Elizabeth Donald
Reporter/Editor/Photographer
Journalist for 20 years, covering government, features, crime, education, investigative, and more. Serves on SPJ Ethics Commission, president of St. Louis SPJ, freelance editor and photographer.
PROJECTS
bnd.com
Racist message found on blackboard at SIUE
Southern Illinois University Edwardsville was struck once again with racist graffiti Thursday, this time referring to black people as non-citizens on a classroom blackboard.
The message was left on a blackboard in SIUE’s Peck Hall and was discovered Thursday. It quoted in part an 1857 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the case of Dred Scott v. Sandford.
The message read, “No person of African descent shall be citizen of the U.S. ... nor were they ever intended to be. Dred Scott Decision — Google I...
bnd.com
'A 1940s news aggregator': Family donates World War II news scrapbooks to SIUE library
Headlines from Pearl Harbor to V-J Day will soon be part of the library collection at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, after a family donated scrapbooks from World War II newspapers to the museum — the news as the first rough draft of history.
Dorris William Wilton, of Alton, was a manufacturing executive with McDonnell’s aircraft division while his son, Dorris Wilbur Wilton, served with the U.S. Army in north Africa, Sicily and Italy during World War II. While his son served overse...
bnd.com
A quiet groundbreaker: Edwardsville's first black school board member dies at 82
When Rudy Wilson entered a metro-east high school to check up on some of his student teachers, it was made very clear that he wasn’t wanted there.
It was the 1970s, and Wilson was an education professor at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. But after his unfriendly reception at a high school when he was trying to mentor his student teachers...
bnd.com
Vegas shooter used these to make his guns nearly full-auto. Should they be legal in Illinois?
The gun debates raging in the aftermath of the Las Vegas shooting include focus on a little-known modifier used by the shooter: a “bump stock” that lets a semi-automatic rifle fire hundreds of bullets in seconds...
stlspj.org
St. Louis SPJ condemns arrest of journalist Mike Faulk
The St. Louis Pro Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists condemns the arrest of reporter Mike Faulk by St. Louis police during the weekend’s protests and demonstrations.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch has reported that one of their own, reporter Mike Faulk, was caught in a controversial police tactic known as “kettling” on Sunday night. Faulk was on duty covering the protests and the ensuing police action when police apparently blocked all four sides of the intersection...
bnd.com
Belleville hospice patient had one last wish. A horse at Fairmount made it come true.
John Brown rolled his wheelchair up to Dreymore’s horse stall and unwrapped a mint. He fed it to the horse he called his "wife," as he visited her one last time.
Brown, 60, is a lifelong horseman, working as a trainer and a groom — and in any other capacity he could find around horses — since he was a child. For decades he worked at Fairmount Racetrack in Collinsville, caring for and training racehorses, including Dreymore.
Now he is a patient at Unity Hospice in Belleville, with lung cancer ...
bnd.com
Here’s why teen driver deaths are dropping in Illinois
Teen driving deaths have dropped by half in Illinois since the state passed the new graduated licensing laws, while fewer teenagers are getting their licenses early.
In 2007, there were 155 teen driving deaths between the ages of 16 and 19. In 2008, the state passed the graduated driver licensing system, which eases teens into driving with phases of gaining driving experience with a parent or guardian, limiting distractions such as cell phones, and letting teens earn their way from one phase ...
bnd.com
Police investigate Wanda Cemetery after woman says husband's plot was resold | Belleville News-Democrat
South Roxana authorities are investigating possible fraud at Wanda Cemetery amid allegations that the cemetery has double-sold plots.
At least one person has filed a complaint about lots she had purchased being resold without her permission, according to South Roxana Police Chief Bob Coles. The woman, who was not named by police, discovered the lots she had paid for had been resold when her husband passed away.
bnd.com
Want your towed car back? Be prepared to pay $500 - just for the receipt
Earlier this year, Edwardsville attorney Brian Polinske filed individual lawsuits against six metro-east cities alleging that they are requiring unreasonable fees from people whose cars are towed after an arrest.
bnd.com
Perception that St. Louis is dangerous hurts this restaurant. So does fake news.
For 104 years, Crown Candy Kitchen has served overstuffed BLTs and thick shakes in north St. Louis, proud of its neighborhood.
But a recent satire piece on a Facebook page underscored something more than the usual jokes about the diner’s famously long lines, pounds of bacon stuffed into bread, and the chocolates lining its century-old counter: the perception of its neighborhood, and with it north St. Louis, as unsafe.
A Facebook page dedicated to mocking the city of Edwardsville posted a sati...
bnd.com
Historically black colleges boost economy, grads’ earning potential, study shows
Historically black colleges receive only 3 percent of the nation’s federal aid, but generate nearly $15 billion into the economy and boost graduates’ earnings as much as 56 percent.
The historically black colleges and universities inject $14.8 billion a year into the U.S. economy, according to a study released this week by the United Negro College Fund. For every dollar spent by the colleges and their students, approximately $1.44 is generated in the colleges’ local and regional economies....
literaryunderworld.blogspot.com
Teddy bears and rainbows
I was doing all right until I dropped the sugar.
We'd gotten the bad news at church Sunday morning: Candace had taken a turn for the worse. Candace Sauermann, our dear friend and long-time church family member, who had been battling her third round with cancer when she caught pneumonia. But we thought she'd been doing better.
Candace, who a mutual friend once described as the sweetest, kindest woman in Edwardsville and who my son once described as "teddy bears and rainbows." He knew her bette...
bnd.com
It’s FAFSA time! Here are some tips and warnings when applying for college aid.
It’s time for the FAFSA, that rite of college that has become a familiar trial for students and parents wrangling with the costs of higher eduction — and now it starts earlier.
bnd.com
A woman disappeared in 2010, and now police may have evidence about her killer
A teenager and her stepmother went missing eight years ago. One resurfaced, but the other did not — and now there may be new evidence.
Heather Woodward went missing on June 17, 2010. Her stepmother, Bonnie Woodward, reported the then-17-year-old missing, and a search commenced in Madison and Jersey counties surrounding their hometown of Alton.
Then Bonnie Woodward went missing on June 25. She has not been seen since.
Bonnie’s disappearance has been chronicled on various missing-person and uns...
bnd.com
Students fight hate on campus with "Door Project" of tolerance
“Not on my campus.”
“We have more similarities than differences.”
“While we may come from different places and speak in different tongues, our hearts beat as one.”
These were some of the messages written on a door propped up in the quad Wednesday at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, as students responded to incidents of racism in the past week. A note with racial slurs was left on a student’s on-campus apartment door, and a Confederate flag was painted on the boulder in the middle of...