Rameen: Coming up on City Spotlight.

It's another on location episode here in season seven, as we get caught up on the latest going on in Paris.

First, we talk with Linda Lane, Executive Director, Paris Area Chamber of Commerce and Tourism on continued growth in Paris, such as the new hotel off Route One and how the chamber is helping out local businesses during COVID-19.

Then, we talk Paris schools with Paris High School principal Mark Cox on how Paris High School has been operating during COVID.

And a look ahead to spring activities at Paris High School.

We're on location, discussing the latest going on in Paris here on City Spotlight.

[music plays] City Spotlight is supported by Consolidated Communications.

CCI is honored to salute the cities and their leaders in the area, as well as providing TV, Internet, and phone service for the local homes and businesses.

We live where we work, and are proud to support the communities we serve.

More information available at consolidated.com.

Hello, and welcome to City Spotlight.

As you can see, we are on location for this episode.

We are back in Paris for another on location episode.

We are taping both segments in this episode in the Paris Chamber of Commerce offices.

In this first segment, we welcome back to the program, the Executive Director of the Paris Chamber of Commerce, Linda Lane.

Linda, pleasure to have you back on.

Linda: Thank you for having me.

Rameen: Excellent.

We're taping here on late January.

Folks at home are seeing this at the beginning of February, 2021.

We last taped with Linda late fall of 2018.

I think Linda, you had just started with this position here at the chamber.

Linda: Yes, I had.

I just had begun in February of 2018.

Rameen: So you're three years on the job now?

Linda: Yes.

Rameen: Things are going pretty well?

Linda: Yes they are.

Rameen: Okay, excellent.

We're going to talk about the impact of COVID on Paris through the businesses and then how the chamber has helped out.

But first let's talk about the continued growth in Paris, because there's some things that are happening and that have happened.

Late fall of 2020, we have a new hotel in Paris.

Linda: Yes, it officially opened in November.

There are 72 units there, four stories.

Very nice upscale hotel and Paris is very lucky to have that.

We're so excited to have the new hotel.

It was much needed, especially with all the industries and South of Paris on Route One.

So it was very much needed.

Rameen: To name-drop, what chain of hotel is it and where's the location?

Linda: It is a Hampton Inn and it's on South Main.

Rameen: So down there by the industry that you were just talking.

Linda: Absolutely.

Rameen: This had been, I think, maybe talked about maybe previously with Mayor Craig Smith, but how much was this needed?

Linda: It's very much needed.

As I said, with all the industries on that end of town, I think, especially North American Lighting, I know they have visitors from out of country like from Japan and all and so they really, really needed a place.

I think they have some a long stay units on the top floor for those specific people.

Rameen: Right.

Now they have a hotel and it's right there by all that industry down there in south end of Paris.

Very good.

Another addition to Paris that happened in 2020 and right there along the main intersection as you drive through Paris, Rocky's Italian Bistro.

I heard that's jumped off very nicely.

Linda:A very, very good restaurant.

Yes, the location is great.

It's right there on Jasper Street, which is also Route 150.

Rameen: Oh, the traffic goes by there.

Linda: A lot of traffic and Rocky had been working in Paris for quite some time with another restaurant.

He decided to go out on his own and open Rocky's Italian Bistro.

It is real authentic Italian food and I recommend it highly to anybody.

Rameen: Not to be biased here, I have tried it once and it was a good experience.

Linda: It's very good.

Rameen: Very good.

Again, it's at a major intersection.

There's been former businesses there so it's a very familiar spot for people in Paris.

Linda: He opened in July and I think that it's been very well accepted and he has a lot of business so it's great.

Rameen: Nice addition there along Jasper, which is a lot of businesses on Jasper.

Linda: Yes, that's right.

Rameen: Very good.

Something that we've talked about several times here on City Spotlight with a Mayor Craig Smith, a few times, the old Paris High School, after it closed in the spring of 2015, I asked him what was going to transpire or happen to the building.

This is such a big facility and how can you utilize it.

Now, it's going to be some apartments and they're about to open?

Linda: Yes, they are.

They are accepting residents beginning next month in February.

There are 42 units there.

It's a senior, Tiger Apartments is actually the name of it and it is based upon the salary, the income of the seniors.

It's very affordable and we are just excited that they actually took the initiative to use that building and not let it sit as some of the other schools have in town.

So we are very excited.

It's a very nice facility.

I think it's a great location for seniors.

There are stores and services close by so it's going to be very, very, very nice.

Rameen: The location of the old Paris High School is very much near downtown.

Linda: Yes, right.

Then, they're planning an open house, I think sometime in early spring or early summer.

Rameen: Not too long after folks have seen this episode so excellent to hear about the apartments at the old Paris High School.

