Wesseler chosen as July Fourth parade marshal

April 06--Bob Wesseler has three passions in life through which he gives back to his community: children, veterans and the elderly.

Wesseler believes in helping those who are often ignored or left behind by society, he said. He volunteers as a mentor at Thorntown Elementary School, with veteran hospice patients and serves as a Court Appointed Special Advocate for children.

This spirit of service earned him the honor of being named this year's Boone County Fourth of July Parade Marshal. The theme of this year's parade is "Salute to Freedom #RiseUp."

Raised on a farm in the southeastern part of the state, Wesseler and his wife, Victoria, bought property in Boone County in 1997 and finished building their rural Lebanon home in 2001.

"This was kind of our retirement place," Wesseler said. After years moving around and then living in Indianapolis, the Wesselers were ready to get back to their roots. "I'm a farm boy. I wanted to get back to the country."

Wesseler may be a country boy, but he wasn't one to stay home on the family's Batesville farm forever. He joined the U.S. Army in 1968 and completed three tours in Vietnam. He was also deployed to Panama, Grenada and Kuwait during Operation Desert Storm, and completed special operations in Central and South America, he said.

His civilian career was equally varied. As an Allstate Insurance employee in the claims and legal department, he lived in Chicago, St. Louis, Detroit and Tennessee and traveled all over the nation.

Wesseler retired from the Army after 22 years, in 1992, and then from the insurance business after 37 years.

After their two children graduated from high school, he and his wife bought seven acres of land east of Mechanicsburg, built a home and pond and planted an orchard.

They chose Boone County because of its rural reputation and because the couple already knew a lot of people in the area, Wesseler said.

"This is the right county to be in for us," he said.

Though they've lived near Lebanon for almost 20 years, Wesseler said he tries to remain under the radar. As a retiree, he has time to indulge his passion for volunteering.

Wesseler estimated that he spends an average of 25 hours each week volunteering for various organizations around Boone County. He is on the board of directors and chairman of the grant committee at the Community Foundation of Boone County.

For the past several years he has served as a mentor for students at Thorntown Elementary School. This year, he's mentoring two kids, each for about an hour each week, because the program was short a mentor. He's helped out that way in the past, too, he said.

The program is more about teaching kids to value themselves than helping them with homework, he said.

"It's really about working on self-esteem, self-worth and what makes the kids feel good about themselves," he said. "It's about someone who's going to be there every week for an hour and give them total attention. The kids thrive on it."

Wesseler also volunteers with the Boone County Mentoring Partnership and serves as an advocate for abused and neglected children with the GAL/CASA program in the Boone County Circuit Court. And he teaches children about body safety at area schools with Chaucie's Place.

When he's not working with children, Wesseler volunteers with several groups that visit veterans in hospice care.

"These are groups that really need volunteers," he said. "People kind of shy away from that... There's a great need and there's nobody out there filling it. People need to step up to the plate and do it."

Wesseler was inspired to volunteer by an old friend, a retired Army veteran and CIA operative, he said. The friend, who lived into his 90s, gave Wesseler a piece of advice.

"No matter how old you get, you have to keep your body moving and your mind active," Wesseler said. "I never forgot that."

But what Wesseler does is more than just keep himself active. He's also helping people in his community. And the spirit of service is what led a teacher at Thorntown Elementary School to nominate him for Fourth of July Parade Marshal.

The honor came as a big surprise, Wesseler said, especially because he is not a Boone County native. He also doesn't attend the July Fourth festivities regularly, preferring instead to gather with neighbors and watch fireworks from their homes.

"I took it as a major honor," Wesseler said. "That was a huge surprise ... I'm honored to be selected, though I'm not one of the patriarchs of the county."

Wesseler isn't sure exactly what his role as marshal will entail, but he has plenty of time to learn.

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