(dramatic upbeat music) (dramatic upbeat music continues) - He is one of the most recognizable faces in Central Illinois.

Mike McCoy has been involved in law enforcement for 48 years, and he's equally recognizable for support of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.

Well, Mike is now retired from law enforcement.

Congratulations.

- Thank you very much.

- I appreciate your first day of freedom coming here and talking to us.

- I didn't realize I was gonna have to set an alarm clock the first day.

(laughs) - Well, we appreciate it.

Gosh, what was the big factor in finally deciding to retire?

- You know, when I left the sheriff's office to go to Washington, it was for four years with Mayor Manier.

And then about halfway through that, he said he wanted to run again, and would I stay for another four, and I said yes.

So my contract was up April 30th.

There was a change in leadership in Washington, and it was just a good time to go.

48 years is a long time.

- It sure is.

Well, let's talk about, you know, you graduated from Peoria High in the late '60s.

- I did.

- And then you went to work at Graham Hospital in Beardstown.

- In Beardstown.

I got out of the Air Force as a X-ray technician.

Went to Graham Hospital.

It was a little hospital, and I was a real young person.

I got a pretty good job there.

And so I went there to work at the hospital and got recruited for police work by the guy that drove the ambulance.

He was also the coroner and on the police commission in Beardstown, asked me if I ever thought about being a cop.

And you know, that's one of those go to jail, put people in jail, go to jail, put people in jail things, and made a good decision.

- Go to jail?

Were you rambunctious young man?

- Absolutely, yeah.

(Mark laughs) That was a good decision on my part.

- Well, without incriminating yourself, you know, when you became a police officer, what was your motivation other than staying out of trouble?

- No, you know, I had a lot of friends in Peoria that were on the department, Peoria County and Peoria City.

And so I thought, "Well, you know what?

I started at Beardstown."

I liked it.

I like that I worked third shift.

It was a good shift.

And I come and took the test in Peoria and ended up at the sheriff's office.

- You started as a correctional officer?

- Started as a correctional officer.

I was like number three on the city, number four in the county.

And the city offered me a job, and I called the chief deputy at the sheriff's office, said, "I'd really like to be on the county."

"You gotta start at the jail," and I said, "Okay."

So the first two or three months was in the jail, but then I went to deputy and sergeant, detective, sergeant, and kept going.

- Well, at what point in that process did you realize, "Hey, I think this is my calling"?

- Yeah, I think working at the sheriff's office back when Bernard Kennedy was the sheriff, I saw the professionalism and what they were trying to do.

And that was interesting.

So I think back then early in my career at Peoria County, I thought that's what I wanna do forever.

- Now, when you went to the FBI Academy, what was your reason for doing that?

- You know, it's a great story.

Sheriff Kennedy called me in one day and says, "How would you like to go to the FBI Academy?"

I said, "Well, everybody wants to go to the FBI Academy."

And he says, "Well, I like what you do, and I'm gonna see if I can get you in."

I said, "Well, how does that work?"

He says, "Well, I'm on the selection committee."

So that's how it went, and I came back, and it was fun.

That was a turning point in my career.

That opened so many doors.

- Now, we see movies and TV shows about the FBI Academy, and it shows all kinds of fun forensic stuff and the firing range.

Is it like that, or was it a lot different?

- It's like going to college.

It's like going to college with physical fitness and a range thrown in the middle 'cause it was mostly classes.

I think I got 15 credits from the University of Virginia for going, so it was pretty fun.

- [Mark] And how long did that last?

- That was 12 weeks.

- Okay.

- A long time.

- Well, eventually after that, you became the Peoria Heights Police Chief.

So what was it like going to a position of authority in law enforcement?

- They had an opening for police chief in Peoria Heights, and I knew the chief who was there.

It was a guy named Mike Sherman, was on Peoria City and went there.

He said, "You ought to apply."

And I said, "Holy cow, I'm 29 years old."

And he says, "Apply anyway."

I did, and I got the job, and from then it was changed.

Everything changed, you know?

It's different doing that than working on the street all the time.

So, that was a great, great learning experience.

Peoria Heights was a great city just starting to grow, and it was a great opportunity.

- And after doing a few years of that, you decided to get into the private sector doing security and safety.

What was that decision like for you?

- Well, the chief of police then I think was paying $22,500 a year.

And then private security working at Fleming Packaging for Ted Fleming and those guys was a real honor.

It was a great job.

Started out a couple months in purchasing and then was director of safety and security.

