I love Peoria. Ask any of my friends, and they’ll say that being from Peoria is one of my top five personality traits. Even though CBS News ranked it the 15th deadliest city in America in April 2021, the city still has its charms.
Our contributions to American life and pop culture have been few and far between, but I’d like to think we’ve made them count.
Everyone knows about Richard Pryor and Dan Fogelberg, but Beach Boy Bruce Johnston, prolific Disney voice actor David Ogden Stiers, and multi-Grammy-winning R&B producers Tim & Bob were also born in Peoria.
Where else had the moldy cantaloupe that led to the mass production of penicillin? Who else can say their city was featured in a segment of “The Daily Show” after the mayor ordered a police raid on the guy who made a clearly parodic Twitter account pretending to be said mayor? What other city can claim the worldwide attention garnered by a prank mural of a communist Muppet?
Take that, Chicago.
On a more serious note, there’s nothing quite like seeing the skyline from I-74 driving back from a long road trip. Even if I’m just running a quick errand in East Peoria, the view always fills me with a bit of hometown pride, if only for a moment.
Bradley University has always been home for me well before I ever enrolled as a student.
In grade school, I would walk with my mom back to her office in the basement of the library and do homework or play games on PBS Kids for a couple of hours until she got off of work. I spent so many summer days biking around Laura Bradley Park with my friends.
I remember going to one of the last games at the Fieldhouse. It was a women’s game against Creighton and that’s about as much as I recall. Once the Renaissance Coliseum was built, I went every December for LEGO League regional competitions.
When the time came to apply for colleges, there was only one choice, not only because the teacher education program is pretty good, but I felt like I truly belonged. That and Kaboom! high-fived me during lunch on a visit to my high school.
I’ve lived here my whole life, and by all accounts, it’s been a good one so far. It hasn’t been perfect but no life is. Peoria is where I’ve grown up, made friends, gone to school, fallen in love, fallen out of it — everything.
I don’t know where I’m going after I graduate at the end of next year, but I’ll always be grateful for the foundation I got here.
