The 2026 Citizen of the Year for the Town of Normal is a Route 66 historian who serves as an ambassador for visitors from all over the world.
Terri Ryburn was honored by Mayor Chris Koos on Tuesday at the Illinois State University Horticulture Center in recognition of the renovation of Sprague’s Super Service and her work documenting the history of the Mother Road.
A Bloomington native, Ryburn has lived most of her life in McLean County. She has always been identified by her love of history, specifically historic Route 66. She earned her bachelor’s, master’s and a doctorate degrees in history from Illinois State University.
“I’ve always been interested in history. I’m that kid who would read every plaque on every exhibit in a museum,” she said in an interview on WGLT’s Sound Ideas.
“I just wanted to know something about history, and my emphasis in when I was getting all three of my degrees was on social history," said Ryburn. "I wanted to know what people were experiencing during, say, the World War II or Route 66.”
In her teaching capacity, Ryburn served as an academic advisor, lecturer, assistant director of the honors program and more. She taught the history of the state of Illinois and oral history with interests in World War II, popular culture and women’s studies.
She said it was exactly her love of all that history that made her happy to act like an ambassador for visitors to Normal and McLean County.
“I'm always happy to share with them the history, and I've done Route 66 five times as an adult, so I am able to get them down the road,” said Ryburn. “But I hope that I've always been kind and welcoming face when people come in.”
At the end of her academic career, she had spent 26 years at the university aside from academics and retired in 2005 as assistant director of the School of Kinesiology and Recreation.
Sprague’s Super Service
In her post-academic career, Ryburn’s focus was restoring the historic gas station into a Route 66 gift shop and museum on Pine Street for Route 66 travelers and other visitors.
In 2016, the town bought the building from Ryburn and joined in her mission to restore it to its former glory. Since she bought the building on her in 2006, she has served as its caretaker and has lived above the gift shop for many years.
Last year, Ryburn welcomed 4,240 visitors to Normal and 24% of them were international ones. Over the years, the average has been between 500 and 800 visitors a month.
Ryburn told WGLT earlier this year the building may appear to some as just a building with its rust-colored roof and green replica gas pumps — but it has always meant a lot more to her.
“Some people see an old building and see what it has become. Terri Ryburn saw what [it] could be,” Koos said at Tuesday's reception. “When she purchased Sprague’s Service Station, she took on more than a restoration project. She claimed a piece of Normal’s history.”
“Thanks to her vision, determination and perseverance, she brought the story of Sprague’s Super Service back to life. Our entire community benefits from her work.”
Reflecting on her time with the building from buying it on accident to leaving it soon, Ryburn recognized how much blood, sweat and tears (and personal money) she put into the old gas station. She said it was worth it.
“Well, nobody does this for the money, you know. We do it for love, and the fact that the town has taken it over means a lot to me because it means that long after I'm dead and gone, people can come and visit this building, and I'll probably still be haunting it,” she said.
“I've had people come back two or three times, and I've even had international folks come more than once, you know, maybe two, three years apart. They'll show up again.”
She said travelers remember the time she may have opened the gift shop on a day it was closed, asking them to wait until she finished a quick chore or something like that.
Now, Ryburn is set to retire in December after many years of welcoming visitors to her passion project. While she doesn't know what exactly will happen to the building after her, she knows it will stay a welcome center, and the town will continue to take care for it.
“Whatever goes in there, you know, whether it's a gift shop or something else, the people will be knowledgeable,” she said. “They will be able to help the visitors, so that's what I hope for the future.”
Citizen of the Year
Throughout her time at Sprague’s, Ryburn wrote the grants and made the investments herself to contribute to the restoration. She secured the building's registration on the National Register of Historic Places in 2008, its induction into the Route 66 Association of Illinois Hall of Fame and designation as a Town of Normal Local Landmark in 2011.
It was that passion that helped earn her the title of 2026 Citizen of the Year. At the reveal of the honor, she was thrilled to be selected even though she did not expect it.
“I now understand two of my very dear friends knew about it and didn't tell me, so I'll get them later…it's a wonderful honor,” said Ryburn. “When I bought the building 20 years ago, it never occurred to me what a difference it might make to the community. I just had to save that building.”
As far as advice to her fellow citizens, Ryburn said, “I would say if you have a passion for something, find something to have a passion for if you don’t, but if you have a passion for something, just keep plugging away and people eventually will buy into that passion and make your dreams come true because Town of Normal has made my dreams come true."
Though she promises to do nothing for a while, Ryburn said she has plans to continue her passion for restoring that include another building — another “derelict old gas station” that she plans to live in as well.
While Ryburn is retiring and beginning the journey of stepping away from documenting the history of Sprague’s and Route 66, she has the honor of doing so not just as Citizen of the Year, but as a treasured piece of the history herself.
