The State of Illinois has announced twenty-two winners from across the state for Friday's COVID Vaccine Lottery. Each winner will get $100K for getting life-saving protection by receiving the COVID-19 Vaccine. One resident was chosen locally from the Wayne Co area. All Illinois residents who receive the vaccine will be entered for a chance to win $1 million grand prizes. Residents must receive their shots by August 18th to be eligible to win. For more information visit vaccines.gov. Illinois is reporting 1,457,687 cases of the virus in the state with a Positivity 7-Day Rolling Average Case Positivity 5.1%, and Test Positivity at 5.9%. 11,476 variant cases have been reported. Confirmed Deaths are currently 23,594, with Probable Deaths at 2,498. To date Illinois has performed a total of 27,609,781 tests and administered 13,510,873 doses of the vaccine. The Flora School Board met in special session Thursday night. The board approved maintained the previously adopted return to school plan for the 2021-2022 school year that recommends universal indoor masking for all teachers, staff, students, and visitors to K-12 schools, regardless for vaccination status. The Clay City School Board met in special session Thursday evening in the district library to update the Return to School Plan in accordance with the state issued guidelines which mandates that students, staff and visitors must wear facemasks. Some board members have requested that the board revisit the mask issue as condition change, and they seek to provide a mask break for students during the school day. Flo Simpson will be in Grayville on Tuesday, August 17th to help businesses prepare to apply for the Back 2 Business Grant program. Last week Governor Pritzker announced $250 million in grants available for the program. Simpson will be at the Grayville Senior Citizens Center at 210 E. North St. from 5-8 p.m. on Tuesday. There is also a workshop scheduled for Wednesday, August 18th from 6-9 p.m. to submit applications for the grant program in Mason Hall, Room 2of Frontier Community College. IECC's Adult Education program is now enrolling for the fall term. Frontier is now offering classes at numerous location covering many counties, including Clay, Jasper, Crawford, Wayne, Richland, Lawrence, Edwards, and Wabash. For more information or to sign up for a class call Frontier at 842-3711 or visit iecc.edu/fcc and click on the Earn Your GED tile. River stages as of this morning: the Little Wabash east of Fairfield stands at 24.33 feet, above the 17 ft. flood stage. Meanwhile, the Skillet Fork at Wayne City has a reading of 5.4 feet (flood stage is 15 ft.). The Little Wabash below Clay City is at 17.63 feet (flood stage is 18 ft.). Bonpas Creek at Browns reads 2.26 feet, and the Little Wabash at Main Street in Carmi reads 17.27 feet. The Wabash River at Mt. Carmel sits at 4.9 feet.