Month: March 2026

The Randolph Society Foundation Board is pleased to announce that Eileen Gordon, who was dedicated to telling the stories of Chester residents and championing causes that improved their lives, will be inducted as the third and final honoree of our 2026 class.

Eileen Pariset Gordon was born in October 1925 in Red Bud. She was raised by her mother, Grace Hasemeyer Pariset, and her grandparents on Ann Street in Chester, attending St. John’s Lutheran School and Chester High School. There, she experienced her first taste of life as a journalist when she signed up to work as a typist on the school yearbook, the Summit.

Eileen graduated in the spring of 1944, just weeks before D-Day. After graduation, she pitched in to do her patriotic duty, volunteering with the county’s Selective Service Board and War Price and Rationing Board. The skills she honed while volunteering prepared her well for several early secretarial jobs, including work at the law office of John S. Gilster, Chester’s city attorney.

In the autumn of 1949, Eileen married Jack Gordon, and a year later they welcomed their son, John. They raised him in Chester, and Eileen became an involved and active parent, serving on the PTL at St. John’s Lutheran School and becoming a Cub Scout leader.

When John went to school, Eileen joined the staff of the Randolph County Herald-Tribune. The job turned into a career, and it would end up being one of the defining roles of her life. She worked as a reporter and correspondent, and eventually she became the paper’s editor. The Southern Illinoisan noted that Eileen “believed strongly in the importance of the small town newspaper, and through the years, she became the ‘face’ of the newspaper as she reported the local and regional news for the people of Randolph County.”

Reporting on local news made Eileen keenly aware of needs that existed within the community, and she became involved with numerous charitable causes. She was a devoted member of St. John’s Lutheran Church and was the first woman to serve on its church council. Her volunteer work with the American Red Cross in the 1960s and 1970s spanned the Vietnam War. As the wife of a veteran, she was also an active member of Chester’s American Legion and VFW Auxiliaries. For three decades, she served on the board of directors for Chester’s Memorial Hospital, including 14 years as board chair.

Eileen’s pride in her hometown was expressed through her work with organizations like the Chester Beautification Commission. She was a partner in numerous efforts to restore important historical properties, most notably the Cohen House. With Bertha Mae Blechle and Edna Cress, Eileen helped to shepherd the restoration project that turned the 1850s home into one of the jewels of Chester’s riverfront. The Cohen Memorial Home played a central role in another of Eileen’s gifts to local residents: the Christmas on the River celebration, which she helped to organize for the community each December.

Time and again, the people of Chester recognized Eileen for her community work. She was named Chester’s Citizen of the Year in 1980, and she received similar honors from organizations like the VFW, the Chester Women’s Club, and the Chester Jaycees. In 1999, she received one of the highest honors that any citizen of Chester can get when she was selected as a Popeye Parade Marshall.

Eileen passed away in July 2013 at the age of 87. She was remembered as a talented writer and journalist and an outstanding citizen of her community and the wider region. Her lifelong commitments to the people and the history of Chester and Randolph County have endured even after her death, and her heart for others is an example and a challenge to us all.

Click here to read a detailed biography of Eileen Gordon.

The Randolph Society Foundation Board is pleased to announce that Glenn Horrell, a dedicated businessman who used his organizational skills to lift up the educational and medical needs of his community, will be inducted into the 2026 class of honorees.

Glenn A. Horrell was born in October 1916 in Modoc. The second son of Henry and Josephine Horrell, he descended from families with deep roots in the communities of Prairie du Rocher, Ruma, and Brewerville. Glenn was raised with his brothers and sister on a family farm, surrounded by grandparents, aunts, and cousins.

After finishing the eighth grade, Glenn headed out to work, first on local farms and then in the industrial center of East St. Louis. He was employed there by the Continental Can Company, and he also found time to take a night course in salesmanship at a St. Louis YMCA. His innate business acumen came in handy when war broke out. Glenn enlisted in the army in May 1941. Shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor, he was promoted to Technical Sergeant and assigned as a supply officer to the 752^nd Antiaircraft Artillery Gun Battalion.

Glenn spent the next several years in the Pacific, coordinating supplies, rations, and equipment for as many as 2800 men. Even though he was nominally present in a supporting role, Glenn and his fellow soldiers were assigned rifleman duties during the Battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa. For his service, which included ground combat, he was decorated with numerous medals before his honorable discharge in November 1945.

Back in the States, Glenn returned to Randolph County, where he became the owner and operator of the Royal Tavern in Red Bud. There, he met and married Lucille Husemann Dinges, the daughter of a local beer distributor, who had been widowed during the war. Their family grew to include Lucille’s son, Rodney, and two more children, Kevin and Andrea. Eventually, Lucille’s father, Fred Husemann, asked Glenn to take over the family distributorship. He ran Horrell Distributors, selling Anheuser-Busch products, for the next forty-two years.

