SALINE CO., Ill.—Of all the juxtapositions we’ve ever had in print articles, our top story on the front page was such a huge one that it actually had to be presented in part on the front and in part on the back.
That’s because the crossover came when a Hardin County punk, Kyle Eichorn, after what he claimed on his Facebook page was a night of drinking (underage), crashed his car nearly head-on with a coal truck in the early morning hours of the Saturday of production weekend (November 30), which landed him as the big news…and his mother, father and grandmother managed to make the front page by being involved in an Attorney General’s grand jury currently being held in Saline County over his grandmother Barbara Wingo’s not-for-profit organization, the Anna Bixby Center.
So while rather futile fundraiser attempts were being held in order to raise money for the young Eichorn’s self-inflicted medical expenses, his parentage were being put through the AG grand jury wringer and few people actually knew that the lot of them were under investigation for thieving public funds, both state and federal.
The irony may be lost on Eichorn-ilk supporters…but it’s not lost on those who have been supporting the Anna Bixby Center for 36 years, as Saline, Hardin, Pope, Gallatin, Hamilton and White counties have been. And to add to the drama, no other media outlet has come to the point of covering the investigation, so the whole thing breaking like it was was very big news indeed.
Here now is your noontime Read the Lead, the front page article, Women’s center under AG investigation in Saline Co.
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SALINE/HARDIN/POPE COs.—A year-long rumor regarding a well-known women’s advocacy group has been officially confirmed by authorities: the Anna Bixby Women’s Center is currently under investigation by the Illinois Attorney General’s office.
The situation had long been hinted at, with Disclosure staff learning of it first during the summer of 2013; however, there was no one willing to officially confirm the situation, which is reported now by sources close to the investigation as one of improper use of state and federal funds that support the center.
The Anna Bixby Center, (ABC) named after a legendary southern Illinois physician Anna Pierce Hobbs Bixby who lived in the deep southern Illinois area of Hardin County in the mid-to-late 1800s, is a local domestic violence advocacy program. It is headquartered in Harrisburg and serves Saline, Hardin, Gallatin, White, Hamilton and Pope counties across both the First and Second judicial circuits; and runs a 24-hour crisis hotline to provide assistance for a person in a domestic abuse situation, as well as provides emergency shelter, counseling, women’s support groups, children’s services and legal advocacy (meaning a representative from ABC can and frequently does attend court hearings with an abused partner, and assists in filling out Orders of Protection/Stalking/No-Contact Orders for court purposes.)
The group is among a number of similar ones throughout the country, which in downstate Illinois includes SWAN (Stopping Women Abuse Now). ABC might be considered unique, however, in that one woman, Barbara Wingo of Pope County, started it up 36 years ago…and since that time, has by and large run it solely on her own, with the assistance of her daughter, Terrie Eichorn, and a small staff of employees over the years.
The group is funded solely by grants, both federal and state; taxpayers’ dollars that are kept out of federal and state taxes as paid by every individual and business in Illinois and throughout the country as they can be allocated.
As a result of that, when the investigation began in earnest into ABC’s use of those taxpayers’ dollars, Illinois’ Attorney General Lisa Madigan’s office was the one to manage the investigation…and now, as the matter has been taken up by a local grand jury, the AG’s office will also be part of any prosecution that may arise.
What happened October 6
As mentioned, Disclosure first began learning about a possible investigation as early as the summer of 2013.
Tipsters couldn’t—or wouldn’t—be any more specific, however, than noting that Wingo and Eichorn were being scrutinized at ABC for how they were handling their funding.
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To read the rest of this extensive article, click the headline link above if you have an online membership to the e-Edition; or if you don’t and would like to get started with yours, click this link here! But if you prefer to read a newspaper in hard copy, get out and get one at our many vendors, including in Saline County Book Emporium on Gum Street in Harrisburg and Discount Food Mart on Main Street in Harrisburg, and Raleigh Quick Mart in Raleigh; in Hardin County at Harbison’s at the Karber’s Ridge turn on Highway 34; in Gallatin County at Patton’s in Junction and Davis Enterprises in Omaha; in White County at Rock Bottom, East Side Package and Pundrake BP in Carmi, Mimmo’s Pizza in Norris City, One Stop in Enfield, and Shell Mart at the Interstate and Liquor Barn in Grayville; and in Hamilton County at Hunt’s Hardware and Grocery in Dale and Food Park in McLeansboro.