It doesn't matter if you lived on a farm or not, if you’ve lived in central Illinois for any length of time, you’re probably familiar with Colleen Callahan.

Erik Reader has a thing about downtowns. It doesn’t matter if they’re small or mid-sized or if they’re on a river or surrounded by cornfields, Reader wants to see them get ahead.

Jackie Luebcke can recall her first day on the job at WTVP-TV Channel 47, Peoria’s public television outlet.

As executive director of the Macomb Convention & Visitors Bureau, Hedblade wants to alert the public about the attractions and advantages of a section of the state that, in the past, felt neglected.

Steve Gossard will tell you that Illinois is a circus state. The former curator of special collections—including circus collections—at Milner Library at Illinois State University in Normal has made it his business to research the state’s rich circus history.

What do you do to energize students who might be disenchanted with their rural surroundings? If you’re Joe Brewer, a history teacher at Cuba High School, you develop a website with students to celebrate the accomplishments, past and present, of western Illinois.

Demarkius Medley, 37 lives in Galesburg with his wife and four children, hoping to succeed as an African American farmer despite growing up in the inner city with virtually no experience in the field.

So the Midwest is flyover country, is it? Don’t tell Jon Lauck that.

As executive director of the Everett Dirksen Congressional Center in Pekin, Tiffany White believes more people not only need to know more about the center but how government works in the United States.