Southern Illinoisan from Carbondale, Illinois • Page 9

PAGE 9 A SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 2000 BACKING THE RIGHT HORSE Southern lllinoisan photo by CEASAR MARAGNI It was picture time in victory lane Saturday for the World Trotting Derby winner Tejano, after the horse won the second and deciding heat of the $560,000 race at the Du Quoin State Fair. Tejano will collect $280,000 for the win. For more on the race see Sports, IB. ONEAR CREAL SPRINGS PIPE DREAM TRICOT i II 1 I I 5 ft 1 Professional steer wrestler building arena 1 going to try to do," McGilton said. Construction on the indoor arena, at 60,000 square feet, began about three months ago, though work on the actual structure began last week.

The arena will be heated and will have concessions. Handicapped seating will also be included. McGilton would not say how much he and his father have invested. "It's up there pretty high," McGilton said. The father-son team has been working on the project for about a year, mainly trying to find property for the arena.

The McGiltons have long believed the area lacked a rodeo venue despite a high demand, at least a demand they hope is there. They project drawing spectators from Indiana, Kentucky and Missouri in addition to local audiences. In addition, McGilton, who competed in rodeos while in high school, knows there are few places young people can go to hone their skills. McGilton no doubt will use the facility too, to practice and win his professional contest. If not, he'll still be involved in something he enjoys.

"I always figured it would be nice to' get set up and do something you love to do and make a living doing it, McGilton said. The phone number for the arena for more information will be 966-2727 or By Nick Mariano The Southern lllinoisan nick.marianosouthemi!linoisan.com Saddle up, Southern Illinois. The rodeo is coming to town to stay. Phillip McGilton, a 21-year-old professional steer wrestler, has for the time being traded in his horse and rope to oversee the construction of a 3,000 seat arena he and his father, Keith, are building. It is located at 8894 Illinois 166, north of Creal Springs.

They have no plans to compete with other rodeo events held in the area throughout the year, but those occur once a year. The McGiltons are planning professional shows through the year, sanctioned by the International Professional Rodeo Association. The first rodeo event is scheduled for Nov. 17 and 18 at 8 p.m. and Nov.

19 at 2 p.m. High school and non-professional events will also be planned, McGilton, the vice president of Four Star Arena said. And when shows are not planned for a particular night, clinics will be, as well as open access to the general public to ride and practice their rodeo skills. That public includes members of high school rodeo associations, as well as students in the college ranks. Bulls and calves will be kept at the site for those practices.

"Everything you can imagine you can do with horses, that's what we're Southern lllinoisan photo by CHUCK NOVARA Bob Richmond Winter Wolf fashions a small clay pipe he hopes to sell at the Black Diamond Ranch near Jonesboro Saturday. Richmond is a member of the Northern Cherokee Nation of the Louisiana Territory and was demonstrating his work as part of the Native American crafts display at the ranch that continues through this weekend. CARBONDALE COMMUNITY HIGH SCHOOL Magazine ranks CCHS in top 100 districts with 1,342 students, also is in the 99th percentile in academic performance, but only the 50th percentile in living costs and the 10th percentile in expenditures per student. CCHS has 1,349 students and is in the 94th percentile on academic performance, the 37th in living costs and the 89th in expenditures per student "It's interesting they ranked our living costs being in the 37th percentile," Sabens said. "That says 63 percent of the nation is at a living cost above us." He said that figure, coupled with the 94th percentile in academic performance, indicates "a talented staff plus kids and parents all work together to make a school system work.

My staff will be very pleased to hear about this." vided the districts in each region into high, medium and low economic subgroups. Within each subgroup, the firm ranked each school district according to academic performance (denned by students' SAT and ACT scores and the number of National Merit Scholars each has produced per 100 students since 1985). Schools with the highest academic scores in each economic group within each of the seven regions made the final list. When examining academic expenditures per student at each school, the group rated money actually spent in classrooms and not on capital expenditures like new buildings. New Trier, with an enrollment of 3,570, is ranked in the 99th percentile on both academic performance and living costs and in the 98th percentile on expenditures per student Auburn, Only two other Illinois districts New Trier in Winnetka and Auburn southwest of Springfield were listed in the magazine's top 100.

On its Web page, (http: www.offspringmag.comtools schools) the magazine said it enlisted SchoolMatch, a research firm that specializes in public school data, "to comb its database of all the nation's U.S. districts, with several geographic and socioeconomic factors in mind." SchoolMatch divided the country into seven geographic regions and within each, looked at each district's living costs (mean income and mean property values) as well as its academic performance and academic expenditures per student Each of those factors is given as a national percentile ranking. Using the living costs numbers, SchoolMatch di By Linda Rush The Southern lllinoisan linda.njshsouthernillinoisan.com "Obviously we're very pleased and surprised," said Carbondale Community High School Superintendent Steven Sabens. He also was more than a little astonished to learn CCHS has been ranked among the top 100 school districts in the United States by a magazine called Offspring. "We didn't submit an application, but we're very pleased to be recognized," he said, even though he and CCHS Principal John Dively hadn't heard of the magazine, which bills itself as "the online magazine of smart parenting." Offspring is a joint publishing venture of Dow Jones Inc.

and Hearst Communications..