They had plants, you know, in the US and Canada, and they had a plane, and that was a pretty good job too.

And then in 1994, you know, with Chuck Schofield, when he got elected sheriff, I went back to sheriff's office as the chief deputy.

- Okay, and when you're the police chief in Peoria Heights, did you have a family by then?

- Yes, and I had the kids, yeah.

- [Mark] You gotta think about money.

- Gotta think about money.

You gotta think about the future, and that's what I did.

So going to Fleming Packaging was a good move too.

- [Mark] So, Peoria County, that's a huge move for you.

- It was.

That was when Senator Shadid, then Sheriff Shadid, was gonna become a senator.

And he called Chuck Schofield and I and met with us and said, "You know, I'm gonna be named a senator here in a couple weeks, and one of you two should be sheriff."

And Chuck was 10 years older than I was, and we were best friends.

We'd been friends all during... We went through the whole sheriff's office thing together.

So I said, "You do that, and I'll be your chief deputy, and a couple years then when you go, you could help me."

And unfortunately, you know, he passed away, and the next day I was the sheriff, so.

- [Mark] Wow, and how many years total were you sheriff?

- [Mike] Total, sheriff 15 years, about 30 years at the sheriff's office total.

- [Mark] So when you get to be sheriff, one of the things that comes with that is more politics.

- [Mike] Lots of politics.

- Elections, things like that.

- Lots of elections.

- I assume that was not a fun part of the job.

- It wasn't a fun part of the job.

The best job is the number-two guy.

The chief deputy job was great.

The sheriff job was good 'cause Sheriff Schofield had allowed me to do everything with him.

And, you know, we were great friends, and where he went, I went, and that allowed me to have a lot of open doors politically after he died.

So it was a good stepping stone, and it was good.

- Did you have any thoughts about getting into politics after that?

- No.

- Or was that a total turn-off once you- - It was because I had a couple of opportunities.

Back then, you know, that was a big movement around in the Peoria area.

There were a lot of new faces in Peoria area.

Things were changing, and I had a couple of requests and opportunities.

And I said, "No, I like the law enforcement part of it," so, stayed in law enforcement.

- Did at the time former Sheriff Shadid, did he give you advice on how to deal with the political side of it?

- You know, he did.

He was great.

He, as a matter of fact, helped me get on at Peoria Heights.

And when I got back, you know, helping him was fun, and he was a big, big influence.

Him and Bernard Kennedy were both big influences.

- What do you remember most from your time as a sheriff in terms of, you know, from cases to innovations in the department and things like that?

- Yeah, I think there were a lot of things.

You know, the advance of technology in police work was huge during my tenure there.

And to keep up budget-wise, to keep up, to keep your department going with the flow and being one of the top departments is hard because it takes money, and then you got county boards to work through and stuff like that.

And so we made it through that.

And I think after that, you know, some of the cases, the Larry Bright case was one that probably stands out as the most famous case, I guess.

And Al-Marri when he got, you know, attached with 9/11 and was in the jail that I ran for a long time, that was definitely a couple of challenges.

But those were things that I think helped us grow as a department because everybody had to do things different.

- What about some of the people you've met on the cases or otherwise that kind of stuck with you through the years?

- Yeah, you know, I got to know a lot of great people.

You know, when Ray LaHood, who was in Congress and then became secretary and things like that, to be able to deal with him and to deal with people on the state level and, you know, in the governor's office and through the Sheriffs' Association...

I was the president of the Sheriffs' Association for a year and went through the executive board to that.

And that was a good learning point for me to get involved in that part of the politics.

And that helped me reinforce the idea that I'm glad I never did it.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- When you were younger, you know, you mentioned you weren't necessarily an angel.

Did you get to, do you think, have an effect, on anybody in your time in law enforcement and maybe turn somebody else's life around like yours was?

- You know, I don't think that I've ever turned down a request from a parent or somebody that's said, "I'm thinking about law enforcement.

Can I come in and talk?"

I think that's been very important.

You know, I've always done that, and I hope I've influenced a lot of people.

You know, I've recruited some people.

They've come both to sheriff's office and to Washington.

And I think that, yeah, that's the good part.

You know, policemen are just people, and a lot of times the public forgets that.

They see you only as in a uniform, and they don't realize that you got kids and a wife and a family, and you gotta mow the yard and wash the cars and stuff like that.

So I enjoy that part of talking to people about the job.

- So after 15 years being sheriff, what made you decide to transition to the Washington Police Chief?

- Well, that's a great story.

