If I were to write a pros and cons list of being a journalist in your hometown, the pros would outweigh the cons in terms of number of items on the list, but there is a con which may hit home the hardest.

We receive the obituaries for people who pass away whether they still live in Mendota and the surrounding area or not. There is no warning when they are coming or who the obituary is going to be about, they just randomly show up in your email.

When I saw the obituary for Pamela (Pam) Herrera (Dec. 16, 1950 to March 8, 2025), I instantly saddened although I hadn’t seen her or talked to her in over 20 years.

Before I met all three of her sons throughout the years (Tony, Jose, Nick), I learned who Pam was when I was new to Mendota as a 12 or 13 year old who transferred from bigger, urban cities to  a rural area with two stop lights, no arcade, no movie theater and a misunderstanding of someone dressed in too big of clothes who talked and acted different than everyone.

It took a year or two before I had friends or at least close friends. There were many days I left school early because I was either being bullied or I was the bully because I simply didn’t fit in, and in my head, didn’t belong. I was actually expelled from Northbrook School for fighting when I was in the eighth grade and had to finish the year in an alternative school in Streator just to get into high school.

There were a few people from 1997 when I moved to Mendota to now, who helped bridge the transition to making a place I didn’t want to be at eventually become my home I’ve come back to after college or taking jobs and touring other parts of the country.

I can’t say if Herrera was the first of these positive influencers who I came across, but she is one I never forgot and when I saw her photo in the obituary, streams of memories cruised through my mind.

Don’t judge, but in the late 1990s coming from an area where family members of mine were in gangs (some still are) and they were my only role models or people in front of me, I copied them in terms of clothing. I came to Mendota in Fubu jeans (my nickname from a group of Mendota kids who became my lifelong friends, turned family, is Fubu) and bandanas neatly folded around my head with a stocking cap over them in the winter.

The Y.O.U. program, a youth program formed to assist youngsters through all transitions including the one I was going through, used to host dances at Northbrook. I’ll never forget walking to the door with my bandana under my skully and meeting Herrera for the first time. She took one look at me, shook her head no, and used her hand to gesture me to come toward her.

With a smile on her face, she said, ‘I know you’re a new kid and I want you to enjoy yourself at the dance, but I can’t have anyone wearing bandanas in because we want this to be a safe place. I think you want this to be a safe place for you. I think you’re a safe kid. So, why don’t we pocket the bandana and all of us have a good time.’

This was over 25 years ago and I remember what she said verbatim.

She didn’t yell.

She didn’t look at me in disgust.

I didn’t feel judged.

My normal defensive mechanisms I usually had up every day of my early Mendota days were untriggered.

Over the next few years as I went through junior high and high school, I saw Herrera on a normal basis since her office was next to where my mother worked. She would always say hello and was always friendly.

I got into legal trouble because of boneheaded decisions I made. Instead of not wanting to talk to me or be around me after I’d return from the detention home, she actually addressed my situation and asked me why such a good kid wanted to be so bad. More words and a conversation I’ve never forgotten.

Herrera never bought me anything, bribed me to change my behavior or lied to me. She told me I was making the wrong decisions and helped me realize why I was acting out. Pam gave me advise on how to change and what I needed to do to move forward progressively and change the perception, stigma I had created as a bad kid.

When I enrolled in the National Guard, when I graduated high school, and when I was accepted to college, she told me congratulations. If I remembered right, I think she gave me a hug.

I graduated high school in 2004 and I can’t recall if I saw or spoke to Pam since, but I don’t think so.

If you can word-for-word write a quote from conversations more than 25 years ago, or state how they helped you, or why they were different than others around you, it means they were a special person, a good one.

When I went to her services on Friday, March 14 at Community United Methodist Church in LaMoille, there were others replaying similar stories of similar memories.

I can’t speak for everyone, but I think there was a consensus of deep appreciation for the way Herrera treated people, how she interacted, and how much she cared about the youth.

I’m hoping I said this to her when I was younger, but if I didn’t, she deserves a huge, the most sincere as possible, thank you.