Lifelong Frankfort resident Judy Hageman, 73, believes in blooming where you are planted.
“Frankfort has been a wonderful place to grow up,” Hageman said. “It’s also been a wonderful place to raise a family.”
Hageman, twice widowed, raised three children in Frankfort. Her daughters, Jeanene Moon and Nancy Weems, were born during Hageman’s first marriage, to Gene Zortman, who was killed in a car accident in 1969. Her son, Sam Hageman, Jr., was born in 1974 during her second marriage, to Sam Hageman, Sr., who died of cancer in 1988.
Hageman and her family attended St. Peter’s United Church of Christ, in Frankfort, the church of her childhood. She said the recent baptism of one of her great-grandchildren continues a long family tradition, representing “six or seven” generations of her family being baptized there.
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Hageman’s career has also been spent, for the most part, in Frankfort, she said.
Of her 42 years in banking, 35 have been with what used to be Frankfort State Bank and became Harris Bank in 1993, she said.
Much of her volunteer work stems from her career there, Hageman said.
While working at Frankfort State Bank in the early 1990s, Hageman said she was asked to become the American Cancer Society representative to the Frankfort Township Board. Hageman said she served on the board and as its treasurer for several years but unexpectedly took on an additional volunteer duty when the American Cancer Society Golf Outing committee chair decided to quit and told Hageman the job was hers.
“I knew nothing about it, nothing at all about anything like that,” Hageman said.
But she worked with other committee members and staff at Frankfort State Bank, got the job done and chaired the committee for the next eight years, she said.
“So that was my first introduction into volunteering,” Hageman said.
It may be in the role of volunteer that Hageman is best known in the Frankfort area. Her recent 2014 award as the Frankfort Chamber of Commerce Volunteer of the Year highlights her many years of volunteer work with the chamber.
She joined in 1973 as a representative of Frankfort State Bank and has been an active member since, serving as the chamber board’s director three times and on committees for the Chamber Ambassadors, Chamber Business Expo, Frankfort Fall Fest and the golf outing.
Hageman remained with the chamber after her retirement from banking in 2010, as she is a believer in its benefits to the community “to pull all the businesses together and to promote a business atmosphere in Frankfort,” she said.
Hageman has spread her volunteer wings beyond her hometown. As a member of the Silver Cross Hospital Foundation Board for about 10 years, Hageman said she has enjoyed being a part of its recent changes.
“The new hospital opened in 2012,” she said, “so there was quite a bit of fundraising going on while that was getting ready to open. That was a very exciting time to be on the hospital board because Silver Cross Hospital has just brought such sophisticated, up-to-date medical services to Will County. I don’t know that 15 years ago we could have realized the quality of medical care that we have now available in Will County.”
As a Frankfort Lions Club member since 1996, Hageman has been involved in the local good works of the organization and plans to continue, she said.
“Because it’s such a worthwhile organization — they do wonderful things — I joined because I just felt honored to be part of the club,” Hageman said.
Hageman bemoans the fact that it has become difficult to recruit younger people into many of the local service clubs such as the Lions Club, she said. Despite her own years of working full time and raising a family, she gives young people who are not involved in volunteer work a pass because they “spend so much time working,” she said.
“That’s just an unfortunate statement of the times,” she said.
Still, Hageman’s advice to would-be volunteers who find time at a premium is that volunteer work is worth the time it takes.
“I would say to any young person who is in the business field, the relationships that I’ve built over the years … were probably many of the most meaningful relationships I’ve had in the workplace because these people are willing to give up their time and their talent,” Hageman said. “It’s very fulfilling.”