Kenny Inman graduated from Martinsville in 1965, stepped out into a country that was changing faster than anyone wanted, and answered every call that came his way.

He was drafted in 1966. Trained stateside for roughly a year. In early 1968, his battalion deployed to Vietnam and arrived in the country right at the tail end of the Tet Offensive, which had just shaken the entire premise of the war.

"Most of us were about 19," he said. "Went from being young to being a man in just a matter of days."

Four months later, he was seriously wounded in combat. He came home in July 1968, received the Purple Heart, and spent the next six months moving in and out of hospitals. Then, like so many men of his generation, he came back to the place he'd started and went about the business of an ordinary life.

He worked for local farmers. Helped maintain township roads. And eventually landed a thirty-three-year career with the Illinois Department of Transportation, working out of Marshall; some years in the orange trucks on the road, and roughly the last fifteen to twenty years in the maintenance shop, doing the mechanical work he'd always enjoyed.

It was honest, meaningful work. The kind that keeps communities running without anyone noticing, until it doesn't get done.

Then came a second call.

Faith had always been present in Kenny's life, but around 1990, he felt something more specific — a call into ministry. The timing was almost comical.

"When I was in high school, speech was my worst class," he said. "I barely — I think they just passed me to get me out of it. I hated to stand in front of people and say anything."

And yet. "God doesn't always call the qualified, but He does always qualify the ones He calls."

So, at approximately forty years old, Kenny went back to school. One night a week, he and a few other men drove eighty miles to Decatur for ministerial training — ninety minutes there, ninety back, plus homework. Twenty courses over five years. Then a ministerial license. Then, eight years after it started, the ordination.

"It was the most rewarding thing I ever did in my life," he said.

He retired from IDOT in 2001 and moved immediately into full-time ministry at Casey White Oak Church of God — first as associate pastor, then as senior pastor. He served on staff for roughly seventeen years before stepping back in 2012, though he still fills in for funerals and services when needed.

On his office wall during those years hung a plaque he'd found and loved: "Pastoral work doesn't pay real well — but the retirement system is out of this world."

He still grins, telling it.

Life brought loss through the middle of it. His wife Linda, after thirty-eight years of marriage, passed away unexpectedly from a heart attack in 2003. His church community carried him through. He chose, eventually, to move forward. In 2011, his niece Lora Parcel, a teacher in Martinsville, introduced him to Kathy, a widow who had experienced her own deep loss. They married that year and have been together for fifteen years.

When asked what makes Martinsville special, Kenny doesn't reach for a clean answer. "God really blessed me to be born and live in this community," he said. "I've been here 78 years. I don't know what it is about it, but I love it." He has a friend from his service days living in Alabama who says he can't stand where he is. Kenny can't quite imagine the feeling.

He spoke at Martinsville High School's Veterans Day program and considers it a privilege — one rooted in the belief that young people need to understand the real cost of freedom. He has also spoken at a large church in Decatur, sharing his military story and encouraging other veterans to talk about their service.

A few weeks after one such appearance, the pastor called him. A woman in the congregation had come that day with her father, a veteran who had never spoken about his service. They left the church together. He started talking.

"He hasn't quit yet," the pastor told him.

Kenny paused when he told the story.

"If you touch one person," he said, "it's worth it all."