Glenn also embarked on several other entrepreneurial endeavors in Red Bud, running an appliance store that sold televisions, refrigerators, and freezers, and opening a pair of car dealerships. He also found time to make a difference in his community. He served as a Red Bud alderman and was president of the board of directors of the First State Bank of Red Bud. He was active in local veterans’ organizations and as a member of St. John’s Catholic Church.

But most of all, Glenn had a knack for connecting projects with people who could move them forward. Two of these efforts, the building of a new hospital and the construction of a local college campus, continue to benefit the people of the region today. Glenn was a key figure in raising funds to build a new facility for St. Clement Hospital (now Red Bud Regional Hospital) in the late 1960s, as well as a nursing home connected to the hospital a few years later.

Glenn was also deeply involved in education, serving on the board of education at Gibault High School in Waterloo. When Belleville Area College (now Southwestern Illinois College) decided to establish a campus in Red Bud in 1984, Glenn used his influence to support and help the local investment group to achieve its goals.

Though he disliked taking credit for his role in these projects, Glenn was recognized by his community with honors like the Red Bud Chamber of Commerce’s first Red Bud Achievement Award and a Special Recognition Award from the trustees of Belleville Area College.

Glenn passed away in May 1998 in St. Louis. He left behind a legacy of community involvement that laid the groundwork for generations of people in the area to thrive, reminding us all that investment in our communities can improve our lives, and the lives of those who come after us.

Click here to read a more detailed biography of Glenn Horrell.

The Randolph Society Foundation Board is pleased to announce that Don Welge, who took the helm of his family’s business as a young man and transformed it into a local cornerstone, will be inducted into the 2026 class of honorees.

Donald E. Welge was born in St. Louis on July 11, 1935. The eldest of three sons of William and Rudelle Welge, he was the descendent of entrepreneurs who had moved from Germany to Chester in the nineteenth century. His great-grandfather, Henry Gilster, arrived in Randolph County and set up a successful mercantile business on State Street.

Henry Gilster and his children expanded the family business, becoming owners and operators of the Buena Vista Mill in Chester and the Steeleville Milling Company. During Albert Gilster’s tenure as the owner of Steeleville’s mill, the company thrived, extending the market for its flour throughout southern Illinois and into several southern states. The elder of the Gilster sisters married Chester’s photographer, William Welge, and their elder son, Bill, followed his uncles into the family business. Eventually, Bill’s son, Don, followed the same path.

After graduating from high school, Don continued his studies in agriculture at Louisiana State University. During his time in Baton Rouge, he also worked for Gilster Milling Company as a salesman and a truck driver. He maintained strong ties with LSU long after receiving his degree in 1957, and today he is remembered with the university’s Welge Food Beyond the Farm Certificate Fund, which supports graduate studies in agribusiness.

Don returned to southern Illinois, where he married Mary Alice Childers and started a family of his own. Meanwhile, he joined the family company, helping to transition Gilster into a new mode of production. With flour sales flagging, Don supervised a pivot into the production of boxed cake mixes. These mixes, as well as products like macaroni and cheese, breakfast cereal, and popcorn, are now produced as private-label products for brands sold all over the country and around the world.

In 1965, Don was named president of the family company, which had merged with Martha White Foods several years earlier. Four years later, Don decided to embark on a new venture, leaving the company to form the Mary Lee Packaging Corporation. In 1971, the two companies reunited, becoming Gilster-Mary Lee. The family continued to shepherd the company into the future, with Don’s brother, Mike, and his sons, Rob and Tom, joining the family business.

Through numerous challenges, including fire and flood, Don continued to steer the company on a steady course. Today, Gilster-Mary Lee remains deeply embedded in the fabric of Randolph County, employing thousands of people in Chester and Steeleville, as well as across additional facilities in Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas, and Colorado.

Don took his responsibility as a leader in the community seriously, serving on numerous advisory boards and civic development committees. He supported educational initiatives at LSU and at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, and he was a devoted leader of the Okaw Valley Boy Scout Council for more than 40 years. For decades, he could be found on Kaskaskia Island every Fourth of July, acting as emcee for the traditional patriotic celebrations there.

In the final years of his life, Don was also a strong advocate for the construction of a new Mississippi River bridge linking Chester and McBride. When the bridge is completed later this year, it will be officially named the Don Welge Memorial Bridge.

Don passed away in April 2020, one of the first local victims of the COVID-19 pandemic. He is remembered for his drive and his passion as well as his humility. “If I’ve accomplished anything,” he once reflected, it’s been getting people to work together toward a common goal.” For decades, he did just that.

Click here to read a more detailed biography of Don Welge.