"I raised over $100,000 for my Eagle Scout project."

What does it take for a 14-year-old girl to raise over $100,000 for her community? In this deeply moving episode of This One Time in Kankakee, we sit down with Alexis McCullough and her mother, Cassandra, to discuss the journey behind the Gold Star Families Memorial Monument at Marcotte Park in Bourbonnais.

Following the sudden loss of her father, Colonel Mark McCullough, Alexis transformed her grief into a mission. This isn't your typical Eagle Scout story. From "secret meetings" with a mysterious advisor named "Voldemort" to navigating the "armpit of Illinois," Alexis and Cassandra share the raw, witty, and heartbreaking reality of life as a Gold Star Family.

In this episode, we dive into:

• The Logistics of Grief: How Alexis used her father’s military discipline to coordinate a massive community project.
• The "No Plan B" Mentality: Why Alexis refused to build a simple park bench and insisted on a $100,000 black granite monument.
• Kankakee's Spiderweb: The incredible way local businesses and residents rallied to "chisel away" at the final cost through donations of labor and materials.
• Full Circle Moments: The surprise presentation of a Ground Zero 9/11 flag and the emotional letter from the DFW firefighters who tried to save her father’s life.
• The Marble in the Box: Cassandra’s powerful metaphor for how grief changes over time, but never truly leaves.

Whether you are a scouting enthusiast, a military supporter, or a Kankakee local, this story of resilience, "embracing the suck," and building a lasting legacy will leave you inspired.

Want more from the WVLI Podcast Network? Listen to the WVLI News Update with Rob West every weekday morning! Get the days local news from the greater Kankakee County, IL area in 10 minutes or less. 

Subscribe now on your preferred podcast platform: https://wvlinewsupdate.buzzsprout.com

The Voices You Trust, Beyond The Dial.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:01

An episode of this one time in Kankakee from the WVLI Podcast Network will start right after this. Support for this one time in Kankakee comes from the Kankakee Area YMCA. The Kankakee Area YMCA is more than just a gym. It's a movement of thousands of people making positive changes in their lives and their community. The YMCA is Kankiki's premier provider of family health and wellness. Become a Y member today at their location on Kennedy Drive in Kankakee or at K3YMCA.org. For youth development, for healthy living, for social responsibility, the Kankiki Area YMCA. Support for this one time in Kankakee comes from Ravenspring Media, where method, media, and mindfulness create impact. From video production, photography, animation, and team building, Ravenspring Media creates compelling content that captures your brand's unique story in a strategic way. With over twenty years of visual storytelling experience, Ravenspring Media brings together creative expertise and a fresh perspective to every project they undertake. Begin your story today at Ravenspringmedia.com. Welcome to this one time in Kinkakee from the WVLI Podcast Network. I'm Jake Lamore. The voice you just heard belongs to Alexis McCullough. At time of recording this episode, she's a senior at Bradley Bourbonet Community High School, a varsity wrestler, Miss Chicago's teen for 2026, and she recently became an Eagle Scout. But behind every great leader is a great strategist. For Alexis, that strategist is her mother, Cassandra.

SPEAKER_01 2:31

I am the driver, I am the snack packer, I am the schlepping, get it in in and out of the car, preparing to make sure I've printed out enough pieces of paper to hand out to everyone. So the trick about an Eagle Project, I can't do anything unless she tells me to, because she's my project manager. So talk about a paradigm shift at home.

SPEAKER_02 3:04

Cassandra McCullough is more than just a scout mom. She's the person who watched Alexis transform from a grumpy cat middle schooler dealing with the loss of her father into a young woman who could walk into the mayor's office and demand a plot of land. Yes. What was your reaction to that?

SPEAKER_01 3:27

I said, How are you going to do that? I of course I said yes. Anything that you want, because if you aren't allowed to try, as a child, if you're not allowed to try, you're just pushed down. So of course, let's do it. And she goes, Do you know how embarrassing it's gonna be if I don't do this? I'm like, well, I guess you better work hard. So get to it. Did I think she was crazy? Absolutely. I'm like, are you sure you don't want to build a bench or something? Put up a flagpole? I mean, we could get it done in a day.

SPEAKER_00 4:04

Like Woody Williams, they said that you could build a bench or you can build a monument. And I was like, a monument? Because I'm not building a bench. And so even though it would have been like a$15,000 bench. So I went to Mayor Shore and I asked, like, hey, I want to do this Eagle Scout project. Do you have any land? That would be nice. And he was like, sure. Uh, do you actually think that you're gonna get this done? And I was like, well, sure try. Reference to the B movie, by the way.

SPEAKER_02 4:44

Um to understand the project, you have to go back to 1995. Cassandra was the designated driver at a retirement party when she met a guy named Mark.

