“Why it’s good to live in Centralia” - inspire community magazine
Tom Hawkins is a retired superintendent of Centralia City Schools and is a past president of the Centralia Chamber of Commerce board of directors.
I became involved with the Chamber through the Education Committee during my time as a school administrator. I have always believed that business and education should work together to help young people see the connections between school and the workplace. I am very pleased today to see Kaskaskia College and Centralia High School discussing how to bring school and the workplace together through school to career connections.
My wife, Jan, and I did not grow up here, but we have lived in Centralia for almost 50 years. This is where we raised our two sons, spent our teaching careers, built life-long friendships, and transitioned into retirement. We liked what we saw when we first came and we continue to enjoy living here.
A spirit of entrepreneurism is now sparking business growth. Castle Ridge has come to Raccoon Lake, the west side of Centralia has expanded with new businesses and a hotel, and the downtown is being revitalized. Instead of working in silos and trying to replicate what worked 30 years ago, investors now work collaboratively and think outside the box to find new niches in the economy. From cooperation and shared vision has come coffee shops, restaurants, a downtown winery, entertainment venues, and places to meet and collaborate which not only create jobs and revenue; they add to everyone’s quality of life and are a part of what is good about living here.
We learned that Centralia is convenient in terms of both location and transportation. St. Louis is only about an hour and a half by car, so travel over and back is quite easy. Centralia is a four to five hour drive to weekend destinations in Chicago, Kansas City, Memphis, Louisville, and Indianapolis. Amtrak provides rail passenger service multiple times daily with trains running from Chicago to New Orleans. We have always enjoyed riding the train and believe Centralia’s access to rail travel is a nice “perk” many cities of our size don’t have.
We have found plenty of opportunities for recreation and leisure. Centralia is home to multiple public parks each with its unique identity and function. We have the Centralia Recreation Complex which not only makes its facilities available to the public, it provides swimming and water safety lessons to Centralia area students. The Centralia Area Historical Museum is a place where history buffs can get lost in memories from the past and attend informative presentations. We also have a well-designed golf course and two busy sports academies which draw young athletes from around the area.
Centralia offers several annual events including festivals, concerts, celebrations, and tournaments. Among the longest running and best known of these recurring events are the Balloon Fest, the Halloween Parade, the Centralia High School Basketball Holiday Tournament, and the Centralia High School May Fete. These are all in addition to regular entertainment offered at such local venues as Centralia Cultural Society, Crooked Creek Winery, and Schwartz Orchard.
Any discussion of Centralia’s environment would not be complete without mentioning Raccoon Lake and Lake Centralia. Most cities would be happy to have one lake, but Centralia is blessed to have two. Bald eagles live on the lake year-round and flocks of American White Pelicans and Snow Geese come for weeks at a time during the fall and spring migrations. Fishing is great on Raccoon but so is puttering around the lake in an old pontoon boat like we do. For those looking for water sports, Centralia Lake allows water skiing, wakeboards, and jet skis.
We are indeed a city of different cultures, races, religions, and economic circumstances which have been drawn together by the railroad, coal mines, oil fields, health care, and other industries. Our children grow up in a microcosm of the global community at-large and learn that character and heart are what’s important about people and not their skin color, how they find God, or the size of their bank accounts. We seldom hear diversity touted as an advantage of living in Centralia, but we think it is. In fact, Centralia’s diversity played an important part in our decision to move here. We wanted our children to have something that we lacked growing up - an opportunity to experience and learn from different cultural perspectives and points of view up close and personal.
Thank you for your kind attention and allowing me to share why I think it’s good to live in Centralia today.
Edited from speech given at the 100th Annual Banquet for the Centralia Chamber of Commerce in 2024.