March 14 is National Ag Day, an opportunity for Illinois farmers to celebrate and take pride in their craft. Ag Day is celebrated by associations, corporations, universities, government agencies and across the country. Illinois is home to more than 72,000 farms, covering nearly 27 million acres of land – about 75 percent of the state’s land area. The leading producer of soybeans, corn, and swine, Illinois’ climate and varied soil types also enable farmers to grow and raise many other agricultural commodities, including cattle, wheat, oats, fruits and vegetables.

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This week in 1868, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign opened.

Originally called Illinois Industrial College, it was the state’s first government-funded facility for higher learning. The college was one of 37 public land-grant institutions established after the Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Act was signed by President Abraham Lincoln on July 2, 1862.

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Taiwan native Steve Chen was the co-founder and previous chief technology officer of the video-sharing website YouTube.

In 1978, Chen was born in Taipei, Taiwan and immigrated to the United States at the age of 15. His family settled in Prospect Heights, Illinois and he graduated from Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy in Aurora before attending the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

After graduating from the university in 2002, Chen worked at PayPal, where he met Chad Hurly and Jawed Karim. In 2005, the three founded YouTube.

The following year, YouTube ranked the 10^th most popular website, and Chen was named by Business 2.0 as one of "The 50 people who matter now" in business. In October of 2006, Chen and Hurley sold YouTube to Google, Inc. for $1.65 billion.

In 2018, Chen was inducted as a Laureate of The Lincoln Academy of Illinois and awarded the Order of Lincoln by the Governor of Illinois.

In Honor of Black History Month our February artist of the month is Jonathon Romain from Peoria. Romain is a local artist who travels to various cities and states each month in hopes of catching an art show.

 How long have you been an artist or when did you start? I have been a professional artist for over 20 years. As far back as I can remember I’ve loved creating artistically. I won my first art award at 15 and a year later first place, at a Chicago city-wide arts competition called the Buckingham Fountain Art Fair in 1983. The prize was a check for $150. I had all the signs early on that I was destined to be an artist, but I never thought I was good enough when I compared my work to professional artists. Consequently, I only halfheartedly played around with it.

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