ROBERT MOMAN IS one of the more interesting people to call Quincy home. He moved here from the Chicago suburbs a few years back and immediately started getting into trouble.

Robert Moman

His troubles caught up with him Thursday, when he was sentenced to 20 years in prison for a crack cocaine conviction. Click here for the story.

His sentencing was unlike any other I’ve seen in a decade of covering crime and courts. I have never seen a guy admit he wasted the court’s time by going to trial, never heard a defendant say to police officers “you did a good job” on his case.

And for only the second time, a defendant addressed me during the hearing.

Moman was given a chance to speak before Judge Mark Drummond lowered the boom. Moman is a tall young man with a lot of personality — he was never inappropriate when in court and he liked to joke with the bailiffs. At a hearing in March he had an interesting exchange with one of the West Central Illinois Task Force agents who helped put him away.

Anyway, Moman apologized to his family, the court, the attorneys, his girlfriend, and five Quincy Police officers in the courtroom. Then he apologized to the residents of Quincy and looked right at me. “Mr. Newsman, please put my apology in the paper,” he said.

The only other guy I know to address me in court was the infamous Richard “Sincere” Carr, who accused me of making him out to be be a monster. Being convicted of raping a 14-year-old girl and pleading guilty to robbing a bank and escaping from the Adams County Jail while battering a corrections officer kind of speaks for itself, but I digress.

Moman said QPD officers “wanted the best for me.” Back in 2008, Moman was involved in the Clyde Jackson murder on North 12th. Authorities say Moman reportedly was the target that night but Jackson was shot in the head by mistake instead. Moman was repeatedly warned by officers he was being targetted and something bad could happen to him, but he simply shrugged it off.

He got a five-year sentence in 2008 for attempted arson in Quincy. A judge dismissed numerous ordinance violation and traffic tickets against him and said he might be better off living somewhere else when he got out of prison.

Moman didn’t listen.

Judge Drummond said it best: “I’ve heard what you say, but I’ve read what you have done.”

SO I’M HOME at noon for a few minutes and I let the dogs out. We have a long and fenced backyard. They usually do their bidness and come right back in, unless they are playing with snakes.

Except today I got distracted for a few minutes and when I went to check on them, Bella The Destroyer, a lab mix mutt who is dumber than a box of rocks, was gone.

The gate wasn’t open. Maybe she jumped the fence. I climbed on the scooter and went zipping around Calftown, hollering “BELLA” at the top of my lungs.

How could you possibly want to wring this sweet thing's neck?

Stupid Dog. Grrr. I’m gonna wring her neck.

The guys fixing a roof up the block haven’t seen her. She’s not wandering around her favorite cemetery haunts. She’s not at Berrian School, not at Notre Dame, not at the old Irving School.

Chuck, our mailman, says he’s seen her around the corner. I head over there. No Bella. Grrrrr ….

The Much Better Half joins the search as I head back to work.

Grrrr. I’m gonna wring her neck.

I get to the office. The phone rings. “I went by the house and she was sitting right there, like, ‘Where have you people been?’” Much Better Half says.

If I didn’t love the dumb mutt so much, I’d wring her neck.

Grrrrr ….

YESTERDAY WAS A long and frustrating day. Afterwards, I felt like this guy.

Fortunately, today is much better. Somebody said the sun is even threatening to make an appearance. Soon. Here. Really.

THE QUINCY EXCHANGE Club is taking a different approach to attracting Gus Busters for this year’s Quincy Gus Macker 3-in-3 basketball tournament on Memorial Day Weekend.

This year, the 21st for the Quincy tourney, Busters will get $25 for each day they work. If they work both Saturday and Sunday, they’ll get an additional $25. That’s $75 for the weekend.

Busters basically officiate games in the younger divisions, and keep order on the adult courts where players call their own fouls. This year, Busters will not get shoes, but they will get a shirt for each day they work, along with a hat, whistle, backpack and free food and drinks for the weekend.

Yes, it’s a long weekend, but it can be a lot of fun. Former players are especially encourage to try their hand at Busting.

For Macker info, click here.

For more information, call Kevin Curran at (217) 223-1063.

HARD TO BELIEVE nobody was killed during last Friday’s tornado at Lambert St. Louis International Airport. Click here for more info.

This YouTube video show the storm sweeping through an airport concourse. Pay particular attention at about the 30-second mark.

FORMER QUINCY RESIDENT Dale Waack let us know about this very cool website that shows an eagle with three recent arrivals. It’s from Decorah, Iowa, up in the northeast part of the state. Click here for more information about the video and the history of the eagles, but heed this warning — this site is addictive!

Free TV Show from Ustream

GARY CARTER, CHAIRMAN of the John Wood Community College board of trustees, suffered a heart attack last week. Fortunately he appears to be OK and there was no permanent damage.

Carter missed Wednesday’s monthly meeting. I’m sure he’s been briefed. Just so he knows, vice chairman Randy Sims took over and efficiently ran the meeting. Trustees Reggie Coleman, Jim Gay and Jerry Hagmeier were NOT appointed chairmen during the 90-minute meeting.

It was an eventful hour-and-a-half, click here for the story. Trustees approved a small raise in tuition, raises for staff, and had a spirited discussion about message boards on campus entrance signs. Coleman did not resign his seat and then take his new seat, just so everybody knows.

The message board passed by a 4-2 vote. Sims voted no. After the vote, he calmly went ahead to the next agenda item, and that was that.

No trustees called out a Herald-Whig reporter for writing a blog about the meeting, either.

Hope you are back next month, Dr. Carter.

I HATE DRAB and cold spring days like the one we are having today. Supposedly it’s going to warm up the next few days, and nobody will complain about that.

Could be worse, as the above clip from the Mel Brooks classic “Young Frankenstein” movie shows. We fortunately dodged severe weather south of us Tuesday. In my old Northeast Michigan stomping grounds, eight inches of heavy and wet snow fell yesterday.

Hurry up, spring!

ROD HIBBERT ADMITS he doesn’t remember his song being on the Big River Miscellany album.

“Those days,” the legendary Quincy musician says, “are kind of foggy.”

Click here for my column in today’s Herald-Whig for more. Here is the back cover of the album.

I can’t help but laugh when looking at Hibbert’s photo on the lower right.

“I was into outlaw country back then,” says Hibbert, known for his blues work and playing in Rod & The Satellites.

Wonder if he still has the hat.

ANYBODY RECOGNIZE THIS classic 1981 album containing songs from local artists?

Come back tomorrow to find out more …. and if you recognize the record store on the price tag, more power to you!