Ron Scherer

I graduated from the University of Illinois (BS, MS) where I met my wife. We moved to northern Illinois, where we lived for 15 years. We
then moved to the St. Louis area, and have lived in Columbia, Illinois for the past 26 years. I spent my career in advertising, public relations, broadcasting and corporate communications. In 1994, I started my own advertising and public relations agency, which I sold in 2006, and officially entered "retirement." We have a second home on the farm I grew up on near Claremont; we dug a small lake and built a cottage, where we spend our spare time fishing and mowing, and enjoying the historic sites of southeastern Illinois and southwestern Indiana. We enjoy traveling, spending time with grandchildren, and I have written two books and edited and published a third book for an Olney resident. My most recent book is titled "Before the Big Yellow Bus: remembering the one-room schools of Richland County, Illinois." I am also serving on the board of directors for the Richland Heritage Museum Foundation in Olney, and assisted with the planning of the 175th anniversary celebration of Olney and Richland County. I am also honing my meat grilling and smoking skills, using a wood-pellet smoker. My baby back pork ribs are now rated Number One with our four grandchildren!

I have several good stories to share, but most are too long to start writing about. I do have fond memories of dragging Main Street on weekend nights, visiting the Green Light Road and enjoying the great music of the time, which I still collect and listen to at every opportunity. I also fondly recall my high school FFA days, which helped launch my desire to attend the University of Illinois in communications -- resulting in a very rewarding lifelong career (and meeting a great girl to marry). I'm pleased this website has been developed by Richard. It is a great way to communicate and keep in touch with friends from the past. It offers a wealth of information.

I did not serve in the military, which would have been during the Vietnam era, had I done so. I have developed somewhat of a sense of fulfillment by capturing the memories of a World War II veteran in a book titled "The Soldier from Illinois." The book is a biography of Earl Scherer, a third cousin, who landed at Omaha Beach after D-Day. The book covers his life in Richland County and his four years serving in the U.S. Army in the European Theater. While encamped in Maastricht, Holland, Earl met a young starving Dutch boy, with whom he shared his food for a week. On the day of his company's departure, the young boy left a b/w photograph of himself with Earl, thanking him for the food he had shared. Earl kept the photograph, thinking he would never see him again. Through several unexpected events -- some would say guided by divine intervention -- Earl and the boy were reunited in the Netherlands 53 years after first meeting in 1944. Earl's three visits back to the Netherlands resulted in a new and lasting friendship with the "boy," who had grown to manhood.

I continue to work on finishing an updated history of the first 175 years of Richland County and Olney. I also have at least two other books I would like to write, assuming my health and energy both hold up. I also recently discovered that an old cemetery on our family farm contains the graves of one of Richland County's first pioneers (said to have platted the city of Olney) and his 18-year-old grandson who served in the Civil War. My goal, with the help of my 12-year-old granddaughter, is to clean up and preserve that forgotten cemetery. I hope to continue traveling, however we have been blessed in that department -- visiting all 50 states and a dozen or so European countries, as well as Canada and Mexico. And, there are also many places I would like to revisit in the good old USA. Several are in the immediate Richland County area, and all classmates should visit and enjoy the George Rogers Clark Memorial, the Red Skelton Museum and the William Henry Harrison Mansion (all in Vincennes), and the grave of Burl Ives, northeast of Newton. And don't forget the three Richland Heritage Museum Foundation museums in Olney -- the Heritage House Mansion, Carnegie Museum and the old McsBurg one-room schoolhouse. You will learn about history you never knew existed! I would also like to see the University of Illinois win a national basketball championship...we've been close twice in my lifetime, but i'm afraid it may not happen for several years down the road.

I moved away initially to pursue a career in communications, which took me to Champaign-Urbana, the Chicago area and the St. Louis area. Now, in retirement, our second home on the farm near Claremont serves as a launching site to visit kids and grandkids in Charleston, Ill., and Peachtree City, Ga. Plus, both of our children's families enjoy visiting our "farm." I guess I'm a classical example of the old saying, "You can take a boy out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the boy." I have always been proud to be a native of Richland County, where I firmly believe some of the nicest and most decent human beings call home. And, although I've never known one real well, I even believe the white squirrels are good folks!