PEORIA MAGAZINE February 2023

S P O T L I G H T

PEORIA POWER COUPLE

The Booths, Jehan and Derrick, have become difference-makers, together and apart

BY NICK VLAHOS PHOTO BY RON JOHNSON D err ick Booth and Jehan Gordon-Booth don’t work in the circus. Not officially, anyway, although in their high-profile jobs, some days it may seem so. Indeed, the husband-and-wife duo from Peoria has become quite adept at juggling. With busy and sometimes far-flung schedules, it’s a necessity. “There’s no such thing as balance,” Gordon-Booth said. “You make it work.” Since 2009, much of Gordon-Booth’s work has been in Springfield, where the 41-year-old represents the 92nd District serving the Peoria area in the Illinois House of Representatives. The Democrat was in her 20s when first elected in 2008 and has been rising in the ranks of the Legislature ever since. Amember of the House Black Caucus, Gordon-Booth is now the deputy majority leader in that chamber and speaker pro tempore, leadership positions from which she has crafted and helped enact some significant legislation, including alterations to the

criminal-justice reformbill known as the SAFE-T Act. She recently made history by becoming House Democrats' first Black and female lead budget negotiator. Gordon-Booth’s husband of almost 11 years, Derrick Booth, 49, has been climbing his own ladder, now serving as director of social and emotional learning at Peoria Public Schools. The program helps local children and adults alike recognize and manage their emotions and channel them into responsible, constructive decision making, an outgrowth of his previous work as one of themore successful high school basketball coaches in Illinois. Derrick spent a decade coaching the legendary Manual High School boys’ basketball program, for which he once played. Booth’s teams finished second twice in the Class 2A state tournament (2008 and 2010) and third in Class 3A in 2016. In a central Illinois that has its share of power couples – Doug and Diane Oberhelman come to mind, as do AndrewRand and Sid Ruckriegel, among others – the Booths certainly qualify.

“Daily, they bothworkwithin their own sphere of influence on strengthening the weakest links in our community for a more humane, safe, exciting andmore robust community and economy,” said Peoria Public Schools Superintendent Sharon Desmoulin-Kherat. A BASKETBALL BEGINNING Not surprisingly, perhaps, basketball brought the Booths together. Derrick was working at a local basketball camp. So was Jehan, as a retention coordinator at Illinois Central College helping students with their class schedules while at camp. “I was doing that and he was looking at me, and he fell in love,” a laughing Gordon-Booth said. Booth remembers it a little differently. He gave her his email address – the modern-day version of giving someone your telephone number. She never replied. He didn’t think much about it until a year later at a chance encounter at the River City Soul Fest.

26 FEBRUARY 2023 PEORIA MAGAZINE