We can't do a Paris episode without talking about the continued growth of Horizon Health.

They continue to grow in all aspects.

I think there was a Easy Care clinic that opened up their on Route One the last time- Linda: That's correct.

Rameen: ...

I taped involving talking about the businesses in Paris.

Tell us how Horizon Health is continuing to grow.

Linda: Well, of course they have plenty of property there to expand.

One of the needs that they saw was to have a facility large enough that they could have visiting physicians have offices there, very special care providers and that type of thing.

They're building a wing and it's under construction right now so we're excited about that.

Rameen: Horizon Health, the former Paris Community Hospital has been a part of the community for 50 years.

It's been an asset to the community and it looks like it's continuing to thrive over the next 50 years.

Linda: Absolutely.

Rameen: Very good.

All right, let's shift gears here in our latter half of the interview and talk about some things involving with the chamber.

One thing you told me about Linda, while we were preparing for this interview, sometimes when you have people come to Paris, they tell you about, "Well, where's the Eiffel Tower?"

Obviously that's a reference to Paris, France.

I'll let you finish the story.

Linda: It's been a dream of mine and I ran it by the Chamber Board of Directors.

I am going to be speaking to the Park Board and the City Council to see a possibility of erecting an Eiffel Tower.

I have a local resident who is doing a design right now.

It will be approximately 12 to 15 feet tall.

Not huge, but the location we're thinking of, maybe putting it at, is Sylvian Park.

Sylvian Park is on Main Street.

It's actually the corner of Main and Jasper, which is also Route One and Route 150.

They had one previously at Twin Lakes Park, but they had issues with vandalism and so it was taken down.

But I have people stopped by the Chamber Office that have been to Paris, Kentucky or Paris, Texas.

Rameen: There is a lot of Parises in the United States.

Linda: There is a lot of Parises and they'll go, "So where's your Eiffel Tower?

We always get our picture taken with an Eiffel Tower."

That started me thinking.

We need to see about getting one set up somewhere.

I think it would be a great thing for the tourist and to come and see that we do have an Eiffel tower in Paris.

Rameen: Absolutely.

It's passed the idea stage.

It's being sketched.

So when we talk with you next time, we'll see where we're it is as far as progress.

Linda: Yes, great.

Rameen: Very good.

Lastly, let's talk about how COVID-19 has impacted the Paris businesses and something that you at the Chamber have talked about using to help them out is this Shop Local Spotlight.

Linda: We, of course, understand, the hardships that this pandemic has caused our businesses and industries and so we were looking for a way that we could maybe help promote their businesses.

One of the things that I think has been the biggest asset is we started this program called Shop Local Spotlight.

The Chamber purchases a $25 gift card to a restaurant or a business.

When people, the public, visits these locations, they are to take a picture, send it to the Chamber showing that they were there.

Maybe take a picture of their food or the front door showing where they're located at.

They would send it to us via email and then we have a drawing for the gift certificate.

It helps bring traffic in for the businesses.

It's been very well-received.

We actually did this, I think, last summer in June of last year.

It was very well-received and so we decided, they're still going through hard times, we want to go ahead and do this one more time.

They've been very receptive and the businesses appreciate the extra boost.

Rameen: Absolutely.

It's very well known from everyone involved with this pandemic, which has been almost a year now as we're taping here in late January, how the local businesses and a lot of communities, especially in the smaller towns, how they're impacted for the chambers in our Central Illinois area, to be able to be able to help them.

You're a community leader, you're Chamber Director here in Paris, Illinois.

Overall, how has the community navigated, using you as an example to maybe speak on behalf of the community?

How has the community navigated through COVID-19 here almost a year later?

Linda: I think that they have coped very well.

Of course, I don't see behind the scenes.

The businesses and the restaurants.

I know they've all been affected, but the Chamber has thrived.

I can't say much has changed here other than we're not able to have any of our special festivals or events, but other than that we have done very well.

I think the biggest hardship has been with the industries.

If you look, just driving by, you'll see a sign out front and in almost all of the industries, Now Hiring.

The issues they have had is actually with the changes in the compensation for unemployment.

They can draw $900 a week on unemployment versus $600 on their paycheck.

That's really hurt the industries a lot.

That and the contact tracing.

Because they have had employees, like for instance, last week I toured the AeroGen TEK plant.

They have 87 employees there.

Well, because of their precise work that they do, they have had a lot of absenteeism and they've had to have employees step up and work more than one department or fill in for others.

That's been a hardship.

But all in all, I would say that our community is very optimistic, cautiously optimistic actually, but we see things are going to open up.

We're coping and looking at it in a positive attitude.

Rameen: Well, in our first part of the interview with you, Linda, we talked about the growth here in Paris.

