Elginite, 74, gets MLK award for service, volunteerism
The legacy of Martin Luther King Jr., Elgin resident Joe Wars says, is about coming together - not just as blacks or whites, but as all people - to create a vision, establish goals and work to achieve them.
The 74-year-old Elgin resident knows something about it. He has devoted his life to service and a variety of volunteer causes, for which he was recognized with the 2017 Dr. King Legacy Award this month.
Rather than the more famous "I've Been to the Mountaintop," Wars said, his favorite speech by King is "The Drum Major Instinct," which admonishes the temptations of the ego and urges people to serve others. "I always loved that one," he said.
Wars "is a phenomenal human being," said Danise Habun, a member of the city's human relations commission, which unanimously chose Wars for the second annual award. The late Bob Gilliam, a former city council member, received the award posthumously last year.
Wars' community contributions over the years include serving as board president and as interim executive director of the Boys and Girls Club of Elgin, serving on the Elgin Image and Human Relations Commission, and coordinating the annual Martin Luther King Jr. food drive in Elgin. He has played Santa Claus at the city's tree lighting ceremony and volunteered to teach computer skills at Hanover Township's senior center.
These days, Wars said he has slowed down after a series of health issues, including pneumonia, from which he is gradually recovering.
A native of Virginia, his love for volunteering came from his parents, he said, who despite their own challenges in raising four kids and taking care of their own parents "were always trying to do something to help someone.
"I never realized how poor we were until I got to college," he said. "To us a two-day trip from Charlottesville to DC, staying with an uncle or in a motel, was a vacation. Then I heard about black people going to Europe on vacation!"
He was active with the Jaycees in college and later organized a black chapter. "I was always proud to see of the advances that people make because of their involvement (with the club)."
Wars moved to Elgin in 1976 with his wife and daughter to work as a regional manager for the company that later became Advanced Seeds. He picked Elgin almost by happenstance, he said, after a visit to the now-defunct Gromer Supermarket where everyone exuded warmth and a sense of community. "I went down the street to the Realtor and said, 'Show me some houses!'"
He retired from the seed company about 12 years ago and worked for a few years as a car salesman for Hopkins Ford in Elgin, mostly to keep busy, he said.
Over the years, he's developed a deep love for Elgin, where race relations have been "overall pretty good," he said.
In the 1970s and 1980s, people experienced housing discrimination - which the city tried to address by offering landlord seminars - while these days it's more about employment discrimination, he said. "There is also gender issues - women being treated fairly and being respected," he said.
Wars is especially proud of having helped create in the 1990s the "Excellence in Elgin" program recognizing outstanding youths.
"People don't realize how much young people do - they volunteer at the hospital, they volunteer at the library, they do a lot of things that should be recognized," he said. "I keep thinking to kick the dust off that program."