BEVERLY — Gary Schenkel, of Beverly, will lace up his running shoes Monday for the Ridge Run, hurry home to shower after the race and return to lead the Memorial Day parade down Longwood Drive.
Schenkel is the grand marshal of the 2016 Beverly Hills/Morgan Park/Mount Greenwood Memorial Day Parade. And he routinely participates in the neighborhood race that includes a 10K, 5K and one-mile youth run.
The runners begin at 8 a.m. and make their way along a pair of courses that both begin and end at Ridge Park. The race is well-known for community support, which includes neighbors staffing unofficial water tables, setting up sprinklers to cool runners along the way and shouting the names of friends and neighbors who pass by.
After the last race concludes, the Memorial Day parade steps off at 10:30 a.m. from 110th Place and Longwood Drive. The parade travels north and also ends at the park at 9625 S. Longwood Drive in Beverly.
But the parade has struggled to draw a crowd in recent years. Many runners head home after the race to clean up. Those marching in the parade arrive to find a mostly empty park and with few onlookers on the route.
"They miss the whole meaning of Memorial Day," said Schenkel, who is also the outgoing executive director of Chicago's Office of Emergency Management and Communications.
The Beverly Area Planning Association organizes the Ridge Run and has moved the finish line this year so runners complete the race in the grassy area just south of the Ridge Park field house.
The idea is to create a festival atmosphere near the finish line that will encourage runners to hang out after the race and enjoy the parade. Runners 21 and older will even be able to enjoy a post-race beer this year, said Margot Burke Holland, executive director of the neighborhood association.
There will also be inflatable jumping houses, face painters, hitting and pitching instruction from the Chicago Bulls/Sox Academy and more to keep runners and families occupied between the race and the parade, Holland said.
The parade concludes with the laying of a wreath and a color guard ceremony in the park.
Schenkel, a 29-year veteran who retired as a lieutenant colonel in the Marine Corps in 2000, said he was both honored and shocked when asked to lead the march.
His time in active duty included a deployments to Vietnam, Panama and the Persian Gulf. Back home, he worked at a nuclear station in California and in the Pentagon for the Secretary of the Army, he said.
He was working in San Francisco when the Chicago Police Department recruited him as part of an effort to combat gang violence. Schenkel, a St. Louis native, said many of the techniques he brought to the job are still being used today.
For the past five years, Schenkel has worked for the department that serves as the city's liaison to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. He was proud of the many reforms at the Office of Emergency Management and Communication that mostly went unnoticed.
"We have really transformed this operation to a city operations center," said Schenkel, explaining how improvements to Chicago's 911 system help police, firefighters, snowplow drivers and garbage trucks communicate across the board.
Alicia Tate-Nadeau, a South Loop resident, will takeover the post June 20. She is also a career soldier who was the first woman to earn the rank of brigadier general in the Illinois National Guard.
Schenkel said he's looking forward to the upcoming parade as well as his retirement. He and his wife, Diana Geron, don't have any specific plans other than to visit their grandchildren and to hit the open road.
"It's been a long 46 years," he said. "We are going to ride the motorcycle until the wheels fall off."
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