President's Letter

Recently I had to clean out my office at Mac Murray College where I taught history for thirty-four years. This task appeared formidable to me because, to paraphrase Will Rogers, "I never met a book I didn't like." In addition to amassing several thousand books, I had also subscribed to fifteen journals. Of course, I thought about the MacMurray Library and donated numerous boxes of books to their collection and to their annual sale. What I didn't immediately think of was the needs of the public schools. At a recent meeting of the Board of Directors of the Morgan County Historical Society, someone questioned whether Illinois history was taught at Jacksonville High School. A JHS teacher answered "not much" but then pointed out that Susan Hardin included a lot of Illinois and local history in the junior high classes. She became one solution to my office problem. Mrs. Hardin is a MacMurray graduate and a prize-winning social science and history teacher at Jonathan Turner Junior High School. At her suggestion, I sent four boxes of periodicals including American Heritage and a number of journals and magazines on Illinois history to the media center at the junior high school. She then came to my office and selected enough books to fill four boxes for junior high classrooms. I believe that it is essential to convince students that history can be fun and Susan has done just that. Each fall she leads an architectural/historical tour of Jacksonville with community volunteers helping out. Her hands-on approach to history continues among teachers at the high school. This summer students from Jacksonville High School, led by a biologist and a geographer/social scientist from the faculty, followed the route of Lewis and Clark's expedition to the Continental Divide. The high school students who went with them will never forget that experience. One goal of our publication Illinois Heritage is to assist young readers (as well as older ones) in studying and enjoying Illinois and local history. Maybe history students in your local schools would like a chance to read the magazine. Why not find out and finance a subscription or two for them?

Rand Burnette ISHS President