SPEAKER_01 5:04

Mark and his friend came and crashed the party, and here's this guy, you know, in his mid-20s, and he just kind of flirted with me, and he went and he asked me for my number, and my aunt's like, Don't do it, don't do it. And I said, Oh no, he seems fine. So I wrote it down. He called me, we started dating a couple months later. It progressed. He asked me to marry him, and we got married in 95, and then he went directly into the military active duty again, and so we traveled around quite a bit.

SPEAKER_02 5:40

Mark McCullough was an army man through and through. He bled green, and eventually the military life brought them here to Kankakee County.

SPEAKER_01 5:49

We landed in Kankakee in 2001, I think, and he was working at a factory here in town.

SPEAKER_02 5:59

So, what specifically then brought you to Kinkakee?

SPEAKER_01 6:02

Armstrong World Industries. He took a job there. So he was reserve and civilian at the same time. So he got out of regular army and went reserve, and so he came here and he said, let's start a family.

SPEAKER_00 6:16

He was a logistician, so he was basically in charge of logistics and telling people what to do and where to go. He was a really big Steelers fan. That's another thing about my dad. Whenever they got a touchdown, he wanted us to do 10 push-ups, and I was like, Why are we doing push-ups if they were getting a touchdown? And he's like, Like, he was really big Steelers fan.

SPEAKER_02 6:44

By 2019, Mark and Cassandra were divorced. But they remained deeply connected through Alexis. Mark was living in Texas, and Alexis was a sixth grader in Kankiki County. Then came October.

SPEAKER_01 7:03

Mark was on his way to an assignment, and he had a heart attack at the airport. And so one of the things that he did that day is he would say, I'm gonna get a hot dog, and I'll text you on the other side. And he went to get a hot dog, and that was the last message that she got. They said that he passed away by the time he hit the floor.

SPEAKER_00 7:31

I was on my way home from school, I was having a great afternoon. Then I get off the bus, and there are a lot of cars in my driveway. And I'm like, why are there so many people at my house? And so I go in, and one of my mom's co-workers was sitting inside. My godmother was there. There were just people in the house, and I was just like, that's weird. Normal 11-year-old thoughts. And then I'm told to sit onto the couch. My mom came back inside and she sat down like across from me, like in the chair that we have across from our couch in the living room. And she basically told me, Your dad's been in an accident. When I heard the word accident in my mind, I was like, Oh, so he slipped on a banana peel. Oh, so he's fine.

SPEAKER_01 8:27

And it's like she didn't hear me and it didn't process. So she went to her room and she just settled in, and then we had to tell her a second time. And that was one of the worst things that I had to do. Like, not only do you have to do it once, you have to do it twice, and make sure it sinks in because kids just don't get it. Like, she came home and the living room was full of all these people that we love, and she's like, Why is everyone here? And just getting through that was a lot.

SPEAKER_00 9:03

She kneeled on the floor and like with like she had her like arms on the bed and she was like looking at me on the bed, and I like asked her, I was like, Is dad okay? And then like her lip quivered, and like she was just like, No.

SPEAKER_02 9:15

The tragedy didn't stop there. The family was hit by six deaths in nine weeks. Alexis went into what Cassandra calls a grief bubble, and the outside world didn't always know how to handle it.

SPEAKER_01 9:31

The people around her, the kids at school, were like, we're really tired of you being sad. And why don't you let us know when you're done being sad? And so she lost a lot of friends, and it was really hard, and she got depressed, and I was depressed because she's depressed. I it it just it changes your whole life because whether or not you're married or divorced, that's still the father of my child.

SPEAKER_02 10:04

To get Alexis out of that bubble, Cassandra gave her an ultimatum. Become an Eagle Scout, or you don't get a driver's license.

SPEAKER_01 10:14

She said, fine, when can I quit? I said, as soon as you Eagle, honey. I said, because if you're gonna drive a car that I own, you're gonna be an Eagle Scout. I'm gonna get a discount on my insurance.

SPEAKER_02 10:27

Alexis didn't just meet the requirement. She decided to build a Gold Star Family's memorial. But she needed a plan, and that's when Voldemort enters the picture. A secret advisor who pushed her to think bigger than a bake sale.

SPEAKER_01 10:42

The very first time that she met with someone, and we call him um Voldemort, because he didn't he wanted to be anonymous. He did not want anyone to know who he was. So she would have these secret meetings at a secret location with her advisor that nobody gets to know about. And he said, listen, you can do a lot of bake sales for a hundred dollars a piece, or you can do some events and make some money. Do you want to do a bake sale? And she's like, absolutely not.

SPEAKER_00 11:23

I donated five thousand dollars of my personal money. If you can give anything, that would mean a lot. I was able to partner with Border Town Guns while they were still open, and so like they donated money, different like Snap-on Tools, they donated money, and a lot of different like organizations, and so like not only did people donate money, but also people donated labor, they donated concrete, they donated plants, and so because of that help, it was like I was raising more money, but it was just I don't have to pay for these things. So then that took the price down too because like of the connections that I had with Zolens and Bada Bloom and all of those things. They were like, hey, like we have this, we can donate this, like we have the soil that we can give to you, and then so it would be less of, hey, I'm asking you to give me$50,000, and it's like, hey, can you give me some extra concrete?