Mayor Manier had two part-time chiefs that they had had at Washington.

And with part-time chiefs, you know, things can be a struggle.

So it was time to get the Washington Police Department straightened out, so to speak, not that it was bad, but just to get some structure.

And I was at dinner with Mayor Manier and his wife and Mayor Ardis and his wife and Amy and I.

And it came down to, I said to the mayor, I said, "I've gone through all the applications for you."

He wanted me to help him get a new chief.

And I said, "I've got about three guys that are interesting."

And Mayor Manier said to me, "Why don't you throw them in the garbage and come work for me?"

And that was sort of a tough conversation with Mayor Ardis there as you can imagine.

- [Mark] I was gonna say, did he say, "No, stay on this side of the river"?

- Yeah, well, and you know, Jim and I have been friends for 30 years, close friends, and so it was a tough conversation.

But I called him on Sunday.

That was a Friday night.

I called him on Sunday and said, "Are you just talking, or are you serious?"

He says, "I'm waiting for you to come and talk to me."

And that was it.

And 15 years as sheriff is a long time, and, you know, it's stressful, 200 employees, 500 people in the jail, phone ringing all night.

And going to Washington was a real, I think, big boost in my life.

I'm sure that it added years to my life.

The stress is the same.

The conflicts are about the same.

A conflict to one person in Peoria County is different than a conflict to a person in Washington.

But on a level, they're all the same.

They're a conflict to people.

And to be able to help solve 'em is good, but it was a smart move for me.

- You mentioned stress.

I mean, yeah, being the sheriff, even though you're not on the streets all the time, it's still a 24-hour-a-day job.

- It's a 24-hour-a-day job, and I'm the type of person that wants to be kept in the know.

I wanna know what's going on.

So the calls at home greatly diminished over the last eight years, which was really good.

- [Mark] I was gonna say, how has that affected your family life?

- [Mike] You know, being a cop is, you gotta have a partner that understands.

You gotta have a partner that understands what you're doing and why you're doing it.

And I think that that's a huge part.

For me, it was pretty easy 'cause I got a great partner.

- That's good.

When you were growing up, when you were making this transition from the medical field to police work, what did your parents think about that?

- Yeah, my parents, you know, voiced some concern because, you know, there were a couple times that things got crazy at the sheriff's office.

And you know, that's on TV, and it's in the news, and your name is out there.

But my parents were supportive.

They were very supportive all the way, and I was thankful for that because, you know, I know guys whose wife and parents aren't successful or aren't accommodating to what they wanna do.

- Sure.

- And it's tough.

But I was lucky.

- At what point in your law enforcement career did you know, I mean, "This is it for the rest of my life.

I'm gonna be in law enforcement"?

- I think pretty much after a year or two at the sheriff's office and getting out of the jail and seeing how things go.

You know, then when I went to Peoria Heights, I think I learned a lot because of, you know, Sheriff Shadid was working very closely, and we started the Peoria County Association of Chiefs of Police, and we started doing things with other chiefs throughout the county that nobody had ever done.

You know, Sheriff Shadid was a tremendous influence on how to do things administratively, how to do things as a professional law person and not just a deputy sheriff who wrote tickets.

And I think that was a big stepping stone.

- And one of the things about him too was he was serious about his job, but he also had a great sense of humor- - Oh, man.

- And very personable.

- Oh yeah.

We don't have enough time to hear all those stories.

- You know, it sounds like as you're advancing through your career, for a lot of it you were, you know, people were coming after you and saying, "Why don't you do this?

Why don't you do that?"

Did you have different goals, or were you just kind of content where you were until something came in?

- You know, I really liked the sheriff's office.

Yeah, I loved being the chief deputy.

And when Sheriff Schofield died, you know, unexpectedly, you know, Kevin Lyons told me on the phone, he says, "I have to talk to you tomorrow morning at nine o'clock," and I said, "I got things to do.

You know, I got things to do with Ms. Schofield and things like that."

He said, "You don't understand, sonny.

You're the sheriff, and tomorrow morning you're getting sworn in, and that's it."

So I think then it was an awakening for me that things are gonna be different.

- Yeah.

Well, things started to change in early '80s when you got involved with St. Jude.

- [Mike] Yeah.

(laughs) - And that started off small and has exploded thankfully in the last 40 or so years.

Let's talk a little bit about how you got involved in St. Jude and how that transitioned into coming up with the St. Jude Runs.

- You know, when I was in eighth grade or seventh and eighth grade at St. Mark's, Jim Maloof and my father were good friends, Kiwanis Club together, and they were buddies.

