Ronald “Ron” Bean, Park Forest’s first Black village president and a central figure in the community’s political and economic life throughout the 1970s and 1980s, died late las week, Village officials confirmed.
Bean, who moved to Park Forest in 1969, was drawn to the Village’s reputation as a community where residents of all races could live and work together. He was elected to the village board as a trustee in 1974 and served seven years before winning the village presidency in 1981. At the time, Park Forest was still majority white, and his election marked a significant milestone in the community’s history.
Colleagues remembered Bean as a steady, gentlemanly leader who maintained his professionalism during what was often a contentious period on the Village board. His tenure coincided with a wave of infrastructure challenges that hit the community about 40 years after its founding. Under his leadership, Park Forest began major upgrades to water and sewer lines and other aging systems—work that was costly, largely invisible to residents, and sometimes unpopular, but necessary to sustain the village’s long-term health.
Bean also confronted the decline of the Park Forest Plaza, once the community’s commercial centerpiece. With a background in economic development, he pursued every available redevelopment option, including working with major firms and traveling to Detroit to study urban revitalization projects. As anchor tenants prepared to leave the Plaza in the early 1980s, the Village and its residents organized protests and threatened legal action to keep Marshall Field’s from closing its Park Forest store. The move helped stabilize the area long enough for redevelopment efforts to move forward.
During his five-year presidency, Bean oversaw redevelopment of the Norwood and Blackhawk centers and supported early tax-increment financing strategies aimed at revitalizing key commercial areas. He also championed cultural and community projects, including the launch of the professional Park Forest Symphony—which later became the Illinois Philharmonic Orchestra—as well as the Garden House senior housing development and the PIZZAZZ festival celebrating community diversity.
Beyond Park Forest, Bean served on several regional boards, including the Bank of Matteson, the Illinois Philharmonic Orchestra, the Goodman Theatre, the PACE Advisory Board, and the GSLI Foundation.
In a 1982 report by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Bean said Park Forest residents were “capable of looking beyond the issue of race or national origin,” a sentiment that guided much of his public service.
Bean and his family moved to Olympia Fields in 1986, but he remained active in civic and regional affairs for many years.