Graduation
As Costa (Catholic) High School had closed after my 8th grade graduation at St. Joe’s, I attended Churchill for 9th grade, then attended GHS until graduating in June of 1975. Those were the days when the Galesburg Public School District had junior highs for 7th – 9th grades and Galesburg Senior High School for 10th – 12th grades. That first year of public school at Churchill was a good segue to GHS, as I was fortunate to make many new friendships after coming from the much smaller Catholic grade school.
Activities / Sports
Participated in Cross Country and Track all three years at GHS, earning Varsity Letters in Cross Country as a junior and a senior and in Track as a senior.
I like to point out that my senior year was your rookie year, Coach; proud to say that you certainly made a favorable impression on me and the others on our cross-country team in short order. During senior year, my best cross-country finish was 2nd vs. Monmouth, and my track highlight was winning the two-mile at the Canton-Galesburg-Monmouth triangular in Canton. I also participated in Soccer Club (though I don’t think I ever developed sufficient skills to have ever played it competitively).
Favorite Teachers/Coaches
I think I appreciated something in all of my teachers, but a few that stood out to me were Mrs. Sherlock and Mrs. McNeil (English), Mr. Fish (P.E.), Mr. Hawes (History), Miss Gates and Mr. Kessler (Math), Ms. Patterson (Debate), and Mr. Glasnovich (Social Studies). In addition, Jerry Albright and Evan Massey were both very influential to me as Track and Cross Country (respectively) coaches.
Best Memories Growing Up in Galesburg / Attending GHS
I partially grew up in two different neighborhoods in Galesburg; the first was near St. Joe’s and Knox College, where my Catholic family of 10 kids was one of the largest in our highly Catholic neighborhood. There were three different McKillip families in the neighborhood, and when we played “war”, it was often the McKillips against the rest of the neighborhood kids.
When I was 8, my family moved to South Street, near Monmouth Blvd., where I was able to engage with kids from another neighborhood centered on West Berrien Street. There, sports were the main activities for us guys, which mainly included basketball, baseball/softball/whiffleball, football, and even hockey.
As I was about to start my sophomore year at GHS, John Hanlon (who I had met at Churchill) and I connected before the cross-country season practices were to begin. We had something in common as I had a brother and John had a cousin who had run cross country and track at Costa. John and I kind of made a pact that we’d give CC a go at GHS and that pact carried on to track and blossomed into a lifetime friendship.
Joining in what we now refer to as the “Galesburg 4” chat group is my locker mate, Perry Hayes, and fellow Español classmate, Jeff Strader. Friendships from both of my neighborhoods, particularly Mike Wright and Dean Betts from Berrien Street, also carried on at GHS and beyond.
I feel my academic experience at GHS was rewarding and the social experience was fun. I was fortunate to have many other friends and still have good memories of hanging out with others, attending other sports events, particularly basketball games, playing golf, and cruisin’ the strip.
Education after GHS
I went on to Illinois State University and got my degree in Recreation and Parks Administration.
Career
During the 1980s, I had a career as a Therapeutic Recreation Specialist (as affected by my brother, Paul, who had Down Syndrome), where I was able to be a Special Olympics coach for many special athletes. My biggest challenge was coming up with an initial gymnastics routine for a female Special Olympian – thankfully, I was able to recruit another coach with more gymnastics knowledge before the competition began.
For the last 32+ years of my working career, I worked for Western Illinois Works (WIW), filling multiple positions while advancing to management roles. Our grant-funded organization helped many folks of all ages with funding for training/re-training to new occupations/careers, job search assistance, work experience, and other related services. During part of my tenure with WIW, I was the manager of Galesburg Works, a transitional training center, where I worked with a team of workforce training professionals who assisted laid off workers, primarily those who had worked at Maytag and Butler Manufacturing when those factories closed.
The last several years before my retirement in February 2025 were concentrated on coordinating funding for trainings of many companies’ incumbent workers where I acted as the conduit between companies and their training providers, often community colleges. My work with WIW was very gratifying, as it gave me many different opportunities to help people, including those who came to us under difficult circumstances, move into careers or occupations that they may not have been able to without our organization.
What you are doing these days
I am enjoying retirement here in Galesburg, often functioning as an “uber” driver for my family, particularly for my mother-in-law’s various appointments and errands. Yard work and housework also occupy my time. My wife, Denise, and I have been married for 27 years and have a blended family of five daughters and four grandchildren. We love attending our GHS freshman granddaughter’s choir performances and sophomore grandson’s marching and symphonic band performances.
I have been delighted that our sophomore grandson has also been on the GHS Track team, and he is a middle-to-distance runner; his primary events this Spring were the 800m and 4 x 800m relay, though he also ran the 1600m a few times and the 3200m (metric two-mile which was my primary track event) once. Being retired gave me the opportunity to go to pretty much 90% of his meets (home and away), where I cheered for him as well as his teammates…brought back good, old memories for me.
Advice to today’s students/athletes
My Mom once helped with a personal life difficulty I was experiencing one day while I was at work with the following advice – (paraphrasing) Be who you are, where you are. I took that as suggesting to put strong effort into concentrating on putting personal issues aside when I was working and focusing on my work until I was away from work. I believe this can be applicable to students and athletes in multiple situations and environments. It is not necessarily the easiest advice to consistently follow, but it got me through that particular day.
One other casual piece of advice for student athletes that may save some embarrassment – when you’re removing your warm up pants, make sure that your shorts don’t come off with them. (If you know, you know – if you don’t know, don’t ask! 😊)
You have been a Streaks Girls BB fan for many years. What was your all-time favorite game? Since you have attended, who would be your all-time starting five?
So many great games that I’ve attended, but one particularly comes to mind – I don’t recall what season this was from, but it was a home game on a Saturday afternoon. I think the score was either tied or we were down by one. The clock was at 2 seconds or maybe less. You had called time-out to set up the final play as we had the ball under the opponent’s basket. As I recall, Jen Zolper was the in-bounder, and you ran the play where one of the girls runs toward the in-bounder, and makes a quick pivot to run downcourt where Jen throws a perfect over hand pass (nearly hitting the flag at half-court!) and our other player, who beat her defender downcourt, catches it in our court and is able to score the winning lay-up basket!
Really hard to pin down, as there have been so many great players, but here are my picks for the all-time starting five since I have had the pleasure of watching – Ann Henderson, Molly Watson, Jaque Howard (guards), Megan Pacheco and Shayli Florine (posts).
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