It's all there for when things can open back up and hopefully soon, because we know there's a lot of great festivals- Linda: Absolutely.

Rameen: ... and activities that take place in Paris, Illinois.

Linda: Exactly.

Rameen: Linda Lane, Executive Director of the Paris Chamber of Commerce.

We appreciate having you back on City Spotlight again.

Thank you.

Linda: Thank you for asking me.

Rameen: I appreciate it.

Coming up next here on City Spotlight, we'll talk with Mark Cox of Paris High School.

But first let's take a look at some of the upcoming activities going on in Paris.

[music plays] Welcome back to City Spotlight.

As we continue this on location episode on Paris, again, we're taping here in the Paris Chamber of Commerce offices, and we welcome back to the program in this next segment, the principal of Paris High School, Mark Cox.

Mark, pleasure to see you.

Mark: Thanks for inviting me.

Rameen: Pleasure.

Mark: [crosstalk].

Rameen: The last time we taped with Mark, you were titled Assistant Principal so there's been a bit of a title change for you.

Tell us, when did you change over to the principal role?

Mark: It would have been the end of June.

Mrs. Bailey and Mrs. Jones both retired again, so I put my name in the hat for the position.

We were already in the middle of pandemic and fortunately enough, the Board felt that I was the right person for the job so here we are.

Rameen: The previous time we talked with Mark, you're a lifelong, I think, Parisian, as you said, and you've been a part of Paris High School for 15 plus years or so as an educator, most of that has been assistant principal.

For you, Mark, it must give you great pride to be able to lead this high school in your hometown.

Mark: Yeah, I am proud.

It's very exciting to be able to tell kids that are there, that you can do things and you can come back to your community and be a mentor to people or run things and make your community a better place with positions that you can get here just in Paris, Illinois.

Rameen: Very good.

All right, let's talk about your current school year.

As we tape here in the final week of January and folks at home are seeing this for the first time in February, 2021, it's been a unique school year as we've talked to many educators here on City Spotlight in this season, and look forward to hearing your comments about how Paris High School has been educating, teaching, teachers and students have been working.

Tell us about the current school year.

When did you guys start and how have you guys been learning?

Mark: Paris High School, working with both districts, Unit four and Mrs. Young and District 95 and Dr. Larson, spent a lot of collaboration time this summer, along with our department chairs who volunteered their summer vacation time to make plans.

Our plan was to come back and to be in session.

Of course, we do allow people to choose to be remote.

When we started off, we started off at the beginning of the year just like any other year, with the exception of masks and being prepared, socially-distanced, different sanitation guidelines, changes in lunchrooms.

We now have four lunchrooms and three lunch periods as opposed to one lunchroom and two lunch periods.

So, that's different.

But as far as planning, many things went into play here.

But our goal was to be in-person because there's far more need for students to be in-person.

It goes way beyond a book or knowledge-based material.

It's food, it's clothing, it's mentors, it's social stuff.

We felt that those things outweighed the chances that people were concerned with at the beginning.

We just made better plans or made plans to combat that, and it's been going well.

I think we probably have about 80 kids that chose to be remote.

All of our teachers and have the Google Classroom.

Those kids work through Google Classroom and Google Meets.

A lot of our teachers have become really proficient with it.

Lessons are videotaped.

There's hotspots in town provided by District 95 and Unit 4.

Computer leasing can happen for remote kids if they don't have a computer.

They can change their mind at the quarter and come back to in-person.

You can't flow back and forth during the semester.

Students, they do have the right at any point to say, "I want to be remote," but then you have to stay remote until the end of the quarter.

Most of our kids are in-person and we haven't had a case in the building of COVID-19.

We have kids quarantined because of contact tracing, and that's an ongoing thing almost weekly.

But we have a good team in the office.

Missy Tingley, our nurse, is exceptional.

Jeff Barnes is the student services and myself, we all work together.

When we get the call, all the teachers have up-to-date seating charts and the rooms have been modified, spread apart.

We've actually made different classrooms out of different spaces because the classes are too big.

For example, our band with Dr. Pruitt, they are not playing their instruments, but they are learning different types of technology where they can play their instruments at home.

Then, they put it all together.

They meet in the theater where we can space out those 90 kids.

Rameen: It's a big theater.

Mark: We're fortunate to have something like that, to be able to do that.

The Community Prospect Bank, the Turkey Federation here in town, Donny Bartos and Diamond Brothers have all donated the great big tents.

We have outdoor tents with sidewalls where the kids can go outside and take their masks off in space.

We modified our schedule to a block type schedule where so you have less movement.

