Rameen: Coming up on City Spotlight, we're on location in Paris for this season five, season finale here on City Spotlight.

We'll get caught up on the latest going on with the Edgar County Community Foundation with Brad Tucker and Joe Hassler.

Then we'll head over to Paris High School and talk with the Assistant Principal at Paris High School, Mark Cox, who highlights some of the programs being offered at Paris High School and we'll then wrap up this episode with a feature on a Paris tradition, the 93rd May Fete.

We're wrapping up season five with an on location episode 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.

And welcome to another edition of City Spotlight.

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

Another episode here on Paris.

We're back at the Paris Public Library.

We were here recently for an episode involving Perk and we're going to start this episode here on Paris talking about the Edgar County Community Foundation here in this first segment and we have two people to help us out, two first Time guests to the program.

We have Joe Hassler and Brad Tucker.

Joe and Brad, welcome to the program.

Brad: Thank you.

Joe: Thank you.

Rameen: Looking forward to hearing your comments about the foundation.

This is not our first time talking with the foundation here on City Spotlight.

Before we go into what's going on with the foundation, you're both first time guests and Joe, can you tell us a little bit about yourself please?

Joe: I'm retired from Illinois, Cereal Mills 20 some years now and have a very successful retirement.

I was involved in setting up the foundation in that there's so much good money that had been earned it in Edgar County that left Edgar County upon the death of whoever happened to be there.

I consulted with two of the key business people.

We started the foundation and since then it's blossomed with the Tigers that we have on the board now.

I've been uninvolved for a number years.

Rameen: Okay, very good.

Thank you for the introduction and Brad, can you tell us a little bit about yourself please?

Brad: I grew up in Edgar County, fifth generation farm on the north central part of the county.

University of Illinois and came back to the farm and had been here for several years, become involved with the foundation and I serve as President of the Board.

Rameen: Okay, very good.

Glad to have you guys both on and Joe, as you just mentioned there, you got things rolling with the Edgar County Community Foundation 25 plus years or so.

What are you most proud of, what it has done in the two to three decades it has done here in Paris and Edgar county?

Joe: Well, there's a whole litany of good things they've done over the years.

We have, as I pointed out, a lot of young Tigers, young by my standards, who have done a lot of good things.

The Board has been very active.

I went to the other primary guy I can think of early on to be the leader who was a Stem Winder named Warren Sperry.

He's still doing that job.

He's like me.

He's getting a little long in the tooth, but he's doing really well.

Rameen: We've had Warren, Mary Liz Wright and Christian Colvin on.

So, this is our third time, if I'm counting correctly here, talking with the foundation and one thing that is currently going and that Christian Colvin mentioned last February when we talk with him and Mary Liz was about the Forever Fund and it's officially going as of now.

Can you guys tell us, remind our audience a little bit again, what is the Forever Fund?

Brad: The forever fund is a new endowment that will basically preserve the principal and never draw on it.

It's very appealing because of its permanence and contributions to the Forever Fund can be attached with memorials, with the understanding that the name or the name will be intact and associated with a fund that's going to be there for a long time.

The grants that we will be able to fund from that will draw on the income, the principal and dividends that it earns.

Rameen: Okay and how can people help or contribute with the Forever Fund?

Brad: The easiest way is to go to our website and the Edgar County Community Foundation website and it's a fairly easy to follow pathway to making donations or contact a member of the Board would be another way to.

We're trying to make it very easy.

Rameen: Reception of people in the community to it being available?

Brad: It's been great.

We know and have seen that a lot of people appreciate this style of a fund because of its permanence.

The principal won't be spent on any particular object or project that the fund will continue to work well into the future and that appeals to a lot of people who are grateful for the institutions and the places and the families that have given them a great start in life or a great place to live and this is a way of paying forward, paying back and paying forward to a community that works hard and we will be able to extend blessings to those that come after us.

Rameen: Another thing that the Edgar County Community Foundation has been doing is providing scholarships.

That's been mentioned here with the previous members that had been on City Spotlight.

Brad: The caretakers of several different agency accounts that are scholarship accounts and we actually manage the process of scholarship selection.

We have modernized that process and there are several scholarship funds that are extended to worthy students through our efforts.

Rameen: In the last year since we talked with Mary Liz and Christian about the foundation, what was going on at the time, any of those things that you'd like to maybe highlight for our audience at home?

A couple of things you involve with Chrisman, the Excel Academy, Music in Paris.

I saw something there with Warren Sperry involving Brett Eldridge and a contribution for music and arts in Paris.

Brad: Well, there's been a very broad spectrum of things we've been involved in, in all corners of the county.

It is a county foundation.

We've been involved in promoting athletic efforts, the school facilities and programming, things that benefit just the health and wellbeing of the community as well as arts and of course with the new Paris High School, we were very involved in trying to raise funds to enhance the development of the new Paris High School.

