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On Being an Instigator
The
24 June 2008 edition of the Zeitgeist Z-News
As the lyrics to the Bon Jovi song go, “Who Says You Can’t Go Home?”
 I did last week...to the town that helped make me who I am today and to the DMO that gave me my first job in Destination Marketing.
It was one of the oddest deja vu moments I’ve had in quite some time. I’ve been back to Kankakee IL several times over the past decade...but this was the first time I’ve ever had a pang of nostalgia. The first time I ever thought that I could go back.
Maybe it was seeing the old neighborhood (except, I have before). Maybe it was seeing my first apartment and first house. The watering holes that looked like time had just stopped. The river I tubed. The High School that helped develop my independent streak (or was that my parents?). And maybe, it was hanging with my long-lost best friend Mark. It’s been years...but it felt like we were picking up on a conversation that we had just left last week.
And, as I drove back to Madison, juggling these memories and thoughts, another reason for the pang revealed itself. Earlier that day, I had toured one of Kankakee’s most important tourism attractions of the past. Once known as the Yesteryear restaurant, Frank Lloyd Wright aficionados know it as the Bradley House, his first Prairie Style home.
In the 60s and 70s, before culinary tourism was even considered a market, people traveled hundreds of miles to dine at the Yesteryear. The restaurant hit upon hard times during the recession of the early 80s and since then, the historic structure has been in varying states of renovation and, for a while, was utterly wasted as a law office.
Until Gaines and Sharon Hall took control of the Bradley House and lovingly returned this gem to its original glory. As an interesting sidebar, the man responsible for much of the physical restoration is Tom Knickelbine, the son of the man who built the house in which I grew up.
Norm Strasma and the Community Foundation of the Kankakee River Valley are working to find a way to return this incredible structure to its place as a visitor attraction. A longtime family friend, Norm invited me to meet with Gaines and other community leaders to discuss ways to develop funding strategies to do just that after my tour through the building that was an integral part of my past.
And maybe that’s what got me thinking about Kankakee in a different light. Because it’s always been about “the possibility.” That’s what the drive to build one of Frank’s other great buildings (Madison’s Monona Terrace) was all about for me. It’s what starting this consultancy was all about. It’s what launching DMOU and writing “Destination Leadership for Boards” was all about.
In each case, I was an instigator. Kankakee and the Bradley House need an instigator to realize the incredible possibility that awaits them. And, you know what? Your community is in need of an instigator to realize its potential, too.
Are you ready to be an instigator?
Bill
Wanna
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