Bob Garcia grew up thinking he wasn't college material. Not because anyone said so — nobody did. It's just that school in Witt had been more about friendships than coursework, and after graduation in 1989, he went to work. A couple of years of factory life settled the question. "I just knew I can't see myself doing this," he said.

So he went back. Lincoln Land Community College first, then Eastern Illinois University. He changed his major along the way — from physical education to social studies and history — because two instructors at Lincoln Land were simply extraordinary teachers. He wanted to be like them. When he finished and asked one for a letter of recommendation, the instructor wrote something Bob has never forgotten: that he would want Bob to teach his own children.

"I thought that's the best compliment that anyone could ever give me," he said.

He entered the workforce in the mid-1990s wanting to teach, but the market was tight. A friend working at a federal prison mentioned that a new work camp in Vandalia needed educators. Bob interviewed, got the job, and spent roughly fifteen years teaching GED preparation to incarcerated men — something he'd never imagined doing and couldn't imagine walking away from.

His approach was practical. He told students that the statistics were clear: the higher your education level, the less likely you were to return to prison. But statistics alone don't move people. So he made it personal. "When your kid comes home from school one day," he'd tell them, "and they say, 'Dad, can you help me with the Pythagorean theorem?' — wouldn't it be nice if you could sit down and help?" At first, he said, they looked at him like he was crazy. Then it landed.

After fifteen years in the classroom, he moved into administration — fiscal operations at Taylorville Correctional, then Graham — before retiring December 31, 2021. The next working day, he started with Lakeland College, which oversees vocational programs at nearly every correctional facility in Illinois. Construction, auto technology, manufacturing, career tech, and HVAC are in development. He's been there five years and has no plans to stop.

"Education gives you opportunities," he says. "It doesn't guarantee you a job. But it gives you that potential."

Bob has lived in Litchfield since 1995. He remarried, raised four more children here, and now has fifteen grandchildren — more than half of them in Litchfield schools, including his granddaughter Paityn. His wife sometimes points out that he coaches and mentors children who aren't his. "They're not your kids," she'll say. He coaches them anyway. Football, baseball, softball, Boy Scouts. "I just want to be involved."

That instinct carried him to the city council. His friend Jake Fleming — a fellow football coach — ran for mayor a couple of years ago with Bob's encouragement. When Jake won, and his alderman seat came open, he asked Bob to fill it. Bob talked to his wife, submitted a resume, and joined the council.

He's been pushing for kids ever since. Litchfield, he'll tell you, lacks the recreational infrastructure of neighboring communities — no YMCA, no major sports complex. That's the gap he's working to close. Through the Kilton Fund — a community endowment built on farmland donated by a woman who stipulated the principal could never be touched — the city is moving to purchase land near Walton Park on the southwest side of town, with plans to develop soccer fields, baseball diamonds, and community space. Meanwhile, after three years of working with IDOT, a paved sidewalk corridor connecting the new library to the rebuilt downtown school is finally moving forward.

None of it will be finished in time to serve the kids he's coaching right now. He knows that. "This isn't going to help our kids," he tells his fellow coaches. "But it will help kids down the road."

That same long view brought him to Litchfield's Community Planning Committee — a five-year strategic effort drawing together educators, community leaders, parents, students, and residents from across the district, facilitated by Dr. Mark B. Skertich, an outside administrator who helped the group think past its assumptions. "I think they helped us get to think about things that maybe we hadn't thought about before," Bob said.

He's been planting trees his whole career. He doesn't expect to sit in the shade of all of them.

That was never the point.