And I remember one night, they came and said, "We want you and a couple of your friends to go around and ask people for a dollar for St.

Jude."

I said, "A dollar?

I'm not gonna do that."

That's when they had the big pins and wore the big pin.

And so I got started in about the seventh grade knowing about St. Jude in '63 and '64 just after the hospital was, you know, thought about, and just did things odd years.

And then in 1980, I was working with a guy named Gene Pratt at Landmark charting people that ran a course, raising money.

And they'd run around a little track, and we'd put a check mark.

And so each person got donations.

They made 7 or $8,000 that night.

The running craze was just starting.

We were talking.

I said, "You know, there's gotta be a way that we can use this running craze to make more money.

So, let's start in Peoria," which had the affiliate, as you know, "and let's run to Memphis and turn around and run back, and we'll make people raise money."

And then the honest story is we looked at a map and thought that was the dumbest idea in the whole world.

That's 1,000 miles.

Nobody's gonna do that.

- Right.

- So we decided to drive to Memphis and run back, and we put an ad in the paper and had 19 people answer the ad, fundraising event to do this run.

And it was just a lot of fun to get it going, and the only good story about that is that Gene and I met in about 1981.

We were gonna start it and go in 1982.

And early in '82, we decided we better wait for a year to get this... Sure, we got everything together.

We said, "Whoever sees Jim Maloof first has to tell him we're gonna wait a year."

And we were at Landmark, and we'd both run running, and Gene left, and I took a shower, went up the top of the steps, and there's Jim and Trudy Maloof coming out of a movie at Landmark.

And Jim said, "Ah, I'm glad to see you.

How's the run going?

What do you think?"

And I said, "We just had a meeting, and we're all ready to go."

So I had to call Gene and say, "Okay, I chickened out.

I told 'em, we're ready."

So we put it together and went in 1982 to start.

- And you raised $22,500 that year.

- That was a big deal.

- Yeah.

- That was a huge deal, you know.

The goal was to raise $25,000.

That's our goal every year since then.

If people say, "What do you wanna raise?"

we say, "$25,000 because that's what the Clay Johnson Golf Classic raised for St.

Jude."

And we wanted to raise as much money as they did, to help get it as much money.

So, yeah, it started.

It was fun.

- We've had a lot of great nonprofits and charities here in the Peoria area.

- We are so lucky.

- A ton.

What was it about St. Jude that really made you stick with that and focus on that?

- You know, St. Jude does things that no other charity does, as you know.

They pay for housing, travel, food.

You know, anything you want, and it's free.

And to me, that has always stuck with me.

Even when I was young, that was something that I thought, you know, as I became a father and stuff, and I had kids, I thought, "Oh, if my kid ever gets sick, and you have a place to go, and, you know, you don't have to pay, and they're gonna help you, and it's the leading research place in the world, why would you not help that grow?"

And I think I've had that thought since then, and I still believe it today even more so.

- Well, speaking of growing, last year in 2024, do you know the total off the top of your head how much money you raised?

- 6.4 million?

7.4 million?

- I had 5.9.

You may be right.

I may be wrong.

Either way, that's a ton of money.

- It's a ton of money.

We've been lucky.

We've worked hard to see that we have the Memphis to Peoria run, and now we have 36 satellite runs throughout Central Illinois, Chicago, and St. Louis.

And people understand St. Jude.

St. Jude has gotten, you know, their reputation is great.

I think what people don't know about St. Jude a lot is like they just finished building two 15-story, huge buildings on campus, no beds, all research.

So what they're doing there is just the research to put an end to childhood cancer and other catastrophic diseases, sickle cell anemia, the flu.

They do everything there, and that keeps people involved.

And I've been lucky enough to see it grow from 8% success rate to overall a 75 and almost 80% success rate, and ALL, the most common form of cancer in kids, from 10% to now 96%.

So what we're doing and where we're investing our money in that is going to the right place.

They're doing something with it.

You know, you don't call your stockbroker and say, "Hey, I wanna give you some money so you can lose it for me."

You wanna see some returns.

And people are lucky enough to see a lot of great returns with St. Jude.

- [Mark] Well, I was fortunate enough to go on the St. Jude Drive last year, the Corvette Drive, with you and a bunch of other people and got to see the campus, and it is something else.

It's amazing.

- [Mike] The first day there, I remember going in '82.

The first time I was there, there was a seven-story building, a little pavilion across a gravel road and a couple of tentacles coming out.

