Andrew Black remembers plenty about growing up in the Tri-Valley school district.

There were the sports. Track and field came naturally to the self-described "little speed demon." There was basketball, baseball and football, including a place on the 1996 state championship team. There were coaches, teachers, and administrators whose names remain familiar decades later. And there was his mom, who spent 27 years as a secretary in the district.

Black was Tri-Valley through and through, attending from kindergarten until his 1999 graduation. But his school years were not defined by academic achievement.

"I had a learning disability," he said. "Reading comprehension."

What he remembers most is that his teachers seemed to recognize something in him that he had not yet fully recognized in himself.

"They saw the potential."

Sometimes that meant sitting near a teacher's desk for extra help. Sometimes it was an administrator quietly steering him back toward the right path. Sometimes it was simply a teacher recognizing a kid having a difficult day and putting an arm around him.

"If you were down in the dumps, or you're having a bad day, your teacher would come along, put their arm around you, walk you through the hall and get you through it," Black remembered. "That's what I remember."

After graduation, Black wasn't quite sure what came next. He enrolled part time at Heartland Community College and, with help from his father, took a job in the State Farm mailroom, later moving into the company's call center. Then he began watching former Tri-Valley classmates graduate from college and start careers.

Something clicked.

Black returned to Heartland with a seriousness he hadn't possessed as a teenager. This time, the student who had struggled academically graduated with honors.

"I did redeem myself," he said.

He transferred to Illinois State University, earned a bachelor's degree in social work, minored in sociology, and completed a child welfare certificate. His work included serving as a teacher's assistant and mentoring young people with special needs and behavioral challenges.

Then came another turn.

Military service ran deep in Black's family. His father and uncles served during the Vietnam era. His grandparents served in World War II, and his great-grandparents in World War I. In 2008, Black joined the United States Army.

He would serve for exactly nine years, three months, and one day, eventually becoming a staff sergeant. His work in military communications took him around the world, including Afghanistan, and developed technical skills that would ultimately lead to another career.

But Black says the Army also reinforced something Tri-Valley athletics had taught him years earlier. As a platoon sergeant, he learned to coach, counsel, and mentor the soldiers under him.

"It's one family, one fight."

Injuries ultimately led to Black's medical retirement from the Army in January 2018. Once again, he adapted. The kid who once struggled with reading comprehension had learned something enormously important along the way: how he learned best.

"I was able to figure out how to learn on my own," he said.

Black moved into technology, becoming a software analyst and accumulating professional credentials in cybersecurity, project management, Agile practices, and information technology.

Yet for all the places his life has taken him, the gravitational pull of home remains strong. Black and his wife, Katie, now live in Bloomington, but he still returns to Tri-Valley football games with his mother. He remains heavily involved with both the American Legion and VFW and serves with the Veterans Assistance Commission of McLean County, helping veterans who may be facing homelessness or need assistance with necessities such as rent or electricity.

For Black, service is simply another way of returning what was given to him.

"I took away from Tri-Valley, and I was here from K through 12th grade," he said. "I'm just helping veterans, making sure that they have the resources they need for their daily life."

Ask him today how he would describe the community that raised him, and his answer comes quickly.

"Family first."

Tri-Valley gave Black teammates who took him under their wings, teachers who saw potential beneath his struggles, adults who occasionally helped "keep the rails on," and a community he has never really stopped belonging to.

Black has a word for the quality that carried him from struggling student to honors graduate, social worker, soldier, technology professional, and veterans advocate.

"Resiliency," he said. "They bounce back from adversity. I didn't let them keep me down."

Then he put it even more simply.

"I was born with the learning disability, but I use that as a motivation to light a fire under me, to keep going."