TEENS GET A WAKE-UP CALL AT EXPO

Former Con, Addict Speaks At Central Illinois Black Expo

PEORIA - Ron Willis gave 28 Peoria Manual and Woodruff high school
teenagers a life lesson Saturday, exposing them to the harsh realities that
can result from rampant drug use and a life of crime.

Willis, 39, of Peoria told students attending the Teen Summit at the sixth
annual Central Illinois Black Expo that the bad decisions he made when he
was their age landed him in prison, addicted to drugs. Now a motivational
speaker, Willis said he doesn't want them to repeat his mistakes and end up
in prison.

"That's what the jail's full of," Willis said. "Black men from Chicago,
Peoria, Springfield and Bloomington. Maybe you might make the right choice."

Drug dealing took hold of Willis at an early age. He'd stop at the candy
store every day before school to peddle sweets to his classmates. When he
got to high school, already well-versed at selling a product on the sly,
Willis graduated to dealing marijuana.

That opened doors for him to sell other drugs such as cocaine, crack and
heroin on Chicago's West Side, he said. It became his life. He'd wake up at
8 a.m. and sell heroin for three hours, all the time becoming more addicted
to his own product.

One day while at his job, Willis said, a good friend was shot and killed by
an addict. Willis said he was sitting on top of a car smoking heroin,
talking with the friend, and the next moment gunfire erupted.

"All I heard was pop, pop, pop, pop, pop," Willis said. "Then I feel
something splash upside my face. I had blood and brains all over me."

Willis said the incident was one of the driving forces that led him to
leave the Chicago area to come to Peoria. "I got tired of all the killing,"
he said.

But life wasn't too different for him here. He still led one of crime,
committing armed robberies recklessly and dealing drugs to support a
cocaine habit. He told the teenagers that chronic cocaine usage made his
nose hairs fall out.

"You appreciate those hairs when they're gone," Willis said. "They protect
you from all the dirt that's in the air. Not having them caused me sinus
problems."

Eventually, Willis was caught committing a burglary and sent for 19 months
to prison, where he said he turned his life around. He was "lucky" that
burglary was the only crime he was punished for, he said.

Willis' poor decisions in life help illustrate to young men and women how
easy it is to become mixed up with society's bad elements, said Carl
Cannon, founder of the organization CHOICES, which stands for Can't Have
Our Independent Choices Endangering Society.

The organization lets people who have turned their lives around speak to
teenagers about where they went wrong. Cannon, a former prison guard, told
the teenagers at the event to learn from Willis' life.

"Anybody can make a mistake," Cannon said. "It's what you do afterward that
makes a difference. It's how you learn from that mistake."

The Central Illinois Black Expo continues from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. today at
the Peoria Civic Center. Events will include health, college and job fairs,
a blood drive and various entertainment.