Mayor Rednour to Retire Mid-Term: Finance Commissioner Rex Duncan Will Fill Unexpired Term

While most men look for challenges equal to their strength, John Rednour has lived a life finding the strength equal to greater challenges.

For 24 years, Du Quoin's political and financial world has revolved around the man most simply call "Rednour."

On Monday, Feb. 11, 2013, Du Quoin's seven-term mayor --who will turn 78 on Dec. 20--will formally announce his mid-term retirement to the city council, his staff and to the people of Du Quoin.

Only one other mayor-Arthur Angel- served longer as Du Quoin's mayor. Angel served from 1909-1910, then 1917-1918, again in 1922 and from 1925-1949.

Rednour is part of an historic Southern Illinois mayoral triad that includes Marion mayor Bob Butler, who has been mayor there since 1963 (now in his 12th full term) and Sesser Mayor Ned Mitchell.

Rednour first won election and was seated in May 1989 after the retirement of the late Mayor Robert Armstrong. Over time, his seven terms have withstood mayoral election challenges from Bill Brewner Michael Bandur, Jeff Robinson and a very close race last year against his former finance commissioner, Guy Alongi.

Rednour, who grew up in abject poverty on the county's west side and rose to the ranks of site superintendent for the United Ironworkers during construction of the Marion federal prison, then became an iconic banker and businessman, said during a reflective conversation Tuesday at the Du Quoin State Bank, "It's time."

The comment was soft-spoken.

No hint of politics. No hint of "this is all that I've done." Just reflective that he is grateful to be part of that oft-times illusive American dream.

In John Rednour's world the only excuse for failure is that your resolve and commitment to succeed aren't strong enough.

Love him. Hate him. Be jealous of him. But, he will always command your respect. And, for people who know him well, there is love.

He believes in Du Quoin. He believes in its employees. He believes in the town's financial strength and its integrity as an important Southern Illinois community.

He admits to a nagging emptiness since the loss of city administrator, friend and confidant Blaine Bastien. But there is also a belief in newly named city administrator Brad Myers, in the council's ability to identify a substantial public works director and in the mayor who will succeed him--finance commissioner Rex Duncan.

That appointment will coincide with Rednour's retirement, and fulfills all of Illinois' statutes with respect to filling an unexpired term.

Duncan changed careers from education to city administration in 2000 when he left Rend Lake College to become city clerk. Three years later he accepted a position in SIU president Glenn Poshard's office as director of community development and outreach in the Office of Economic and Regional Development. Blaine Bastien became city clerk in 2003 and was later named city administrator.

Duncan is also the head of Connect SI, whose mandate is to expand broadband's presence in Southern Illinois. Duncan is the head of the Champion Communities program which has infused over $2 million into the local business development economy.

Rednour retired from the Democrat National Committee to which he was appointed in 1972 earlier this year. He was what's known as a Super Delegate and one of the three most tenured members of the committee. He has also retired from the Du Quoin Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors and from the Mantra-Con workforce board in Marion. He continues to serve on the Illinois State Police Merit Board and the Perry County Housing Authority board. His current term expires in March 2013.

Early in his career, Rednour said he needed a paycheck, quit school and went to work at age 16 after his father suffered a heart attack and his mother became unable to work due to near blindness. He went to work at the Chester "shoe factory."

He went on to become an iron worker, first at the Joppa power plant, then around East St. Louis, then Chicago and eventually the Marion federal prison, where he served as site superintendent. He decided that he could hang iron as a business. He formed Rednour Steel Erectors. Wife Wanda--the love of his life and "best partner you could have" --drove a pickup truck and, on occasion, has climbed into the cab of a City of Du Quoin street department truck to help landscape downtown Du Quoin.

Rednour served as a Trico High School board member and president in his 20s while living in Percy. It's the same school he dropped out of only 10-12 years earlier in the middle of his sophomore year.

He served two terms as Perry county commissioner from 1967 until 1973 during turbulent times when he and the late Vallie West competed for control of the party.

He served as Perry County Democratic party chairman. He is one of a five-member Illinois State Police merit board (since 1986) and has been an advocate for promising downstate law enforcement officers.

And, he is mayor of the City of Du Quoin.

At the end of the day, Rednour has always asked "Is it good for Du Quoin?" and he asks others to do the same.

His family comes first and it has not been without heartbreak. He cried when a daughter was diagnosed with breast cancer, quickly treated and cured. There have been other things.

"It'll be different for the city because everyone has a different style," he said of retirement. Rednour is the voice of reason and says that, generally, intelligent thinkers come to the same conclusions.

