Effingham Daily News

Who knows much about this paper and its sports department?
They've got a sports editor opening six months after posting a vacancy for the same position.
I know the former editor or managing editor left around that time to start his own paper, but don't know much about the Daily News.

 

Used to live there and wife used to work there. It's a pretty standard small-town shop, nothing special good or bad to note.

 

All I have is that they have one of the great nicknames in high school sports -- the Effingham Flaming Hearts.

 

And you can always enjoy a nice Effingham sandwich.

 

If you like enormous crosses erected alongside the interstate, you can't beat Effingham.

 

It would help to know what state Effingham is in.

 

Illinois. Down east by Indiana border.

 

So I guess someone wanted to name it Fuckingham and was overruled?

 

Ba dum bump.

Effingham is a nice stop between Chicago and St. Louis, or Indy and St. Louis (depending on where you're traveling to and from). Town seems nice. And yes, that cross is HUGE.

 

Just 15 minutes from Tahoe.

 

Used to be referenced by a radio guy called the Truckin' Bozo as one of the great truck stop cities of America.

 

Because it's at the junction of two major interstates -- I-70 from Indy to St. Louis (and, by extension, DC/Pittsburgh/Columbus to the east, KC/Denver to the west) and I-57 from Chicago to Memphis (and points southwest) ... the middle-of-nowhere places on not just one, but two, major interstates tend to be attract the truck stops.

And the Truckin' Bozo was (and is, although it's in a different incarnation) must-listen-to radio if you're driving around overnight. WLW in Cincinnati was the flagship and its 50kW signal basically blanketed the entire eastern third of the United States. Random classic country music, calls from truckers on the road, constant warnings about "driving illegal," national traffic & weather reports, discussions of convoys & cops & being overweight (the truck, not the driver) and other trucker hazards. It's like the public national CB feed. It's now called the American Trucking Network or something like that.

Back to the original point of the thread: Effingham is a transportation hub (road & rail, because it's at the major CHI-MEM and IND-STL junctions) and has a huge cross. Its only other real claim to fame is that it is about halfway between Indianapolis and St. Louis, about 1.5-2 hours from either. Assume it's about the same distance from Chicago -- nice that you're fairly close to three major markets, but it's not close enough that you can make a simple daily getaway there. It's basically a typical southern Illinois middle-of-nowhere prairie town otherwise.