In this small Downstate town where Gov. Jim Edgar grew up and attended college, his retirement announcement Wednesday was greeted with a common sentiment: “It’s about time.”
His hometown supporters believe that Edgar, after more than 20 years of mostly living and working in Springfield as a state representative, political aide, secretary of state and governor, deserves a break–and perhaps even a cushy local job.
“I’ve heard the rumor that he might be coming back here to be president of EIU–but I haven’t heard it from him,” said Dana Bryant, a clerk in the Coles County treasurer’s office in downtown Charleston’s grand old limestone courthouse.
Bryant, 57, grew up with Edgar and his two brothers, and even played a minor role in the governor’s rise from student body president at Eastern Illinois University here to state politician in the Capitol.
“I gave him his first tea to help raise funds for his first campaign for state representative, which I think he lost, by the way,” said Bryant.
“I’d like him to come back,” she added. “He is still a young man with a lot to offer.”
Many Charleston residents said they had guessed that Edgar might retire rather than continue his political career because in the past whenever he was going to announce a new political campaign he usually came home to do it–often as part of a statewide flyaround.
When Edgar stayed in Springfield to make his announcement Wednesday, people here figured it was because he no longer needed their cheers to launch another campaign.
“My husband said he thought Jim was going to retire but I kept saying he’d do it one more term so he could get the education funding straightened out,” said Leslee McGinness, a high school classmate of Edgar’s who now teaches high school English here.
“I have mixed emotions because I wanted to see him fix the school funding problem, but I am happy for him and Brenda. If anybody deserves a rest, it is him,” McGinness said.
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Charleston, population of 20,000, and Eastern Illinois University have benefited greatly from Edgar’s high political profile. And many here take pride in the fact that not only did the local boy make good, he stayed good.
“I think he proved that you don’t have to be from metropolitan Chicago to occupy the governor’s office and his legacy is also that he served both as secretary of state and as governor without any claims of dishonesty being made against him. For any politician, that is pretty good,” said Charleston attorney J. Leeds Bower, 65, who served as legal counsel for Edgar’s late mother, Betty, when she was a young widow.
Bower is a partner in a law firm with Edgar’s lifelong friend W.A. “Tony” Sunderman and served as a Republican committeeman for 34 years. His office looking out upon the Charleston courthouse square is decorated with more than 500 elephant figures symbolizing his partisan politics, but Bower said Edgar represented a new breed of politician.
“Even when I started in politics, the old patronage system was beginning to dissolve and Jim came to represent the new era. He was never big on patronage and I think he has been good for the state of Illinois,” Bower said.
Another local resident, who preferred to identify himself only as “a downtown Democrat,” begged to differ.
“Thank God he is retiring,” he said. “He tries to come off as Mr. Goody Two Shoes but he is not as squeaky clean as he likes people to think.”
Students and faculty at the EIU campus just down the street from downtown Charleston have quite a bit of evidence for making the case that, if nothing else, Jim Edgar brought home the bacon.
Just this summer the governor returned to campus to present a state-issued check of $1 million to pay for renovations to the EIU student library.
Prior to that, the highest-ranking EIU Panther in state politics handed over $17 million for renovations at the Robert G. Buzzard Education Building on campus, which in an earlier life served as the grade school for one young Jim Edgar.
“Governor Edgar has been a strong supporter of higher education across the state as well as at Eastern Illinois University,” said Jill Nilsen, special assistant in the EIU president’s office, which will be vacated by its current occupant next July–just in time for a hometown boy’s return, according to the Charleston grapevine.
“We’ve heard the rumors of what his future might hold, and whatever that may be, we wish him the best,” Nilsen said coyly.