Rameen: We'll be there for the last two segments of this episode.

Look forward to going back to Paris High School.

Once again, Joe, before we wrap up this segment here with you guys about the foundation, again, you got things rolling and you hear the things that are going on now here from Brad, the Forever Fund, the scholarships, your thoughts on what they're doing right now here in 2019.

Joe: I couldn't be happier with what's happened with the fund.

I couldn't be happier with where it's headed.

It does a lot of good for a lot of people who can enjoy the benefits and the people before them who put something away.

So, it's been a delight for me.

Rameen: Brad, for the audience at home, part of what you guys are trying to do is to improve lives here in Edgar County.

What do you enjoy about being a part of this?

Your the current President of the Board of Directors.

So, what are you most proud of being a part of this?

Brad: I just think it is the opportunity to give back to the place that provided a great education and a great start in life, great work ethic and values for the families, especially farm families like mine and it is an opportunity to pay it forward and try to improve that quality of life for the next generation and generations to follow.

Rameen: And congratulations on your gentleman's efforts from the start till now.

Leadership from 25 plus years sitting right here talking about the Edgar County Community Foundation.

We had Brad Tucker and Joe Hassler.

We appreciate your time here on City Spotlight today.

Thank you.

Brad: Thank you.

Joe: Thank you.

Rameen: Appreciate it.

Coming up next here on City Spotlight, we'll wrap up this episode with a couple of segments over at Paris High School, but first let's take a look at some of the upcoming activities going on in Paris.

[music plays] And we're back here on City Spotlight.

We continue this on location episode on Paris.

As you can see, we've changed locations from the Paris Library.

We are now at Paris High School for these final two segments of this season five finale here on city spotlight and we're going to talk with a first time guest here on the program, the Assistant Principal here at Paris High School, Mark Cox.

Mark, welcome to the program.

Mark: Thanks for having me.

Nice to be a part of it.

Rameen: Glad to be back here at Paris High School.

I was doing some counting mark since this facility opened in 2015. this is my sixth trip over here to Paris High School.

Couple of things we're going to talk about in this segment with Mark.

We've been here and interviewed some people and shot some videos.

So, we're going to talk about that, but Mark, you're a first time guest here on the program.

Can you tell us a little bit about yourself please?

Mark: Well, I am a Parisian.

I was born and raised here, went to EIU.

This is where I came back to in my teaching and career after a couple of other stops and this is my 14th year here at Paris High School, 10th year as Assistant Principal.

Rameen: What other positions have you held here at Paris High School besides Assistant Principal?

Mark: I was in the Science Department here as well as participating in extracurricular stuff outside of the school for community service stuff with younger kids.

Rameen: Okay, very good.

As I mentioned, we've been here at Paris High School for a number of things including the Paris Center of Fine Arts.

So, one thing that we are going to talk about here off the bat, the program involving with Illini FS and Dr. Howard Brown.

We talked with Dr. Howard Brown and had some videos of some students back in April of 2017.

That program is still going on.

They're doing some soil testing involving nitrogen and it'll benefit farmers in the area.

That program is still ongoing.

What can you tell us about how it's going here as we tape here on May 6th, 2019?

Mark: We're happy that we get to be a part of that and our kids get to be a part of a research program that is real life learning.

We probably had 10 to 12 kids that got to be a part of the program on a regular basis.

They conjuncted with FFA.

So, we had FFA kids that would go out with Dr. Brown and do soil testing out in the field.

So, they did field research than we had groups of students that were in our chemistry classes, advanced chemistry classes with Mrs. Brett Block who would do the actual testing in the STEM lab.

So, you had in house research and you had field research and all these kids got to experience that and we're actually meeting with Dr. Brown this week to discuss where we're going forward with it for the upcoming school year.

Rameen: Again, the benefactors for the students to be able to work with someone like Dr. Brown, they get out in the field and they get their hands dirty.

Mark: Great field experience for all these kids and I think with these facilities and the STEM lab that we have, that promotes people to want to come work with our kids and and we're very thankful for everything that we've got here.

Rameen: All right.

We'll talk about your correlation with EIU here in just a second, but one of the other classes you wanted to highlight here at Paris High School is the welding program.

I understand you have a new instructor there.

Mark: We do.

Jim Humrichouse is a recently retired welding teacher from a different district.

He does live in Edger County.

We were grateful that he was interested to come to us.

He works three periods a day and he teaches welding and a couple of other classes.

We've got some kids doing some really neat stuff with Jim and they're doing welding certifications.

They are practicing different types of welds that can help them get into a job when they get out of school.

I do know that Jim told us we have some kids that have taken pre-tests for entrance to different junior colleges and they've scored very high with the welding practices that they've had.

So, it's been really good.

