Only seven years ago, an empty shell of a worn and shuttered Mitsubishi automobile plant sat on the edge of Normal, waiting for rodents, spiderwebs and atrophy.
Today, it is Rivian Motors. It employs more than 8,000.
“I always thought we’d get something in there,” says Chris Koos, matter-of-factly, without much emotion.
In this January 2006 file photo, Normal Mayor Chris Koos jumps into the new the 2007 Eclipse Spyder, joining Dan Brady (R-Bloomington) during the unveiling at Mitsubishi Motors North America manufacturing facility in Normal.
Twenty-five years ago, downtown Normal resembled other aging retail areas — dingy facades, worn storefronts, areas of crumbling brick.
“Something had to be done,” says Koos, a one-term council person in 2001 before being elected town mayor in 2003. “The choice was to tidy it up, or to do something bold. The council chose bold.”
Today, the rejuvenated downtown is boldly “uptown.”
“It’s amazing what they’ve done there,” Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker said last year during a visit to Normal.
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Fifty-four years ago, drafted into a grisly swath of Vietnam warfare that ultimately cost 55,000 American lives, Koos at one point was out in the field for 128 straight days, with the Army 101st Airborne, as an infantry leader of a platoon severely depleted by dysentery and dwindling numbers.
Normal Mayor Chris Koos, a veteran of the war in Vietnam, repeated the names of fellow soldiers who served with him but died during their service as he gave a presentation at the American Legion Post 635 plaque dedication in uptown Normal, Saturday, May 30, 2020.
“I remember thinking as we went out, this is not good,” he says. “You always wondered … if it might be your day.”
A year later, Koos made it back home anyway.
More recently, in what his doctors suggest was perhaps spawned by exposure to Agent Orange, the herbicide used by the U.S. to deforest Vietnam, Koos has quietly, out of the limelight, battled and beaten cancer.
“Chris doesn’t quit. He works at something until it works out,” says his brother, Greg Koos, a retired longtime executive director of the McLean County Museum of History and a year younger than Chris. “He makes plans, keeps his own counsel, but carefully listens to people who know more than he does. I think Vietnam taught him, in order to stay alive, you have to trust other voices of experience.”
Normal Mayor Chris Koos, right, talks with his brother, Greg, Tuesday, April 9, 2013, while waiting for campaign results at Medici in uptown Normal. Koos won reelection.
In February, in a time of division between the political parties, Koos even made American history of sorts.
First nominated in 2020 by President Trump to be a member of the U.S. Amtrak Board of Directors, he was nonetheless not confirmed. But when re-nominated by President Biden in 2022, he was seated by the U.S. Senate.
“How many people, in these hyper-partisan times, can say they were nominated to such a Cabinet position, by both Trump and Biden?” asks one Normal resident, Phil Grizzard.
Yes, in an odd, quirky way, it was a full-scale tribute to Koos.
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“Chris is a small-businessman who owns a small business (Vitesse Cycle Shop and the adjoining Often Running) selling running shoes and bicycles,” Illinois Sen. Richard Durbin said in a statement for this column. “From movement on foot and bike to movement now by rail, I think it’s safe to say, Chris has a passion for supporting people on the go.”
Growing up on Bloomington’s Franklin Park, a 1950s son of an odds-and-ends carpenter and stay-at-home mom, Koos was, in the words of brother Greg, “an accomplished Eagle Scout” (along with Greg and another brother, Bob) and a “highly successful high school debater” (at Trinity High, today’s Central Catholic) who went on to Illinois State University.
That’s where, in 1970, during his sophomore year, the draft and Vietnam interceded, amid a history-changing, devastating, two-year stretch of assassinations (Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy), mass war-protesting across America and the Kent State riots.
“American Idol” finalist Leah Marlene, right, takes in the crowd before Normal Mayor Chris Koos, left, officially declares Tuesday, May 17, 2022, to be Leah Marlene Day following a parade in uptown Normal.
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“That time in Vietnam changed me,” says Koos. “And it changed my friends back in America who saw all the protesting and politics.”
By 2000, when Normal was growing and Koos saw it, a young, fledgling, local businessman, he got elected to a council seat.
Two years later, he was elected mayor.
“It’s not about me,” he says. “It’s all about good planning and having a fully devoted staff, and good leadership, from past mayors … from Rich Godfrey, to Paul Harmon, to Kent Karraker. They built the foundation, with city managers like Dave Anderson and Mark Peterson, and Pamela Reece, and the city councils seeing a goal. That’s the story.”
Normal Mayor Chris Koos talks with U.S. Sen. Barack Obama on Aug. 1, 2005, after Obama and U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin announced additional federal funds will be allocated to the proposed transportation center in uptown Normal.
There are, of course, the story’s detractors, too.
Progressives, like Koos, and those not challenged by change can irritate the more conservative and those who like life as it was.
Spending money on any level — municipal or otherwise — will always draw sides.
Current projects, like one with a $23.9 million price tag, to build a tunnel beneath railroad tracks to connect uptown to southern sections beyond it (all but $1.69 million to be funded by federal and state), continue to draw the ire of some.
And yet there is Koos, now the longest-serving mayor in Normal’s near 175-year history.
Bloomington Mayor Mboka Mwilambwe, left, and Normal Mayor Chris Koos share the same birthday on July 6.
“You’ve got to listen to what your critics have to say and understand their concerns,” he says. “At the same time, you’ve got to put it all in perspective and see what the majority of your residents want. I think most residents in Normal approve of the progress we’ve made. We’re a model for other cities across the U.S. I’m proud to be a voice for it.”
For a lifetime that in his case has now stretched to 75 years, seemingly up against it all the way, he has faced a series of significant challenges.
And admirably, he’s succeeded anyway.
You might even say, almost Normally.
U.S. Representative Eric Sorensen and Normal mayor Chris Koos talk about investing in Normal
University High School student Sirihaasa Nallamothu gives a welcoming speech Saturday afternoon at an event commemorating the sealing of a 20-year time capsule at Normal’s Community Activity Center.
Bill Flick is at bflick@pantagraph.com.