And now it's over 100 acres.

They've gone from I, think, 200 employees the first time I went to 6,000 employees now.

So they're doing good work there.

- Yeah, they sure are.

- And like you said, and they work with everybody else.

You know, in Peoria, we're lucky to have Easterseals, the Children's Hospital, and now St. Francis and everything.

And for all those charities to work together in Peoria, Peoria is just such a giving community.

It's a great place to live.

- At what point did you realize during this process since 1982 that, like it or not, you're the face of St. Jude Runs right now?

- Yeah, I still struggle with that a little bit.

You know, we've got a lot of great people.

It's not about what I do.

You know, when you think that like this August 5th when we come in from Memphis and the other runs there, there's gonna be, you know, about 3,000 runners coming in.

They've all done a huge part to help get to that amount of money.

You know, it's staggering to think that in the run alone we've raised $88 million after raising 22,500.

St. Jude is a great story, and I think people that realize what they do get involved.

And then of course, there's the thing of once you get 'em to Memphis, and they see the campus, your job is done.

They're in.

- Yeah, I think a lot of people don't realize too that they know about Memphis, and they know about Peoria, but I think people think that, "Oh, there's locations all over the country doing what Peoria does," and- - There's not.

- There's not.

- There's not.

Peoria has the biggest and best affiliate, you know.

I remember when Dr. McCallister was there, as you probably do.

There's only one doctor and a couple of nurses.

Now I think they have 12 doctors working down at OSF at the Jim and Trudy Maloof Clinic.

So that's a great thing for the community.

- That sure is.

Well, where do you see the future of this?

- You know, I think the future is doing like we talked about earlier.

You have to keep the younger people coming up.

You have to keep educating people on what they do.

And, you know, some of us that were running six and 10 miles a day pretty quick now aren't running six and 10 miles a day very quick at all anymore, and so, to recruit the people and to keep it going.

We see a steady flux of younger people coming in intentionally by recruiting, and some people are dropping out.

So I think the future's bright.

Each year we have a couple of inquiries about new cities that want to go on the run.

And like you said, the ride and the drive, now we have six drive cities that are gonna be going in 10 days to Memphis for the drive, and the motorcycle ride is gonna have about 450 motorcycles.

So I think that selling the St. Jude story is not hard, and I hope it keeps going because wiping out childhood cancer is a good thing.

- Absolutely.

So besides working with St. Jude, what are you gonna do in your retirement?

- In about a half hour, I'm gonna go play golf.

- [Mark] All right.

- And I play probably too much golf.

I like it, and I got things to do around the house.

I got some grandkids and kids, and I'm gonna enjoy it.

Like we talked earlier, it took me a little while to wrap my head around it, but this morning I felt pretty good.

(laughs) - I bet you did, I bet you did.

And you feel good about where you've left the Washington Police Department?

- I do.

I feel really excited.

I said that last night at the council meeting.

You know, Jeff Stevens, the deputy chief who's now the interim chief as of last night, has been here 24 years.

He's a very smart, capable guy.

He bought into some of my crazy ideas about community, and it's important to be community-involved, and I think he's gonna just enhance them.

And as other communities around here are struggling to get police officers, we had seven people on our list as of yesterday that wanna come to Washington.

The last four or five we've hired have all been lateral transfers, people that wanna come there to work.

So I think that's a very strong point.

And, you know, the city council and what Mayor Manier has done in the last eight years to help us grow, he bought into some of my ideas and the council did.

And I think Washington is gonna be a really strong place for a long time.

- What advice would you give for your replacement?

- Nah, you know, Jeff don't need any advice.

He was a big help for 23 years.

I could never have been successful without him and the guys there.

There's some real talent there now.

And, you know, policing now is just not taking a test and signing up for the job.

What they have to go through for background investigations and drug tests and the physical fitness, it's really a lot different than when I went.

- Yeah.

Well, we congratulate you on a very long and successful career.

- Thank you very much.

- And like I said, I think your legacy is going to be just about as much about St. Jude as it is law enforcement.

And from those of us who have benefited from St. Jude personally, thank you for everything you've done.

- You're welcome.

- Really appreciate it, Mike.

Enjoy retirement.

Hope your golf game gets even better.

- It's got to.

(both laugh) - [Mark] It can only go up from here, right?

- Yeah, it can, you're right.

- All right, thank you, Mike.

- Thanks, Mark.

- And thank you for joining us.

You can check us out anytime at wtvp.org, and we are on a Facebook and Instagram.

Have a good night.

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