Lancer Wall of Fame

Col. Michael Cole was born and raised in Belleville and graduated from Belleville East High School in 1972.  In the fall of that year, he enrolled in Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville, graduating from there in 1976 with a degree in Business Administration.

The day after graduation, he was commissioned an officer in the United States Air Force and subsequently entered flying training as a navigator on a KC-135 aerial refueling aircraft. During the following 30 years of his career, Col. Cole held a variety of jobs, including some of national and international significance. In 1988 he was assigned to the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization tasked with monitoring border incursions between Israel and Lebanon as defined by a UN mandate. While there he was mistaken as a spy by Palestinian locals and threatened with his life. Speaking no Arabic, he fortunately met a young man who spoke German. Col. Cole used the language skills he learned in his high school German class to convince his captors of his innocence and was released. Halfway through his UN assignment, he and his fellow peacekeepers learned the Nobel committee had chosen them as joint recipients of the 1988 Peace Prize for their efforts around the world.

He was subsequently handpicked to be a faculty member of the Air Force premier leadership school where he taught for three years, positively influencing the future of hundreds of junior officers. He was later selected to attend in-residence, both intermediate and senior service schools for Majors and Colonels respectively. Both schools are reserved for the top 10% of officers and he graduated each with distinction.

His flying duties took him to 47 countries and every continent. In 1983 while navigating his KC-135 over Spain he spotted an Egyptian airliner on his aircraft radar. The airliner was dead ahead, four miles away, opposite direction, at the same altitude, and not supposed to be there. With 1000 mph closure, the crew later calculated they had 5 seconds to move their 150-ton aircraft out of the way. From the navigator’s position behind the pilots, Col. Cole jumped between them and leaned on the aircraft controls, violently banking the plane out of harm’s way. Both aircraft crews later estimated they missed each other by less than 50 feet. His superiors deemed his action to be heroic and lifesaving, without which 125 lives would have been lost. A full accounting of this incident was published in an Air Force safety magazine. Among his many accomplishments Col. Cole has been a Squadron Commander, and acting Group Commander for a flying wing, responsible for the safety and welfare of over 3000 people.

Furthermore, he was the last American commander on the ground in Mogadishu, Somalia, and was featured on every network newscast the day of his return to the U.S. in 1994. Col. Cole flew missions from Saudi Arabia during the first Gulf War and also participated in the Grenada invasion. More recently he was in charge of the Air Mobility Commands Special Operations division in which he helped bring terrorists to justice. He is the recipient of over 23 military awards and decorations including the Legion of Merit. He retired as a Full Colonel in 2005 after 30 years of service.  

Col. Cole is now involved with land development in the Metro East area and is an active volunteer with the Make A Wish foundation. He has three grown children and two grandchildren, all living locally.

 

 

 

 

Bob Haida became a Belleville East Lancer in August of 1971 and he graduated in June of 1975.  While at Belleville East, Bob distinguished himself, both academically and athletically.

In the classroom, Bob enjoyed wonderful experiences, especially under the tutelage of noted instructors, and fellow Wall of Fame honorees, Al Boyles and Bob Gentsch.  In both instances, these gentlemen taught Bob the value of hard work and independent thinking.

In athletics, Bob played with distinction for the Lancer varsity basketball team during the 1974-75 season.  During that memorable season, he set several team records, some of which remain intact today.  As a result of his outstanding play, Bob was rewarded with a scholarship to play basketball for McKendree College in Lebanon, Illinois.  Under the direction of record-setting coach, Harry Statham, Bob was a valuable member of teams that qualified for post-season play during the 1975-76, 1976-77, and 1978-79 seasons.

Bob graduated from McKendree with a degree in accounting and mathematics.  He then enrolled in the School of Law at St. Louis University in August of 1980.  He graduated from law school in May of 1983.

Shortly after his graduation, Bob began his distinguished career as a state prosecutor when he accepted a job as an Assistant State’s Attorney in St. Clair County.  Bob has been a criminal prosecutor virtually his entire legal career, including two years as an Assistant United States Attorney in East St. Louis.  

