Author: Matt Dayhoff

page designs

For about eight months in late 2018-2019, I was given the opportunity to design some of the arts and entertainment pages for the Peoria Journal Star. It was an eye-opening, challenging experience for a...

concerts

A selection of photos from rock concerts and other performances at central Illinois venues.

Lifting their voices

The Peoria Fellowship Choir is made up of about 30 young people from various churches across the city, mostly Baptist and predominantly black. For the members, the choir is more than just a singing...

Short in stature, big on charm

In 1997, Drake Taylor, 3, was one of fewer than 200 people in the world diagnosed with Majewski osteodysplastic primordial dwarfism type II. Unlike achondroplasia, the most common type of dwarfism, Drake’s limbs and...

Drifting with the Beckett brothers

Gerald and John Beckett spent their younger days as quintessential hoboes, hopping boxcars and drifting along the highways and byways of America until they had visited nearly every state. But they always returned to...

Tornado rips through Washington

On Nov. 17, 2013, a massive tornado formed near Pekin, Illinois and traveled about 40 miles northeast, tearing a mile-wide swath through the countryside until it hit the small city of Washington. The F5...