Benton will never be the same.

Sparky Choisser’s fingerprints are on every facet of this community. He was totally involved in every cause, every project and every campaign. Sparky was not only a doer, but he was an accomplisher. He didn’t waste the vast amount of energy he expended as he hurried about from early morning until late at night. Be it Ranger basketball or Benton city government, Sparky always covered the scene in a very special way. He was energetic, yet disciplined; hurried, yet directed; intense, yet measured. Sparky was one of those most unusual characters — the kind a Rockwell might draw or a Hemingway might describe. He was Benton … through and through.

When I was in high school, I was involved in all kinds of extracurricular activities.

Band, tennis, basketball, student council, scholastic bowl, the school play — I even helped build a few Homecoming floats and decorate some gymnasiums in my day. You name it, I was in it — or in on it.

Have you ever experienced a Seinfeld moment?

It’s one of those situations in life that could have come directly from an episode of “Seinfeld.” I have Seinfeld moments all the time — so many, in fact, that my best friend tells me, quite often, “You watch TOO much ‘Seinfeld’!”

By now the Christmas trees are brightly decorated, inflatable Frosty snowmen adorn the lawns, outside lights twinkle, the poinsettias are in place, children’s programs have taken place in church and at school and we are settling in to celebrate Christmas 2008.

Usually, I tend to be one of the biggest procrastinators around. I have to wonder: Why do today what I can put off ’til tomorrow — hoping all the while that, somehow, whatever task I was/am putting off might somehow get canceled, forgotten or, in the best-case scenario, completed by someone else?

(Also, there’s always the possibility that the world will end tomorrow. That’s a little bleak for my generally optimistic outlook, obviously, but it fits in nicely with my procrastinatorial tendencies.)

Earlier this week, our parent company, GateHouse Media, informed all its newspapers that employees were being required to complete online training courses in “Code of Conduct” and “Preventing Workplace Harassment.”

My sister got me hooked on the Beatles when we were in grade school.

Granted, by the time we started playing songs by the Fab Four, they had already broken up. Paul McCartney was probably performing with Wings by then, John Lennon and Yoko Ono were no doubt staging sit-ins, and as for George Harrison and Ringo Starr ... well, who knows, really?

Debra and I were blissfully unaware of the split, and we played her Beatles albums over and over. We even turned the dolls from the Star Trek collection that my father had given us for Christmas into Beatles figures, making them guitars and drums out of cardboard. (And, oh, as a “Boston Legal” fan now, what I wouldn’t give to still have that seven-inch replica of a young William Shatner/Denny Crane!)

By now, most everyone has made up their mind on who they are going to vote for in the upcoming election. We have choices in some races and others are unopposed — or as my friend and former Benton Mayor Charlie Smith would say, “They found a bird nest on the ground.” While we have spent a considerable amount of time looking over the candidates and making our choices, there are a couple of ballot issues that need to be looked at.

I didn’t have the luxury of growing up in Benton, so I can’t claim to have known the excitement of a Benton-West Frankfort Turkey Day football game. Nor do I wax nostalgic over Twin Oaks.

However, I have seen plenty of thrilling games between the Rangers and their arch-rivals — including that Saturday afternoon game back in 2002 when Benton knocked off the previously unbeaten Redbirds 23-20 to move on in a somewhat unexpected drive to the third round of the state playoffs.

You might not know it to look at me, but I’ve been a small-town girl my entire life.

Granted, I’ve spent a few days at a time in The Big City — an occasional jaunt to Chicago to see the Cubbies, three or four trips (one time by accident!) to Las Vegas, a venture to Dallas several years ago to see one of my best pals — but for the most part, I’m much more comfortable in towns no bigger than Carbondale.

So, quite honestly, I wasn’t quite prepared for New York City. Specifically: Times Square.

Pardon me if I seem a little out of sorts today.

I appear to be suffering from an Olympics hangover.

For the better part of the last two weeks, I have been channel-surfing (hey, too bad THAT’S not an Olympic sport!) NBC affiliates to keep up with the current athletic events going on in Beijing. Thanks to the network’s wall-to-wall coverage, as well as the Internet for actual “live” results, I have been able to watch at least a little bit of every sport I hoped to see.

It started out like any other Wednesday.

Then I got a call from Chief Mike O’Neill inviting me to ride along while members of the Benton Police Department worked a railroad detail in town with representatives of Union Pacific.
“Absolutely!” — or something like it — was my reply.

I have always liked — and at the same time, somewhat feared — trains.

Don’t you just hate it when somebody warns you against something, and you fail to heed the warning — and it turns out they were right?

Did that Benton Football sign on the fence at the practice field have anyone else scratching their head this summer? I would drive by and wonder what that big “P4R” stood for. That’s even the signature on text messages from Benton football coach Jeremy Clodfelder.

Being of an inquisitive nature, I racked my brain trying to figure out what “P4R” stood for on my own. I came up with:

Every 20 years, Illinoisans are treated to the opportunity to vote on have a constitutional convention or not. The last time we had a constitutional convention was in 1970.  We had the opportunity to vote on the question 20 years ago and voted down the idea. I find it extremely disturbing that most of the opponents of the question this year were around back then telling us we never had it so good and that we should not change anything. I thought maybe it would be a good idea to do a list of the top 10 reasons on why those of us who pay the bills in this state should vote to call a constitutional convention in this year’s November General Election.

All of the fanfare of the recent special session of the Illinois legislature has died down by now and the reality of how bad things really are is starting to sink in. Those we elect to do the people’s business have failed us once again. In fighting and bickering, Democrats have continued to put this state in jeopardy. Despite the constant cheerleading of SIU President Glenn Poshard and former U.S. Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, we are no closer to having a capital building plan than we were three years ago.