Bob became the State’s Attorney for St. Clair County by appointment in February of 1991.  He was elected to continue in that position in November of 1992.  He has since been re-elected in 1996, 2000, and 2004.  Bob is currently running unopposed for his fifth term.  He has the distinction of being the longest seated State’s Attorney in the history of St. Clair County.  He currently supervises an office of more than thirty attorneys and twenty support staff.  

In addition to his work as State’s Attorney, Bob has been a strong advocate for youth.  He was a founding member of the Child Advocacy Board which was formed in 1992.  In that position, he established the original board of directors and developed procedures to coordinate the services of law enforcement for child victims.  He was a leader in the referendum which successfully advocated for permanent funding for the center.  The center continues to provide services for over 300 children who have been victims of sexual or physical abuse.

Bob also serves in a prominent position for Illinois Fight Crime.  He was appointed as a co-chair for this program, which is a conjunctive effort between the Illinois Violence Prevention Agency and the National Fight Crime program.  Illinois Fight Crime advocates for funding to support programs focusing on at-risk youths, providing services for children from pre-K through high school.  Bob has been a volunteer in this program for five years and is in his second year as co-chair.

Additionally, Bob has somehow found the time to be a volunteer coach.  He coached the Emge Junior High basketball team for 6 years.  He has also been a volunteer coach for the West End Khoury League baseball program and for high school-level summer baseball programs.  He has given over ten years of service to these programs.

Bob and his wife, Lisa, were married on August 20, 1988, and have been blessed with two sons, Tyler and Brian.

Mrs. Ruth Bug Grandcolas was born and raised in Belleville, Illinois. She attended Bunsen Grade School, Central Junior High, and Belleville Township High School. Mrs. Grandcolas was co-valedictorian the year she graduated from Township in 1952. Her career path started at Belleville Area College and then on to Millikin University in Decatur, Illinois, where she majored in elementary education. At the end of her junior year at Millikin, she married her high school sweetheart, Alan Grandcolas. For the next several years she traveled with him as he pursued his career in professional baseball. They became parents of three wonderful boys during this time.

The family returned to Belleville in 1962, and in 1964, when their youngest son went off to school, Mrs. Grandcolas went to work for Township High School as a secretary in the Registrar’s Office. After her first year at Township, she was recruited to work as the secretary for the new principal at Belleville East High School, Charles G. McCoy. East was under construction at the time, and she and the new principal remained at West until the summer of 1966 when they moved into their offices at East. At that time there was only a skeleton crew of school personnel and the construction workers on campus.

Mrs. Grandcolas’s duties as a principal’s secretary were constantly being redefined during those first years. Her biggest duty, however, during all the years she worked was helping the principal and department heads set up the master schedule for the school. As there were no computers during the early years, this was all done by hand. Department heads would give her their information and she would co-ordinate approximately one hundred teachers for seven hours a day into seven hundred time slots. Some of the classes changed during the semester; therefore, additional time slots also had to be arranged. Class sizes needed to be carefully tallied and balanced. Completing the schedule took months to do. By the end of Mrs. Grandcolas’s thirty-five-year career, she helped schedule hundreds of teachers into many thousands of classes. By the time she retired in 1999, she was generating all teacher and student schedules by her computer

Other responsibilities of Mrs. Grandcolas were to organize and arrange the principal’s schedule, handle correspondence, and set up meetings for school personnel. She was always helpful, discreet, and unflagging in her work ethic. Mrs. Grandcolas was known as the quiet strength behind the three principals she worked for, and when asked about her role in the beginning of East, she said it was, “An extraordinary time and I was grateful to be a part of it.”

Mrs. Grandcolas has been a widow since 1993. She is a member of St. Paul United Church of Christ and serves on one of the church boards and is a member of the Child Study Guild. Two other organizations she enjoys being a part of are the St. Clair County Genealogical Society and the O’Fallon Historical Society where she’s a charter and lifetime member. Mrs. Grandcolas has six grandchildren and even though they are in different parts of the country, she visits them often and enjoys being an active part of their lives.