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Part 1 of 3 Lincoln's Helping Hands Reach all the Way to Africa Barbara O’Donohue on the way to Kenya [MARCH 6, 2000] What is on your agenda for this week? If you could sneak a peek at one Lincoln woman’s daily planner, it might look like this: This week’s agenda: Go to a small, remote village in Africa. Stay in "mud huts, graciously shared by the most wonderful people you could meet."
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Owner and president of a Lincoln-based business, General Consulting Services, Barbara O’Donohue left the States March 5th for a return trip to Kenya. She will be working as a volunteer for the Children of Pokot Educational Fund (COPE), an organization she helped found. The Pokot village she will be visiting is located in the country of Kenya, in the Kacheliba District. This will be one of Ms. O’Donohue’s shorter trips, taking four weeks instead of the usual five or six. She will be working with tribal leaders, women, educators and other villagers.
How did Ms. O’Donohue, a Lincoln businesswoman, first connect with a village in Africa? The story begins with Sam Poghisio, a Kenyan who attended Lincoln Christian Seminary. Poghisio was an exile from Kenya when he arrived in Lincoln in the early '90s. He came on a scholarship to Lincoln Christian Seminary. Back in Kenya Poghisio had been a member of Parliament. He was expelled from the Parliament during a difficult political time. Poghisio’s strong stances had provoked those in power, and his safety was endangered. Shortly after Poghisio came to Lincoln, his wife, Pauline, joined him. Mrs. Poghisio was about to give birth to the couple’s first child and had been unable to attain a visa. After the birth of their daughter, Chelimo, Mrs. Poghisio was granted a visa and came to join her husband. Poghisio earned his master of divinity degree in 1993, and the family returned to Kenya the following year. He took a professorship at Africa’s largest Christian university, Nairobi’s Daystar University. He resumed his works for his people and was elected back into the Parliament of Kenya in 1998. Paul and Mary Boatman of Lincoln were traveling with Poghisio in 1995. During that visit in a remote village of the Pokot province, the Boatmans learned of the needs of Pokot. They observed children milling around, children who should have been in school. There are no schools readily accessible in the remote area around Pokot. Poghisio explained to the Boatmans that the children of this village grew up without education. The boys became tribal warriors, and the girls married the boys.
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Poghisio dreamed of educating the children of Pokot, and asked his well-educated sister if she would go there to teach. She agreed. Poghisio’s sister opened school under a tree. After seeing the children and meeting the villagers during her visit to the village, O’Donohue caught the vision. She came home inspired by the wonderful people. With the support of the Boatmans and other Lincolnites, she took on the leadership to establish COPE, which has helped the school to grow. Later, the class moved to a shelter, a grass hut where the children sat on dirt floors. Since then, a new building has been constructed, and the school children will soon move into it. The little schoolhouse has a concrete floor, tin roof and no desks. It is divided into five rooms. Poghisio smiles and says proudly, "The children will no longer have to sit in the dust."
Four teachers and 150 children are looking forward to moving into the new school. They now claim one of the highest enrollments in the district, and the school is one of the few offering a Bible-based education. Lincoln people have joined the Boatmans and Ms. O’Donohue in supporting the schoolhouse in Pokot. Sam Poghisio recently returned to Kenya after a brief visit to the States. He was here with many other world leaders on an invitation to the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C. The members of the U.S. Congress hosted the breakfast, with the President and Mrs. Clinton also in attendance. Poghisio swung though Lincoln to see some of his friends here and to express his great appreciation for the people who support COPE.
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County, School Employees Still Covered [MARCH 2, 2000] Employees of Logan County and Lincoln Elementary School District 27 will continue to have health insurance coverage even though their insurer, American Health Care Providers, Inc. (AHCP) may be insolvent.
