I am more curious how nature behaves, than the eclipse itself.  Being a weather nerd, I am wondering how the temperature drops, and will the storms be more intense tomorrow.  I am not making a forecast, this is out of curiosity.

God is going to give us an awesome light show today.  Get out and enjoy it, if possible.

 

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ct-rauner-schools-madigan-cullerton-edit-0730-jm-20170728-story.html

From the Chicago Tribune Editorial Board.  Please click on the link for the full story.  Here is an excerpt below.

For Illinois households with school-age children, August is not simply a month on the calendar. It is closure and reset. Sleepovers taper off. Bedtimes get earlier. School shoes displace flip-flops. Wet bathing suits yield to pleated pants.

The sweet back-to-school ritual is unfolding across Illinois, even as lawmakers in Springfield jockey over legislation — a fight that could jam a shiv into the August calendar. Without agreement on an education funding bill, schools might not be able to open on time. Yes, parents, while you’ve been preoccupied with lemonade stands and summer camps, Democrats in Springfield have been jeopardizing the timely opening of schools.

Democrats and a handful of Republicans supported a budget in early July that tied money for schools to a controversial rewrite of the school funding formula, which they had approved May 31. On top of that gamble, the Senate refused to send the rewrite package to Gov. Bruce Rauner‘s desk. Two months have passed with no action, only dueling press conferences and noisy insults.