Jim has promoted this and they have done projects and that certification that has led a lot of interest into it and we're actually going to expand our welding into welding two classes in the next year and that's a great attribute to Jim Humrichouse and his willingness to come and teach these boys and girls how to weld at a top notch level.

So, all right.

Rameen: So, maybe a few more sparks flying with the welding classes and we also were here at Paris High School to do a little correlation with Eastern Illinois University.

We were here last school year.

Dr. Gopal Periyannan was here with his grad student.

We taped that February of last school year and they were doing some pretty neat things there in the STEM lab there.

So, maybe talk a little bit about the relationship between Paris High School and Eastern Illinois University and some of the professors, faculty that have helped you guys out there.

Mark: Okay.

That started back before the school even opened and Dan Sheeran is a Paris native, but he works at Eastern and through Dan and former boss Dave Meister and myself, we created a group that we would meet.

We had EIU professors come over and we went over there and met with them to discuss things that we could team up with for kids, not only our kids, but their kids in a teaching type session, research type stuff and it's really grown.

We also have Gopal who has on a regular basis worked with our students.

He would bring his Grad students.

Hashni was one of the regulars who did a great job working with our kids, giving presentations about what research they do and how our kids could participate in that and so, what they did is they worked together and I believe it was probably a year ago or two years ago, a couple of our kids got actually credit and published in one of the magazine's that Hashni and Gopal had presented their research with because they were part of the research itself.

Rameen: I remember during the interview with Hashni and Gopal and they were wowed by the facility of the STEM lab, quite a marvel here at Paris High School.

Mark: It is and I believe we discussed something a few years ago about how we have not reached the full potential of that STEM lab and we still haven't reached the full potential of that STEM lab.

In fact, we will be, or I'm pretty sure we will be hiring a former professor from Eastern, Sheri Leaman, as our STEM coordinator who will help lead the way of what we were trying to do with making contacts with other universities and getting research type projects going and well, I'm very hopeful that will work out.

Sheri's spent the last two years coming over from Eastern, working with Doug Hap, our physics teacher, and doing lots of different types of projects with the kids and she's recently retired and we're pretty thankful that she's willing to come over here and give this a shot and make that grow.

Rameen: Fantastic, exciting times moving forward with the STEM lab here at Paris High School.

Let's dive right into this facility Mark.

As folks know, this is the fourth school year.

So, we have a graduating class here that have been here all four years that the school has been open.

Mark: First class to graduate here after four years in the building.

Yep.

Rameen: Fantastic.

Facility was dedicated here.

The new Paris High School.

I still call it that.

I apologize to the folks at home.

It's Paris High School, but it was dedicated in June of 2015 and as you mentioned, former principal, Meister at the time, he gave me a tour of the facility.

Now four years later.

Does it still wow you?

The facility that you have here for the students here in Paris High School, the community, obviously the Paris Center of Fine Arts has opened up doors for a lot of opportunities.

Talk about your facility that you have here in Paris, Illinois.

Mark: I still think it wows people.

Our Paris Center of Fine Arts and the community do a great job of bringing in acts.

You get compliments from these acts that come here.

They're astonished of what this small community has to offer and are happy to come and do their shows, which is awesome.

Music and our thespians here at school thoroughly enjoy it.

There's a large group of kids that participate in the arts here and we're happy to have that type of complex that we can do this in.

Rameen: The last two spring musicals, we've talked with Tanner Laughlin over there in the Paris Center of Fine Arts during their tech week as they got ready for their musicals and Paris is also a Paris native, Tanner Laughlin is, is still wows him to this day that they have that facility for the talented students here at Paris High School to perform these musicals.

Mark: I think every kid that gets to participate in that, if not during the course of it, afterwards just they're still in awe of what they got to be a part of them and what they got to use and I think we have a lot of things here, just like the STEM lab, the kids that get to go in there and do that research and work with professors from EIU or the staff here, it's amazing.

We have kids that come in from the elementaries that come to a Chem Club through Brett Block and we use the STEM lab for them to get interested in science and promote the program within ourselves.

So, also in any activity that we do here.

Rameen: Before we taped the segment here with Mark, you showed me a new edition on the outside of the building near the ball diamonds.

Tell us a little about that new little addition you have there.

It's a new learning area- Mark: We have extended learning areas in the building, which are actually extensions of classrooms.

Classrooms with walls that open, glass walls that can open and you have a bigger area to go do stuff.

We have this space outside that is a patio, but we've installed with the idea to provide some shade and this is Lorraine Bailey had a great idea for something to be put out there to make it more user friendly and so, we have this big pergola that our maintenance built and now we have kids and students going out there and classes and so, it's an extended learning area that's actually outside.

So, on nice days we don't just have to go to the extended learning areas on the inside and it's beautiful and you've got a beautiful view.

It's calming.

Kids can go out there and relax while they work.

