Dave Monk established the “Pocket Prairie,” across the street from the WEFT 90.1 FM studios on Market Street in downtown Champaign, in the 1980s; due to development of the space, it has been relocated to the Second Street Detention Pond area, south of University Avenue. He has been doing the Prairie Monk radio hour on WEFT 90.1 for over 30 years. I spoke to him at the Pocket Prairie site on the evening of May 25, during its last days. The interview has been edited for space reasons; the full version is available at .

Rick Esbenshade: You’re originally from Australia. How did you come to be in Champaign, and how did you get come to be interested in the local flora and the local landscape?

Dave Monk: I had been teaching at a community college. I came here in ’61, and was with the university for a while and I worked with a university project and with the curriculum lab, and we did things that people felt were interesting with the environment, the environmental movement was starting then. I was very interested in the ecosystem because I couldn’t find it when I came from Australia.

The only place where you found prairie was along railroad lines, which you weren’t supposed to dig up, and in cemeteries that weren’t looked after. I realized that this was an ecosystem that wasn’t understood and it was fairly rare. So I got involved and then we started buying up old railroad beds because that’s where the prairie was.
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The “paypal mafia,” photographed at Tosca in San Francisco, October, 2007.
Back row from left: Jawed Karim, co-founder, Youtube; Jeremy Stoppelman, CEO, Yelp; Andrew McCormack, managing partner, Laiola Restaurant; Premal Shah, President of Kiva; 2nd row from left: Luke Nosek, managing partner, The Founders Fund; Kenny Howery, managing partner, Founders Fund; David Sacks, CEO, Geni.com and Room 9 Entertainment; Peter Thiel, CEO, Clarium Capital and Founders Fund; Keith Rabois, VP of Business Development at Slide, and original Youtube investor; Reid Hoffman, Founder, Linkedin; Max Levchin, CEO, Slide; Roelof Botha, partner, Sequoia Capital; Russel Simmons, CTO and co-founder, Yelp.

Max Levchin, a UIUC 1997 graduate in computer science, will deliver the keynote at commencement in May, Chancellor Robert Jones has announced, terming Ukrainian-born Levchin “an inspiring entrepreneur.”

After four start-up failures during college and immediately after, Levchin moved to Silicon Valley, where in 1998 he co-founded PayPal, the money transfer service, which eBay bought for $1.5 billion in 2002.

His PayPal co-founder was Peter Thiel, a Stanford grad, and Silicon Valley billionaire. Notable for his far right-wing, libertarian views, Thiel first came to national attention when he gave a prime-time speech at the 2016 Republican convention supporting Donald Trump. Continue reading →

The IMC is now seeking proposals from artists to design and paint a new outdoor sign. We seek a diversity of applications by a variety of artists. The chosen design will serve as a main identifier for the public to the IMC as a space. We are replacing our current sign with large aluminum letters reading “I-M-C” on the west-facing front side of the building. Each letter fits within 4’ x 4’ square. We will have the aluminum sheets cut out according to design. We are offering a $100 honorarium to the chosen artist.

Artists should submit their design concept with a short explanation (1-2 paragraphs) of how they see their design as a reflection of the mission of the IMC. Deadline is June 22.

Please send a proposal to: briandolinar@ucimc.org

About IMC:
The mission of the Urbana-Champaign Independent Media Center (IMC) is to foster the creation and distribution of media and art that emphasizes underrepresented voices and perspectives, and to promote empowerment and expression through media and arts education.