Keller compliments community and leaders in effort to save prison and jobs

Dear Editor:

As with everyone else in Lincoln and Logan County, I am ecstatic to hear of the news that the Illinois General Assembly has appropriated the necessary funds to keep open the Logan Correctional Center, and that Gov. Quinn has decided not to order the closing of the facility.

I join many others in thanking all involved and breathing a sigh of relief for all the employees of Logan Correctional and their families. From the time the governor announced in early September of his threat to close Logan, our community leaders jumped into action.

Lincoln Mayor Keith Snyder correctly noted, "As soon as it was announced, the phone calls started. We know we are going to fight to keep this. We know we are going to get the community and the businesses involved."

And that is just what happened.

I congratulate and applaud the actions of all those who stepped forward in the successful campaign to keep Logan open. They are perhaps too many to list all, but notably great appreciation should be given to chamber of commerce director Andi Hake, chamber president Donna Boyd, economic development director Michael Maniscalco, Mayor Keith Snyder, Sen. Larry Bomke, Sen. Bill Brady, Rep. Bill Mitchell, Rep. Rich Brauer, Logan County Board president Bob Farmer and AFSCME Local 2073 president Shannon Kelley.

My family and I joined hundreds of others who participated in the march to the Logan County Courthouse in October, as well as attending the COFGA rally at Lincoln Christian University in which people packed the chapel to overflowing capacity.

In both cases the passion for the cause of keeping Logan open was on full display. Many offered eloquent and brilliant points of how the closing of Logan Correctional Center would have been completely devastating to this community.

I teach American government to college students, and it is often difficult to convince young people not to be jaded and cynical about their government when there are so many examples of ineptitude, ineffectiveness and corruption among our nation's elected officials. It is difficult to persuade them that civic engagement is necessary to the continuation of our republic when there are so many examples of people who turn a blind eye to problems and who sit back and do nothing when call to action is so apparent. It is difficult to convince them that unity in the face of aversion happens when there are so many examples of disunity and selfishness.

Yes, our nation and this very community in which we live may have some challenges facing it. However, time and time again we have confronted those challenges with courage and conviction, and this action by the citizens of Logan County is truly indicative of that. If one thing good came of this threat to close Logan Correctional Center, it was the demonstration that when the time came for our community to rally together, it did so.

I have now been able, with great pride, to tell my students of the tremendous action of ordinary citizens to lead the charge to save Logan, of the responsive of our elected officials when we most needed them, and of the resolve of our citizens to unite when unity was most required.

I have always been proud to live in Lincoln and Logan County, and proud to consider our neighbors here in this community among the best that exist anywhere, but I have never been more proud than I am right now to live here.

Abraham Lincoln's alleged quip in 1853 that anything named Lincoln wouldn't amount to much has been turned on its head, because indeed so much good has come from this town named Lincoln. You have all proven that in recent months.

Thank you to all of you for helping to save Logan prison and Logan County.

Ron Keller
Lincoln

[Posted December 01, 2011]