MONDAY
No ve m be r 17, 2 014 • $1 .0 0 L
‘WE FOUGHT HARD’
Sycamore stymied by Geneseo in quarterfinal loss / B1 HIGH
LOW
20 9
Complete forecast on page A10
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SERVING DEKALB COUNTY SINCE 1879
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Legislators predict an uneventful veto session
NATIONAL FFA ORGANIZATION
BY ANDREA AZZO aazzo@shawmedia.com
and KEVIN CRAVER kcraver@shawmedia.com
Photos by Monica Synett – msynett@shawmedia.com
FFA member Cassie Puentes holds a Blackhawks plaque Saturday as Todd Wills auctions it off at the 77th annual Grain Show and Auction at Hiawatha High School in Kirkland. The money raised from the dinner and the auction will go to the school’s FFA Chapter.
Face of FFA evolving Group sees membership growth with career focus By KATIE DAHLSTROM kdahlstrom@shawmedia.com MALTA – Before Katie Arndt joined FFA she felt belittled by students who didn’t understand her life growing up on a pig farm in Malta. Arndt, 17, is now the president of the DeKalb High School chapter of the National FFA Organization. Although the days of being teased for living on a farm are behind her, Arndt knows many people still don’t understand agriculture, or exactly what FFA does. “You don’t have to live on a farm to be in FFA,” Arndt said. “We are the future generation of people who will be putting food on your table, fixing your car, taking care of your animals when they are sick, protecting your food supply.” Membership in the National FFA Organization is at an all-time high with more than 600,000 members. Locally, the FFA community is a vibrant one that reaches students in rural and urban DeKalb County communities. Leaders credit the success of the program to the way the organization has shifted focus from the farm to the impact of agriculture in different fields. Arndt joined FFA her freshman year of high school, though she was inspired to around age 5 when she watched the National FFA Convention on TV with her dad, Ed.
See FFA, page A8
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SPRINGFIELD – Local lawmakers are predicting quiet on the Springfield front when it reconvenes later this week in the months before the January swearing-in of the new General Assembly – and the new governor. For the most part, local legislators said they believe the fall veto session which begins Wednesday, and the subsequent lame-duck session in January, will be uneventful. Both the House and the Senate have canceled days in the veto session, which typically consists of two weeks of three days each in which lawmakers take up bills the governor vetoed, or other legislation. State Rep. Robert Pritchard, R-Hinckley, said he expects significant legislation like raising the minimum wage, overhauling the school funding formula and extending the 2011 income tax increase to be tabled for now. “I don’t see those issues coming up in the lame-duck session,” he said. Gov. Pat Quinn began push-
Read more Illinois lawmakers prepare to take up a proposed overhaul of school funding. PAGE A4
ing lawmakers during his 2015 budget address to make permanent the 2011 income tax increases – 67 percent on individuals and 46 percent on businesses – that are set to substantially expire Jan. 1. He said during his campaign that he would push to extend the rates after the election, but voters chose Nov. 4 to elect his Republican challenger, Gov.elect Bruce Rauner. Rauner, who opposes making the increase permanent, has asked lawmakers not to enact any substantial legislation before he takes office. Besides the fact that Senate President John Cullerton has already said the Senate will not extend the increase should Rauner win, the Democratic lawmakers who dominate the House and Senate with veto-proof supermajorities are unlikely to approve extending a tax hike to make Rauner’s
See VETO, page A8
Military corruption troubles prosecutors By ERIC TUCKER ABOVE: FFA member Bart Hall holds an autographed Bears helmet to be auctioned off Saturday at the 77th annual Grain Show and Auction at Hiawatha High School in Kirkland. LEFT: Corn on display Saturday at the Grain Show and Auction at Hiawatha High School in Kirkland.
About FFA
Your opinion
Future Farmers of America was founded in 1928 by a group of farmers who wanted to prepare students for feeding a growing population. In 1988, the group changed its name to the National FFA Organization. It now boats 610,000 members, including 17,000 in Illinois.
Were you in Future Farmers of America when you were in school? Vote online at Daily-Chronicle.com.
Source: National FFA Organization
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WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 19TH
The Associated Press WASHINGTON – Fabian Barrera found a way to make fast cash in the Texas National Guard, earning roughly $181,000 for claiming to have steered 119 potential recruits to join the military. But the bonuses were ill-gotten because the former captain never actually referred any of them. Barrera’s case, which ended last month with a prison sentence of at least three years, is part of what Justice Department lawyers describe as a recurring pattern of corruption that spans a broad cross section of the military. In a period when the nation has spent freely to support wars on multiple fronts, prosecutors have found plentiful targets: defendants who bill for services they do not pro-
vide, those who steer lucrative contracts to select business partners and those who use bribes to game a vast military enterprise. Despite numerous cases that have produced long prison sentences, the problems have continued abroad and at home with a frequency that law enforcement officials consider troubling. “The schemes we see really run the gamut from relatively small bribes paid to somebody in Afghanistan to hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of contracts being steered in the direction of a favored company who’s paying bribes,” Assistant Attorney General Leslie Caldwell, head of the Justice Department’s criminal division, said in an interview.
See CORRUPTION, page A8
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