Rameen: Beautiful Day like today.

We had a little video of some students.

I think they were doing some knitting or weaving outside and- Mark: Weaving for the art class.

Yup.

Rameen: Beautiful working conditions.

Mark: Yes.

Why not go outside and do your work if you can, right?

Rameen: All right, very good.

Catching up on the latest going on here at Paris High School with Assistant Principle here at Paris High School, Mark Cox.

Mark, it's been a pleasure having you on City Spotlight.

Mark: Thank you.

Rameen: Thank you so much and coming up next here on City Spotlight, we'll wrap up season five of City Spotlight and this episode on Paris with a feature on a Paris tradition, the 93rd May Fete.

Thanks for watching.

Girls: Flower power.

Flower power, I love it!

Jessica: Hello, my name is Jessica Blair and I'm the Director for the May Fete here at Paris High School.

This is the 93rd year that the school has been doing it.

We are one of two schools that continue May Fete.

So, it's a pretty big tradition that we would like to keep here in Paris.

Tanner: Kayla is the daughter of Amber Vice.

Jamie is the daughter of Melanie and Raymond Chantrell Jessica: What it does is it honors our senior girls.

So, every girl has a big formal dress and is introduced one by one, takes the runway with a red carpet with their best friend most of the time and are setup here and honored for the evening.

Tanner: Hannah Lane Ruth Bowers.

[applause] Jessica: My grandmother was a first grader.

So, they have flower girls that are chosen from every first grade class in town and they also have a junior escort that walks them down the red carpet as well and my grandmother was one of them and then she walked out as a senior.

My mother was a senior, my aunt, me, sister.

It's a big family thing for me as well.

I start coming up with a theme and the song's about October or November and I start piecing it together, changing out songs, trying to figure out how everything is going to flow and then we come back from Christmas vacation and I have all the underclassmen sign up to participate and then we always start the Sunday after the first Sunday in February.

[chair being moved] Announcer:Ladies from the class of 2019, tonight we will jump around as they're underclassmen are ready to celebrate the senior girls.

Jessica: Involved in this production, it is all put on my kids.

I am, yes, the Director.

I oversee, but they choreograph all the routines.

They are in charge.

They put the formations together.

My floor crew and light crew, they put the fence up, they put the lights up, they truly take charge.

This is their production.

We have 164 kids at this high school that will be involved in May Fete Friday night, whether it's dancing, whether it's being a senior girl walking out or a part of our crew, but 164 kids involved says a lot.

So, I've been the Director for 16 years.

My best friend Amanda Fessant, she's no longer with us, but she and I took over 16 years ago and I just keep trucking.

So, it's something the both of us love to do and I just haven't decided to give it up yet.

[patrons entering building] [Ticket Taker]: That's fine.

You have tickets I can take?

Jessica: We will have people lined up at the doors outside around four o'clock.

That's how big of a deal it is.

Doors open at six and they will sit here with excitement waiting for the night to start at eight o'clock and once eight o'clock hits, lights go down, excitement builds.

Those senior ladies will take that red carpet and everyone just has their moment.

We start with an intro dance.

It usually is very energetic and lively about getting a party started, getting the night pumped up and then as soon as that's finished, we will honor the senior girls.

Tanner: Macy Ella Richards.

[applause] Jessica: We will have the junior escorts and flower girls come out followed by our crown bearer and then our Court and Queen, which is not revealed until that moment.

We keep everything a secret.

[horn blowing] Tanner: First attendant to the May Fete Queen, Payton Marie Hughes.

[applause] Your 2019 May Fete Queen, please welcome Aubrey Lee Sanders... [applause] [music playing] Jessica: Following the court, we will have a song of dedication sung by high school seniors to their seniors.

[singing] [music] And then the evening takes off with dances.

Every class and every underclassmen, freshmen, sophomores and juniors, each will be featured in two numbers.

We also have a tumbling act and a maypole and a flashlight dance and once that is all finished, every kid will come back down to the floor and do a finale together and then they will leave the floor and then I invite fathers or special family members to come down and have one last dance with their young lady for the evening.

Paris is extremely protective and proud of May Fete because when we started talking about building a new high school, the community was thoroughly involved and they were asked what is important?

What do we want to keep?

What is something we want to grab a hold of and make sure it continues onto the new high school?

And nearly every single list had May Fete and it doesn't surprise me one drop and so, the community understood that it is something that has to continue and it has and they make sure of it.

This is their night and this is all about them and the last night that is just the senior girls together as one for the last time because graduation is just in a couple of weeks and so, it's just such a memorable moment for them to just take hold of and truly remember for a lifetime.

We had the oldest queen with us that is still with us to, no, last year.

Last year, the oldest queen alive came and we introduced her and she remembered her senior year.

So, it is something that you'll remember forever.

Rameen: 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.

[music plays]