You can't argue with his success:

When you grow up in impossible economic times in Percy and Cutler, you know that hard work and imagination are our future, not blind optimism and willful ignorance that things will change if we don't think about it.

As for imagination, imagine Du Quoin today without the Poplar Street overpass ($4.2 million), without the new Illinois District 13 state police command ($6 million), without the Southern Illinois Center ($13 million) , or the fire department's aerial ladder truck ($400,000). Another new fire truck is being built as these lines are written.

A new medical development next to Walmart nears completion with infrastructure improvements provided by the city.

Imagine how any breakdown between the chamber's industrial park fundraising efforts and the city's execution of agreements would have cost us an industrial park. Imagine a Du Quoin without fair taxes, without zoning, without property maintenance and without some of the finest law enforcement officers and firefighters in the State of Illinois.

"Zoning has been important," he said. There were a lot of opponents. There were opponents to home rule, yet little opposition to a half-cent sales tax allowed by home rule that he carried into a referendum that would help finance the local share of the new high school bonding. That school is being completed now.

Du Quoin's committees set the standard for tourism and effective community service.

Then, imagine a United States congressman or an Illinois governor or Speaker of the House or Illinois Senate president not picking up the telephone when the Du Quoin mayor was on the other end.

He remembers it happening ONCE with a former democrat state senator. "I tried and tried and tried to reach him. I finally got his secretary and told her that he needed to call me before I finished writing out his campaign contribution."

He called back.

Rednour has twice been a guest at the White House and was invited by President Jimmy Carter to fly onboard Air Force One.

Rednour says people may not understand how he feels about the city. There's something about it; maybe it was the welcome everyone gave his family when they moved here in 1970.

The Poplar Street overpass was first discussed in the 1960s (Dr. Jack Struck, then mayor, still has the set of plans) and talked about throughout the 70s and 80s. It didn't happen until Rednour was in office and he was successful in getting a huge federal grant with the assistance of Congressman Glenn Poshard. "That happened about the time we changed from Poshard's district to Costello's.

"The overpass was around a four million dollar project and didn't cost the citizens of Du Quoin a penny," Rednour said, "and it was one of my three campaign promises when I first ran for mayor in 1989.

The second was developing an industrial park and the third hiring a health officer.

Du Quoin's Business Association matched the city's $40,000 to get the industrial park project off the ground and a $700,000 federal grant, largely through the cooperation of Congressman Jerry Costello completed it. Working with Ameren and the Main Street project he effected new downtown lighting and put downtown power lines underground. Nearly $3 million in new Washington Street and Main Street water lines and downtown sidewalks are planned for 2013. He made his case to Gov. Ryan for purchasing Arch of Illinois' acreage to add to Pyramid State Park. Illinois' governors have been his next door neighbors at the Du Quoin State Fair for many years.

He credits one of his first commissioners, Bill Daulby, with early successes, including acquiring the Duncan & Fry Furniture Co. building for use as a new city hall and library and a new water tower. They worked together on the city's $6 million wastewater treatment plant project. That's about the only major borrowing the city has had.

The biggest deal of his career: Wresting ownership of the Du Quoin State Bank from Iraqi national Saad Jabr in the early 1980s and turning it back into a community bank. He sealed the deal with a personal pledge of $300,000 to Boatman's Bank in St. Louis--deal or no deal. He and local shareholders made the deal.

The bank is modern, well maintained, well capitalized and is one of the strongest banks in Southern Illinois. The Southtown bank, its digital message board and the installation of new roof systems, emergency generator and security software updates has it poised for the future. "I believe in that," he said.

But, it was not without its miscues in the early going.

Rednour says the biggest heartbreak of his career was the crash of Air Illinois flight 710 on Oct. 11, 1983, which killed 10 near Tamaroa. Air Illinois was owned by the Sabr Group, Rednour proteges in the day. "I knew the pilot personally (Capt. Lester Smith, age 32, of Carbondale.)"

The airline was on track to make a million dollar profit that year before the FAA decided to make an example out of a crewman's fatal mistake to shut down the aircraft's working generator instead of the one that failed. The plane was southbound from Chicago to Carbondale with a stop at the Capitol Airport in Springfield. It developed problems over Hillsboro, but the pilot tried to limp it back to the Southern Illinois Airport and was within minutes of the airport's landing lights.

He'll never forget the lives changed forever.

Rednour says he won't miss the parades or the ribbon cuttings, but he'll miss the certain hands-on successes of the future.

Like Mayor Robert Armstrong before him, Rednour said he will not interfere with the work of those who come after him. But, he will still be glad to "make some phone calls."