City Beat

       STICKER SHOCK! My wife was putting the renewal sticker on the license plate on her car when she glanced over at the license plate on my car and was shocked by what she saw!      The new 2025 sticker was missing from my car’s license plate!      I had ordered it online in November and the…

     Operation Enduring Support continues to do so much to make the Christmas holidays cheerful for our service men and women who are serving on foreign soil and at sea.      Ann Irwin of Decatur is the director of the OES and she sent me the following update:      “Operation Enduring Support, with our community’s help, sent…

     Each year, as December 7th nears, I publish a reminder of that awful day in 1941, when Japanese planes attacked the U. S. fleet in Pearl Harbor — and plunged this nation into World War II.      That’s the reason for retelling the story of the attack on Pearl Harbor in this week’s “Scrapbook” feature on…

     The tall, ornate building pictured on the front page of this week’s Decatur Tribune is the James Millikin Bank Building in downtown Decatur in a 1907 photo.      I wasn’t around in 1907, and wouldn’t be born until several decades later, but when I started my publishing business in Decatur in 1964, the Millikin Bank Building…

     The photo on the front page of this week’s print edition of the Decatur Tribune brings back a lot of memories for me and I am sure for a lot of you reading this column today.      The Wabash Train Station on East Cerro Gordo Street was a memory-maker that left such vivid impressions that, decades…

     As I’m writing this column, it has been a week since the General Election was held and I think most of us are ready for “politics” to take a back seat to football, basketball and the approaching holidays.      It’s time to “unwind” from all of the campaign comments, polls and pleas for political contributions.      Since…

          The Big 2024 Election is now over and it appears, as I’m writing today’s column that Donald Trump will be the 47th President of the United States.  Hopefully, the political temperature in our country will cool a little and people will have a more positive attitude.  The political talk the past year has…

     As I’ve mentioned before in this column, October is one of my favorite months of the year. I like the crisp air, the special way the sun shines on familiar places in the community, the changing color of leaves and football season.      This year, October has passed like a speeding car and it is at…

         Several of the conversations I’ve had with some of our local readers the past few weeks involved the increase in their property tax due to reassessment. I’ll have to admit that I was also somewhat shocked that the property tax on our home went up about 20% due to a reassessment of its…

       YOU SHOULD KNOW — Today’s print and online editions of the Decatur Tribune is a little thicker than usual — 40 pages — and is printed in two sections.      The 16-page second section contains the annual list of properties in Macon County that are delinquent in 2023 property taxes. The list is a necessary…