When the new library was designed, the teen space was purposefully and carefully laid out to welcome young people into our new facility. With a space of their own and the library’s proximity to the high school, along with many activities available to them, our teens are using the library more than ever before. Several teens come to the library regularly to use the computers, do homework, read or just hang out with friends.

There are holidays, weeks and months to celebrate or honor just about everything. There is National Public Sleeping Day, National Read a Road Map Week, Cable TV Month and, who could forget, National Naked Hiking Day.

But February, National American Heart Month and Women’s Heart Disease Awareness Month in Illinois, is a month worth honoring.

Wrestlers finalize perfect league season

Washington accomplished something Saturday it has never done in the 28-year history of the Mid-Illini Conference.

The Panthers won their first wrestling championship with a title in the league tournament, completing a perfect 2009-10 season.

“Hopefully, it will be one of a few we’re going to get,” WCHS head coach Bryan Medlin said. “This first one will be special to me.”

Washington’s 157.5 points in Dawson Hawkins Gymnasium, which included three individual crowns, topped host Pekin by 16.

Groundbreaking for the new Washington Community High School athletic facility at Babcook Field is scheduled for April 1.

According to representatives of the Panthers Alumni Association and the 12th Man Foundation, who met with architects from BLDD Architects Inc., Superintendent Jim Dunnan and business manager Steve Zimmerman, the architectural plans will soon be finalized and sent to the regional office of education for approval.

City Administrator Bob Morris reported lower-than-expected revenues for the current fiscal year at Monday night’s city hall meeting.

Several expenses, however, are currently projected to be lower than budgeted for the year in order to meet the lower revenue level.

The dip in revenue is mainly due to lower-than-expected income and sales tax collected so far this year.

Love her or hate her, Sarah Palin is known as a polarizing quasi-political celebrity. The announcement that she is coming to Washington has some people jumping for joy and others downright ashamed.

When tickets for Sarah Palin’s appearance at Five Points went on sale, people all over the area scrambled to buy them before they sold out.

Washington Community High School student Kelly Hearne, however, scrambled to her computer to vent a very different feeling.