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Feb. 25 the Illinois Department of Insurance announced that it had filed a petition with the Circuit Court of Cook County requesting that AHCP be liquidated on the grounds that it is "statutorily insolvent," according to Public Information Officer Nan Nases. The insurance company, based in Richton Park, a Chicago suburb, has been under a conservation order since Feb. 2, she said, after the Department of Insurance had reviewed the company’s financial records. The conservation order means that the director of the Department of Insurance, Nathaniel S. Shapo, now has control over AHCP’s records and assets, which will be preserved for the benefit of its creditors. "Our complaint alleges that the Health Maintenance Organization is insolvent," Nases said. "A hearing is scheduled on March 9, although we don’t know if the judge will make a ruling on it that day. We do expect AHCP to challenge our complaint. But if the court agrees with our findings and enters an order of liquidation, AHCP will be out of business." However, people who are now insured will still have access to health care, Nases said. "Until the court issues a final order of liquidation their coverage should be intact. As usual, they will still have to pay deductibles and co-payments." The existing conservation order prohibits all providers, such as doctors and hospitals, from trying to recover costs directly from those enrolled in AHCP. According to Director Shapo, any enrollee being directly billed by a provider or collection agency should contact a member of the conservator’s staff on site at American at (708) 503-5000. Even if the company is liquidated, Nases said, the Illinois Health Maintenance Organization Guaranty Association will pay eligible claims of AHCP enrollees who live in Illinois, subject to a statutory limitation of $300,000. Nases said Illinois is fortunate in being one of the few states that have such an organization to protect residents enrolled in HMO’s which become insolvent.
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Paul Gleason, chairman of the Logan County Board insurance committee, said the board was aware of the problem and that they are working on solutions. At one point some employees had problems getting coverage for medication purchases but that situation has now been rectified. "All county workers are covered at this time, including drug benefits," he said. "Somebody somewhere put wrong information into a computer but it’s straightened out now." He said even before the petition for liquidation was filed, the county board had decided to advertise for bids for health insurance from other companies when the current contract expired on June 30. No official comment was available from School District 27 today, but several teachers who wish to remain off the record said there had been problems with claims being paid by the insurance company for some time. One claim made last May has not been paid, and others from October are still outstanding. "Some people are getting calls from their providers about wanting their money," a source said. "The providers are calling the insurance company and finding out it’s in trouble." The school district has had the contract with AHCP for only one year, and some people were opposed to signing up with that particular company at the time, according to another source. The company, incorporated in 1984, primarily covers commercial groups, state and federal employees, Illinois Department of Public Aid enrollees and federal Medicare HMO enrollees in Northern and Central Illinois. It also has business in Indiana and Arkansas. As of Dec. 31, 1999, the company had approximately 90,000 enrollees.
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[MARCH 2, 2000] Campaign signs are in competition with the tulips in announcing the arrival of spring. Yellow, purple, red, orange and gray appear to be the colors of choice for Logan County candidates. There are hand-stenciled, printed, silk-screened, and write-in signs sticking out of the ground on wire frames and wooden stakes, and the signs are as varied as the flowers in a spring bouquet. All designed to get the voter’s attention and a vote for the candidate.
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Yard signs show grass-roots support for candidates. Sometimes that grass-root support is so strong that residents place the signs of opposing candidates in the same front yard, possibly indicating a split vote between a husband and wife. Signs or placards are the most used and more cost-effective manner in which political candidates advertise. The double-sided yard signs get voter’s attention coming and going.
Campaign color choices are varied. Colors are sometimes chosen using the results of scientific studies that have shown the effects that particular colors will have on our minds. Many of the candidates take their color schemes into consideration when determining the colors of their campaigns, while those without a scientific bent choose their colors as a result of something that may be personally meaningful to them, such as their favorite colors, their community high school colors, national colors, or they may follow tradition and use the colors that may have helped them to get elected in the past.
Robert Borowiak, owner of Lincoln Printers, said that most of the candidates that come into his shop know what they want, they have their designs, have done research on their colors and know how many signs they will need when they get there. "A basic order consists of about 200 to 400, 17½ by 22½ yard signs at a cost of about $250.00 per order." Borowiak added, "At one time everyone wanted their placards printed with their pictures on them but now that seems to be passé." He was told that green and blue are good colors and that red was hard to look at.
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Borowiak uses a poly art blend for his signs. It is a polyester paper that is very tough. It's cheaper than silk screens and it's water and sunlight-resistant. It doesn’t scratch, tear or fade, and they last forever so they can be reused. He said he knows a candidate who re-used the same signs for 10 years. Key Printing owner, Tom Seggelke, contracts with a sign company to have political signs made because the weatherproof signs are too thick to run through his offset presses.
Yard signs are more cost-effective than other forms of advertising because the signs can be used for the length of the campaign and then reused in future campaigns. Having signs printed in black and white is also a cost saver. Whatever the strategy, yard signs have become a part of our landscape and are here to stay. Color is reflected light, but does it really help us to see our candidates more clearly? Only the winners may know for sure.
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