Congratulations to LLCC students Garrett Kroeschel, Andrew Law and Brandon Sharp for receiving the Illinois Geographical Society’s Outstanding Community College Student Award! This award goes to a student(s) who excelled in one or more geography classes. Kroeschel, Law and Sharp were recognized at the Illinois Geographical Society’s annual awards banquet held at LLCC’s Trutter Center on April 21. Kroeschel, from Chatham, will be attending ISU in the fall majoring in business information systems. Law, from Donnellson, is majoring  in geography and will graduate from LLCC in December. Sharp, from Pawnee, will be attending SIUE in the fall majoring in computer science and minoring in geographic information systems. Congratulations!

IGS Conference

Geographers from across that state converged in Springfield for the  Illinois Geographical Society’s 2023 annual awards banquet and conference April 20-23.

The IGS annual field trip was on Friday, April 21. We visited the Abraham Lincoln Library and Presidential Museum, the Dana Thomas House and the Abraham Lincoln Home National Historic Site.  he day ended with the IGS annual awards banquet held at the Trutter Center.  Jennifer Ramm was the evenings keynote speaker and presented a fun and lively talk on the “Geography of Bluegrass Music.”

Saturday morning was filled with paper presentations and a poster session in Menard Hall. LLCC students Kroeschel and Sharp presented their GIS projects in the poster session. Their posters were the only two community college submissions among many other poster projects presented by university students throughout the state.

Kroeschel’s project, “The Lincoln Trail: Chicago’s History of Working Class Life and Struggle,” took data from a paper brochure and put it into a digital map format. Sharp’s project, “Bird Banding: Catching Analysis,” highlighted the data collected at the bird banding station located at Jubilee Farms. Sharp’s poster won first place in the poster competition. Thank you to Thom Whalen for printing the posters.

The Saturday lunch keynote speaker was Tony Rothering who presented “The Science and Value of Bird Banding.” The conference closed on Sunday, April 23 with a field trip to the bird banding station at Jubilee Farm. Rothering and Samantha Reif shared their knowledge of birds with conference attendees.

A big thank you to Debbie Bell, LLCC Facilities, Jennifer Ramm, Samantha Reif, Tony Rothering, Julie Sutfin, Brent Todd, Binh Trinh and Thom Whalen for making the IGS conference a huge success!