Christmas on Route 66

Even though everyone celebrates Christmas differently, the town of Atlanta, Illinois had a fun event for people of all ages. The Atlanta Christmas Weekend festivities were held on November 27th and 28th. To start off the event, the Holiday Market was set up inside the Union Hall. Perfect for small businesses, there were booths that sold woodworking, crafts, jewelry, and more. Before the parade on the 28th, Santa came to visit the children and granted all of their holiday wishes! Also, guests enjoyed complimentary cookies and hot chocolate while waiting for the parade to start. The parade was held at 4:30 along Historic Route 66 and showcased many amazing floats and cars beautifully decorated with the Christmas spirit! Local businesses were invited to have a car or float, with a prize for the best decorated. The best float, a Christmas movie theme, was made by the Logan County APA, and the best car, a Grinch theme, was made by the Atlanta Public Library. Congratulations to these organizations!   READ MORE...

Area Christmas Church Service Schedules.  READ MORE...

The Mackinaw Mail sat down with organizers for the upcoming Mackinaw Fest to discuss plans currently in the works and the dire need for volunteers. Larry Morgan and Dustin Schmidgall  explained that crowd size at the event has been dwindling the last few years, while also acknowledging that Covid was a big part of that effect. In order to turn that around, something new needs to be tried.  READ MORE...

The village of Minier hosts a variety of Christmas-themed events. Just last week the annual Christmas Parade was held and now coming up on Tuesday, December 7th the Holiday Kids’ Craft Party is being held at the Minier Library. This event is a great place to get your kids into the holiday spirit and celebrate Christmas with some fun activities.   READ MORE...

Senior, Andrew Fishman, at Olympia High School is running a supply drive for the homeless. This fundraiser is all student-generated by Andrew. The donation drive works through the Salvation Army from 11/19 to 12/20. The Salvation Army allows for a bed and warming center for the needy, especially during the winter months. They have 33 beds and around 90 additional people who also stay for the night. With all the goods collected, Andrew will be filling bags for each person, making his goal of at least 123 bags.   READ MORE...

With the uncertainty of imports and their cost being so high right now, it would be easy to think that all areas of agriculture are taking a hit and struggling through this year. However, one specific area of agriculture is doing really well right now. That area is the exports from the dairy industry. Dairy exports are on track to hit new records as we close out this calendar year. The United States dairy industry mainly exports to China, Canada, and Mexico. There are 133 total countries that received U.S. exports. China has been buying lots of dairy products recently. Throughout the first half of 2021, U.S. dairy exports to China increased by 32%. This is excellent news not just because of the increase in profit, but because of the concerns and challenges the dairy industry faced mainly in 2020.  READ MORE...

“Father, son and House of Gucci.” What is possibly one of the most memorable lines in recent movie history for me. Star of the film Lady Gaga (“A Star is Born,” “American Horror Story”) ad-libbed the line. She said, "I would do it in the trailer all the time. I was doing it in the trailer and then something about that scene when we were doing it felt right. We did it, and it's a testament to [director] Ridley Scott as a director because he uses the stuff. He uses the creativity. He uses the love."  READ MORE...

The college football world was shaken up last Sunday afternoon after Oklahoma Sooners head coach, Lincoln Riley, announced that he will be the head coach at the University of Southern California next season. After last weekend’s loss to the Sooners’ rival, Oklahoma State, Riley was asked to comment on the many rumors that he was set to become the next head coach at Louisiana State University. Before the inquiring reporter could even finish his question, Riley stopped him and said, “Let me stop you right there, I’m not going to be the next coach at LSU.” Oklahoma’s loss last weekend was their first loss to Oklahoma State since 2014 and the Sooners will be missing the Big 12 championship game for the first time since 2003. Although this was a devastating loss for Oklahoma, Riley’s postgame interview gave the Sooners’ fans hope that their successful young coach would be staying in Norman. Unfortunately for them, Riley had other plans. He didn’t lie to his team and his fans at Oklahoma in his postgame interview, he just didn’t tell them the whole truth.   READ MORE...

Olympia High School’s winter sports are now in full motion, most having begun their season last week and continuing into this week. Multiple of the teams have had early successes, showing promise for the season to come.  READ MORE...