{"id":1308,"date":"2023-11-01T07:48:10","date_gmt":"2023-10-31T23:48:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/charlesray-author.com\/?p=1308"},"modified":"2023-11-01T07:48:10","modified_gmt":"2023-10-31T23:48:10","slug":"visiting-central-illinois","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/charlesray-author.com\/index.php\/2023\/11\/01\/visiting-central-illinois\/","title":{"rendered":"Visiting Central Illinois"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Oct. 24 &#8211; 27, 2023, I visited Peoria and Springfield, Illinois to speak to their World Affairs Councils on &#8216;Blueprint for a Modern American Diplomatic Service. I also met with several groups of college and high school students to talk about careers in foreign affairs and had a chance to see some of the famous sites in the area.<\/p>\n<p>The two photos at the bottom are me with a Park Service guide in front of Abraham Lincoln&#8217;s home in Springfield on the left and a statue of Lydia Moss Bradley in front of Bradley University, the co-educational school she founded in the 1800s.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_1309\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1309\" style=\"width: 225px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1309\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/charlesray-author.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/IMG_2132-225x300.jpeg?resize=225%2C300&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/charlesray-author.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/IMG_2132.jpeg?resize=225%2C300 225w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/charlesray-author.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/IMG_2132.jpeg?w=480 480w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1309\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">With my host and guide Don Samford at lunch with Peoria&#8217;s mayor<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1310 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/charlesray-author.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/IMG_2116-300x225.jpeg?resize=300%2C225&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/charlesray-author.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/IMG_2116.jpeg?resize=300%2C225 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/charlesray-author.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/IMG_2116.jpeg?w=640 640w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1311 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/charlesray-author.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/IMG_4390-200x300.jpg?resize=200%2C300&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"200\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/charlesray-author.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/IMG_4390-scaled.jpg?resize=200%2C300 200w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/charlesray-author.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/IMG_4390-scaled.jpg?resize=683%2C1024 683w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/charlesray-author.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/IMG_4390-scaled.jpg?resize=768%2C1152 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/charlesray-author.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/IMG_4390-scaled.jpg?resize=1024%2C1536 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/charlesray-author.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/IMG_4390-scaled.jpg?resize=1365%2C2048 1365w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/charlesray-author.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/IMG_4390-scaled.jpg?w=1707 1707w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/charlesray-author.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/IMG_4390-scaled.jpg?w=1575 1575w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Oct. 24 &#8211; 27, 2023, I visited Peoria and Springfield, Illinois to speak to their World Affairs Councils on &#8216;Blueprint for a Modern American Diplomatic Service. I also met with several groups of college and high school students to talk about careers in foreign affairs and had a chance to see some of the famous &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"http:\/\/charlesray-author.com\/index.php\/2023\/11\/01\/visiting-central-illinois\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Visiting Central Illinois&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[164,17,165],"tags":[244,156,240,242,239,241,243],"class_list":["post-1308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-leadership","category-media-appearances","category-work","tag-blueprintforamodernamericandiplomaticservice","tag-foreign-affairs","tag-illinois","tag-lincoln","tag-peoria","tag-springfield","tag-worldaffairscouncil"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8YXbm-l6","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/charlesray-author.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/charlesray-author.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/charlesray-author.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/charlesray-author.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/charlesray-author.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1308"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/charlesray-author.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1308\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1312,"href":"http:\/\/charlesray-author.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1308\/revisions\/1312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/charlesray-author.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/charlesray-author.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/charlesray-author.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}