SPEAKER_02 12:25

Alexis took her 35-page proposal to Bourbon Air Paul Shore. She didn't just ask permission, she gave him a choice get on board or get out of the way.

SPEAKER_01 12:38

She wrote a 35-page proposal, put it in a white binder with like the cover sheet and all the information, and she puts it down on the desk in front of him, and he never opened it for the whole meeting. And she's like, he didn't open the book. Because he talked to her and he's like, Tell me about your project. Tell me what you think. Why is this important to you? What are you gonna do? What's gonna happen if you don't do it? She goes, I'm doing this, whether it's my ego project or not, it's getting done. So I really need you to sign off on it. When can we go to the board and talk about it? That was kind of like my Mother's Day present.

SPEAKER_02 13:27

Dedication Day was the culmination of two years of schlepping. 300 people stood in the freezing wind at Marcot Park to see the 11-foot-wide monument unveiled.

SPEAKER_00 13:39

That morning it was very windy, it was very cold. It didn't feel real like while it was happening. Like, I feel like I was also in project manager mode. The project was great, but I felt like the dedication ceremony was a project of itself. And so, like, being able to coordinate, okay, everybody has these flags, this is when you come out, and like it was stressful, it was very emotional too.

SPEAKER_01 14:12

When you're doing all the things along the way, you don't see the overall impact, and that day all of those touch points that you've made came back to you. So there are about 300 people to be there that day, and you know, on any given day that there's a hundred other things that you could be doing, but those people chose to be there that day to celebrate that accomplishment for her, and one of the things I love surprising her, an agency that they fly flags over Ground 0911, and they presented her a flag that day.

SPEAKER_02 15:02

But for Alexis, the most powerful support didn't come from the dignitaries, it came from the people who had been there since the beginning, the Dallas-Fort Worth firefighters who tried to save her father.

SPEAKER_01 15:16

We went to the airport to um meet the EMTs that were there that day. Like we emailed ahead and we scheduled time to go see them. So I rented a car and we went to their site, and she had prepared a plaque for them. Then she read what she had written, um, a speech thanking them. She's like, You tried your best to save my dad. You didn't know me, you didn't know that you were ever going to know me, but you tried to save a hero, and that makes you my hero. And so she gave him this plaque and they gave her, you know, swag. And so it's interesting how even now at her eagle ceremony, they sent a letter to her commending her on her accomplishment, and that she's a hero to so many families, and and it just again, it goes back full circle.

SPEAKER_02 16:29

Alexis is heading to college soon. She's leaving Kankakee with more than just a trophy case, she's leaving a permanent mark on the landscape, and she's leaving a mother who finally sees her baby as a leader.

SPEAKER_01 16:44

One of her things that she talks about is like grief is like a marble in a box. So if you put a marble in a box and you're holding the box, if you're not stable with it, the marble hits off the side. And when you're getting better at managing your grief and you're holding it, and then all of a sudden the marble hits the side, you might not realize it's coming, you don't see it, it twinches and it goes through your body and it consumes you. And then you have to learn how to hold your grief better. The better you do, the box seems to get bigger. And eventually it doesn't hurt as bad. And when it hits, it doesn't sting so much. But those kinds of things that she has learned and how to describe, I just I'm marveled at this child.

SPEAKER_00 17:44

My dad, he definitely didn't want me to mope. He would be the type of person to like wear if I was sad or if I was emotional, that he would just literally want me to rub some dirt on it, and he'd be like, let's go. His key slogan was embrace the suck, and I think that he would be proud, and I think that it definitely isn't something that you think of when you think of losing somebody, you don't think, oh, I'm gonna build a monument for them. Um, and it's not necessarily for him, but it's because of him. I don't fear for her becoming an adult.

SPEAKER_01 18:21

I don't fear for her to learn from a mistake. I don't fear from her. I fear that I have to go down to school and change out laundry and bring her a coat. But then I get to see her and I'm like, I'll see you on the club. Um, I'm excited for that next phase of her life.

SPEAKER_00 18:38

Grief is grief. And even though she doesn't understand what it's like to lose a dad, she knows what it's like to lose essentially the person she was married to for 30 years. She knows what it's like to lose a loved one, she knows what it's like to lose a brother, a sister. It's similar, it's the same.

SPEAKER_02 18:55

And so just being understanding of other people is the most important thing that I've learned throughout this journey, you're not gonna be able to This episode of This One Time in Kankakee was produced by me, Jake Lamore, along with the WVLI Podcast Network. If you have a story you'd like to share, send me an email at Jake at Milner MediaPartners.com and finish this sentence for me. This one time in Kankakee