{"id":30811,"date":"2025-11-19T08:30:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-19T13:30:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/?p=30811"},"modified":"2025-11-19T08:30:12","modified_gmt":"2025-11-19T13:30:12","slug":"former-mayor-schultz-honored-at-meeting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/2025\/11\/19\/former-mayor-schultz-honored-at-meeting\/","title":{"rendered":"Former mayor Schultz honored at meeting"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By BOB SHRALUKA<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

WZBD.com<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Decatur officials paused Tuesday night to remember and honor a man who played such a huge role in making the city what it is today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

John Schultz, who died Oct. 24 at the age of 76, served four terms, 16 years, on city council, then two terms, eight years, as mayor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He had a great love for Decatur and many of the advances made in refurbishing the downtown area were the results of John’s efforts, everyone agreed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHis legacy is living on here,\u201d Councilwoman Abby Wilder said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Several memories of the former mayor’s family were on hand for the Tuesday night city council meeting where the appreciation for John’s dedication to his community rang loudly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Included were wife Brenda, son Mike, and daughters Becky Ruble and Lisa Mills.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As part of the special event, Tim Baker, who served as city attorney during John’s two terms as mayor and worked with him during John’s time on council, composed and read a lengthy resolution honoring John, extolling his considerable contributions to the community and family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many of the improvements in this city were the results of the combined efforts of John and Tim.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The night was special, also, to Mayor Dan Rickord, who was brought out of the utilities department and made its superintendent by Schultz in 2009.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cJohn was a mentor to me,\u201d said the mayor, who spoke at John’s funeral. \u201cHe loved this community. It was a pleasure to work with him.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe made such a difference in my life. He meant a lot to me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Others expressed gratitude for the lessons learned at John’s side, for his desire to better his community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI learned a lot from John,\u201d Councilman Matt Dyer said. \u201cHe had a great love for this city, and for his family even more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI owe a lot to John, too,\u201d Councilman Tyler Fulenkamp added. \u201cHe’s living through us, I guess.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

City Attorney Anne Razo pointed out that she is \u201cincredibly grateful for the time I had with John.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe downtown area owes so much to John,\u201d added Councilman Scott Murray.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHis legacy is living on here. What a tribute to him is seen throughout our city,\u201d Councilwoman Wilder said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By BOB SHRALUKA WZBD.com Decatur officials paused Tuesday night to remember and honor a man who played such<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30812,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[14,15,21],"class_list":["post-30811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-decatur","tag-featured","tag-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Schultz-family.jpg?fit=802%2C261&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30811"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30811\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30813,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30811\/revisions\/30813"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}