Danville Raised Me

I grew up in Danville's Northeast neighborhood, the same neighborhood I came back to when I came home. I went to Northeast Elementary when it was still a neighborhood school, before it became the magnet school it is today. And I grew up inside the very thing that makes this city what it is: everybody knows everybody. They know your family, your extended family, where you work, where you go to church, everything.

As a shy kid, that felt overwhelming. As an adult, it feels like a gift; it is what makes this community so connected.

What shaped me most was how Danville folded me in, blood or not. One of the city's first Black aldermen and its first Black vice mayor, Lester Brown, was my "uncle." He worked alongside my father and was there the day I was born, and anytime he saw me in public he introduced me as his niece. His wife, Brenda Brown, the first Black woman to serve as alderman in Danville, is still "Auntie," and I am still her niece. That is the Danville that raised me: a place where care crossed bloodlines, and where service was simply what neighbors did for one another.

Leaving Taught Me What was Possible

Like a lot of young people from Danville, I was told to leave and never look back. "There's nothing here," people said. So I left for school. I started career in journalism, interning and later working at the Peoria Journal-Star. I later moved to the Chicago suburbs, working my way up the corporate ladder to a product management position at a legal publisher. For roughly twenty years, I lived and worked beyond Danville, and those years widened my sense of what a community could be and what I could become.

One lesson from that chapter still guides me. The best boss I ever had treated me as a human being first and an employee second; when I was struggling, she noticed, and she cared, before my work ever suffered. It taught me the kind of leader I want to be. People want to be heard and have their concerns addressed. Even when the conversation isn't comfortable, people should always be treated with kindness and seen for their humanness.

I Chose to Come Home

My return in 2012 was not about a job or a plan. It was about family. My sister's three children were growing up, and I did not want to love them from a distance. A one-day visit kept turning into three; a long weekend kept stretching into five, because I wanted to be there for the games, the milestones, and the ordinary days in between. Eventually, staying made more sense than leaving.

I did not simply settle back into town. I got to work. Almost right away, I was tutoring at the Boys & Girls Club and mentoring as a Big Sister through Big Brothers Big Sisters. I come from a family of givers and servants. Danville had poured into me when I was young, and I felt a responsibility to pour back. So many of the people who served my generation were older now or gone, and I saw a mantle to pick up. Serving at home hit differently, too; the child I tutored was often the cousin, kid, or grandchild of someone I had known my whole life.

That spirit of service grew into leadership across the community, on the boards of the Boys & Girls Club of Danville, the Danville Public Library, Laura Lee Fellowship House, the East Central Illinois Community Action Agency, Vermilion Advantage, and the Danville High School Wall of Fame Committee. At the same time, I published Progressive Black News, a free monthly newspaper that highlighted the positive stories in Danville's Black community.

Service Became Leadership

There came a moment when volunteering no longer felt like enough. I grew frustrated by the shootings in my neighborhood, including one that happened right across the street from my home. It felt like no one was acting, and I never saw or heard from my own aldermen. So in 2021, I ran for Ward 4 alderman, in part to learn from the inside how city government actually works and where the real problems live. In 2023, my colleagues unanimously elected me Vice Mayor.

Inside City Council, I saw something that troubled me: too much incivility, too little focus on the people. We can disagree without being disagreeable. My standard is simple and steady; I listen to the people more than I talk at them, and I keep the focus on what is best for the citizens.

Leadership Produced Results

The work I am proudest of started with a problem most people never noticed: federal dollars sitting unused. In 2019, I learned the city held Community Development Block Grant funds that had gone untouched since 2016. I researched how cities like Champaign and Urbana used similar dollars to support small business startups, I studied the HUD rules, and brought a plan to the mayor and the city council. When the follow-up never came, I kept going. I learned about entrepreneur support programs through the Kauffman Foundation's ESHIP Summit. When the state R3 grant opened with an economic development component, I wrote the program myself and made real capital a centerpiece. I called it the Trep OnTrack Business Bootcamp.

That program has since helped provide $250,000 to 75 Vermilion County entrepreneurs, and its ripple effects reach far beyond balance sheets.

One man had inherited his late father's semi; he used the program to cover repairs, went independent with a local company, and has since replaced his father's truck with one of his own. Another ran an indoor family fun center, noticed families hauling in their own pizza, and turned that observation into a new income stream in his business. The program's pitch contest winnings bought pizza ovens and other kitchen equipment that let him grow, and when forces outside his control closed that chapter, he landed at The Trep School® while pursuing his doctorate. A recovery nonprofit, Step Recovery Center, went from meeting in a small house to winning a six-figure state grant and opening a building with room for classes, group meetings, and services for people fighting addiction, while also reactivating a long vacant storefront.

Ask me what I am proudest of, and I don't point to the businesses. I point to the households behind them. It wasn't just the businesses we helped; those businesses changed countless other lives. That work is the cornerstone of The Trep School®, the company I founded. Out of that work I later opened Soar Space Business Center so Danville entrepreneurs would have a front door and a place to grow.

Why Mayor, Why Now

After the last mayoral election, several residents told me they had voted to keep "the devil we know." That stayed with me. Choosing the lesser of two evils is no way to choose a leader, and I decided Danville deserved a real alternative.

I draw a clear line between managing Danville's problems and developing Danville's future. Managing is triage; it reacts to the bleeding and holds the status quo in place. Developing is strategic; it builds on solutions. I am running to build, not just to bandage.

What I Love About This City

I love how Danville loves Danville. This city is like a sibling you can tease but no outsider had better touch; we defend each other, show up for each other, and travel to support each other. That pride is exactly what I want every resident to feel, and to see reflected in daily life: homes being built and rehabbed, regular and visible communication from City Hall, and new businesses opening their doors.

Who I Am

My leadership is grounded in faith and family. In my early adult years, at a leadership seminar, a facilitator named something I had never seen in myself and pointed me to the story of Moses, who also doubted he was the right person to lead. It reframed everything. Since then, I have tried to be the best version of myself, better than I was yesterday, and true to myself and to God.

Family is still my center. I live a stone's throw from my mother, and my sister's house is my favorite place to land. My most cherished vacations, then and now, are the ones where we're all together.

I hold a bachelor's degree in Communications-News, an MBA, and professional life-coaching credentials (CPCC and ACC). For more than thirty years, I have been a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated, the nation's oldest Black Greek-letter sorority, founded on service to all mankind; here at home, that service has meant free books for Danville children and scholarships for young women headed to college.

I didn't come back just to live in Danville; I came home to invest in it. Now I'm ready to invest in all of it.

Tricia D. Teague