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Joliet Herald-News
November 26, 2007

Rural area at risk is focus of contest


Winners of a photography contest designed to collect images of what may be lost if the proposed Prairie Parkway is constructed have been announced.

Sponsors of the contest included Citizens Against the Sprawlway, Friends of the Fox River, Kendall Citizens for Farmland Protection, Aux Sable Creek Watershed Coalition and the Sierra Club Valley of the Fox Chapter.

Raymond Silva of Yorkville won the digital photography contest for images showing what would be lost if the Prairie Parkway is built with his image of early morning fog over corn and bean fields south of Plano.

The award carries a $300 prize while $150 prizes were awarded to winners in four separate categories in the competition.

The submitted photographs spanned the length of the proposed highway between Interstate 88 near Kaneville and Interstate 80 near Minooka.

Sponsors say the contest categories encompass what would be changed and lost if the highway is built -- agriculture; rural, small town life; and the environment -- plus a special youth category.

Silva won a second award in the rural and community life category with an image of the grain elevator and rail cross in Milbrook.

The environmental category was won by Joan Soltwisch of Minooka with a photograph of Aux Sable Creek, near the Prairie Parkway corridor in Grundy County.

James Farrell depicted a farmland panorama in Big Rock Township to win the agriculture category.

Brianna Yepsen of Newark, a student at Newark High School, got up close for an image of a bee on a purple coneflower in Lisbon Township.

The judges, Bobette Wolf and Nate Stelton, also selected a Kaneville storefront scene by Kimberly Strom of DeKalb for an "honorable mention" designation.

The winning images are available online at www.sprawlway.org.