Woman wants street named for Elgin pastor who turned her life around

How do you repay the pastor who helped you move away from a history of drugs and violence so you could turn your life around? If you're Vicketa "Ruby" Clement, you set the wheels in motion to designate a street in his honor.

Pastor James L. Marks of Bethesda Church of God in Christ will have Hickory Place, where the Elgin church is located, designated after him if the city council approves Clement's petition.

"When I came to the church, I was a different person than I am today. I was using drugs and gangbanging and out in the streets and stuff," said Clement, who lives in Belvidere. "Then I met Pastor Marks and he helped me change my life for the better."

In his 40-plus years as pastor, Marks has had a tremendous effect not just on her life but on the lives of countless others, Clement said.

"He comes to you like he's a father and he don't judge or look down upon you," she said. "You could have done the worst thing in life and he'll look at you like it's nothing. He'll accept you."

Clement gathered signatures from residents of Hickory Place in support of her petition. "He deserves to be honored while he's living," she said, also crediting church member Jackie Dussard with helping her through the process.

Council members are expected to cast a preliminary vote on the honorary designation Wednesday. Councilman Rich Dunne sent a letter to Clement saying he wholeheartedly supports her initiative. "It is through his dedication and leadership that the Bethesda Church of God in Christ has been such a driving force," he wrote.

The 74-year-old Marks, who has served at Bethesda Church for 42 years, said he had no idea this was in the works. "I am so surprised," he said.

Marks, who lives in Rockford, also serves on the Elgin Cooperative Ministry board and was on the board of the Boys and Girls Club of Elgin for 14 years. He helped start Food for Greater Elgin and is on the roster of chaplains for the Elgin Police Department.

The northeast side neighborhood where Bethesda Church is located has changed for the better in the last four decades - and the church played a large role in that, Marks said.

"It was an area with a lot of real problems there," he said. "As a lady, you could not walk down Fremont Street because of all the hassling that you would get. Gangs were in there. Drugs was very heavy. The lifestyle in the neighborhood was rough, but during this time we made changes and we built the church there - and it made a big change in the neighborhood."

Now, the neighborhood is "a normal area," he said. The presence years ago of the police department's resident officer program, which assigns officers to live in the areas they patrol, also helped stabilize it, he added.

Clement, 38, moved from Chicago to Elgin in 2003 and met Marks when she started attending church three years later. "My aunt used to talk about Pastor Marks all the time," she said. "That's what got me to finally go and see what there was to this man that everybody was talking about."

Clement said she's a different woman from the one who served time in prison on drug-related and other charges. Now, she is a church usher and married to a church deacon, and works in property management with her husband, she said.

Marks helped propel her life forward, she said.

"He counseled me, he supported me and he talked to me about the saving grace of Jesus," she said. "I had a lot of insecurities, and he let me know that Jesus - and he - accepted me."

So what's the key to being an effective pastor?

"Most of all you have to love people," Marks said. "That's the key, I would say, for pastoring. Because the journey will be difficult and you still have to love them and put up with some of their difficult problems. So instead of deserting them, you have to love them."