COMMUNITY SPOTLIGHT: Herbert Lillard
Herbert Lillard is in the second year of his first term as Pembroke Township Supervisor and has served one term as a Pembroke Township Board Trustee.
Family & Career
Herbert Lillard was born in Chicago, Illinois. His family left the Chicago projects and moved to Pembroke in 1964. He moved in and out of the Kankakee County area until his parents passed and left the land to the children. “Someone had to take over the property, so I got stuck with it.”
Herbert has been married to Brenda Lee Riley for 37 years. She is from the Sun River Terrace community, and together, they have 2 daughters and 1 grandchild.
After earning a Bachelor's degree in science from the University of Illinois at Champaign, Herbert worked as a probation officer, chemical analyst, independent contractor and chemical consultant, and sergeant with the Pontiac Department of Corrections. He retired in 2016.
Political Aspirations
His march into politics began with a simple question:
“I was wondering for years what was going on after hearing all this negative stuff about Pembroke Township. So, I asked the Supervisor (at the time) about it and offered to help. While helping out, I got the answer. I saw what was wrong with Pembroke Township. That's when I decided to run for Trustee and served for four years. After that experience, I thought I had better run for Supervisor because, if I didn’t, we would lose Pembroke… to the demands being placed on it… and (from) people coming in wanting to impose their own plans on us.”
When Herbert came in as the new supervisor, his board consisted of 3 new trustees and one he had previously served with. He appreciated that he had to earn their trust to achieve township goals.
He highlights one of the biggest achievements of his board, something that had not been done in a long time: “We ended the first fiscal year with a fund balance! We didn’t have money coming in for a straight four months, and had to manage to stay above water until tax revenues came in. March 31st ended the fiscal year, and Pembroke Township had a fund balance!”
Vision to Feed the World
Although much of the federal and state funding for small rural towns has been cut, Herbert still plans to seek grant support to advance his vision of maintaining Pembroke Township as a “farming community and rejuvenate the black farmers.”
“I want to feed our area and our whole state with organic food. My dream for Pembroke is to be the food capital of this area, then for Illinois, and, as far as we can go, possibly feed the world.”
Herbert recognizes that this is a lofty vision. He admits that he doesn’t have all the answers and won’t accomplish this alone. He is beginning at the starting point now which is by making solid contacts with the local farmers. By partnering with the farmer’s network, he intends to develop a conglomeration of farming businesses that will have the capacity and shared vision to accomplish this mission of feeding the world together starting with home first.
His inspiration comes from talking to the local farmers and business community. He shares in CDC-PHP’s vision to conserve Pembroke's rare ecological assets, agricultural economy and eco-tourism focus.
“I am counting on CDC-PHP to take the lead on that since that’s what they do. I am here to assist.”
He also envisions Pembroke residents as entrepreneurs. “I want the hometown people to make money,” he says, and encourages community members with ideas to “bring them so we can talk about them. We can form a committee to assist them with their ideas.”
Author: Louise Campbell-Anthony
Edited by: Johari Cole-Kweli
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