We only have four periods a day and those teachers know that when the weather's nice, they can take their kids out on a break and they can go underneath those tents out of the elements, take their masks off, breathe for a little bit and go back in.

Rameen: Absolutely.

My initial followup and you've answered many of my questions, Mark, but what I'm thinking here is as we're taping here, 2021, the current Paris High School is the newer Paris High School.

Can you imagine, and you obviously have plenty of experience being in the former Paris High School, imagine going through COVID in the old Paris High School with this newer facility, probably having the more wide open spaces to work with.

Mark: It would have definitely been more challenging.

You don't even have the air ventilation system that we have at the new school, which a lot of schools were talking about changing their HVAC systems to circulate air better.

We already have that so that wasn't a concern that we had.

That would have been a big concern.

And definitely smaller class spaces.

We would had to have a different type of plan in that building, for sure.

Rameen: Absolutely.

When I toured the facility when it first opened there, that summer before that first school year in the new school, just how it was built for the future and who knew that it would come in handy for something like this?

Mark: Yeah, for sure.

Rameen: You told me how the school year has gone.

Again, talk about the individuals in the building.

You're the principal, but you have all the students, you have the staff, the teachers.

Talk a little bit about their flexibility to make this all work.

Mark: Well, I would simply just praise all the teachers, and in not just at Paris High School, Unit 4, District 95, they're all working tremendously hard.

Some have larger learning curves than others to do remote type stuff.

District 95 provided great professional development stuff at the beginning of this year for Google Classroom and to be proficient at being able to use that.

We already had seven to 10 teachers that were using Google Classroom on a regular basis at the high school when the pandemic hit.

When that started back in March, we had an in-service day, the day before the governor shut us all down, and we spent the whole day setting up everybody else with those teachers being in charge of showing people how to do that.

Then, a lot of them took their summertime to collaborate so we all were on the same page.

Now, I mean, most of them, they're just rolling with how this goes.

But it's a lot more work.

We changed our schedule.

Kids get out earlier, 2:45.

The last hour of the day, every day, is remote learning time for staff so they can reach those remote learners or talk to them or call them if they're not getting information back in a timely manner.

Stuff like that.

Rameen: There's just a couple of minutes left, Mark, and I want to ask you about, lots of activities typically take place at Paris High School in the spring and throughout the year.

Ironically, we taped last February-ish with the Paris band there so I'm kind of seeing how things might be functioning as you described, how they're playing.

But tell us about the sports, the musicals, and of course, the big one, which I'm sure they were all affected.

Last spring and May Fete, how are they impacted in this current school year?

Mark: Currently things are being planned to be virtual but we are ahead of the game.

All our early grads have already had their pictures taken in their cap and gown in case we need to be virtual.

Then, as we move forward, the rest of the seniors will get their pictures taken and we'll have something prepared in advance, if we can't.

If we can be, some outside.

We'll be outside.

We just have to wait and see, and we have to be prepared for different options.

We're doing meetings with student council members and school sponsors to discuss what are our options.

We've already met with May Fete.

We already have a May Fete court.

Those senior girls met with their sponsor and with administration.

We have a plan for a virtual May Fete.

They will get to walk down the red carpet at scheduled times and it will get recorded.

We will put that together.

If it allows, we will have a May Fete in-person.

It will be different because they can't have the practices that they did for the different skits throughout that.

But there will still be things that we can do in the virtual one that you can do in person, if that's possible.

All that planning is happening now.

Rameen: Final thoughts on the entire school year, and again, the community for not just you praising the teachers, staff and the students, again, the community for making this all possible and the students being able to learn.

Mark: Final thoughts on that?

Rameen: Yeah.

Mark: It takes a village and you're seeing it happen.

I don't know what to say.

You have people in the community that come and bring food for the kids that need food.

We have homeless shelters that are helping with the homeless kids, masks, clothes.

On top of that, people are still trying to learn and move forward.

Our alternative learning site through District 95 has been awesome as well.

Some of the overflow that we might have or kids that were at risk that got really behind when pandemic started, have an opportunity to try to catch up cut credits, and recover to get back on pace where they need to be to graduate.

Rameen: Mark Cox, principal at Paris High School.

Appreciate you sharing how the school year has gone during these interesting conditions.

Mark, we look forward to talking with you again down the road.

Mark: Thank you.

It's nice to be here.

Rameen: Pleasure.

That'll do it for this latest City Spotlight episode on Paris as we've been on location here at the Paris Chamber of Commerce.

Thanks for watching.

We'll see you next time.

City Spotlight is supported by Consolidated Communications.

CCI is honored to salute the cities and their leaders in the area, as well as providing TV, Internet, and phone service for the local homes and businesses.

We live where we work, and are proud to support the communities we serve.

More information available at consolidated.com.

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