2026 Grand Marshals
Margie & Roger Bonuchi chosen as grand marshals
Long before Margie and Roger Bonuchi landed in Plainfield, they both seem to have known, somehow, that the town was in their future.
Both of them grew up in the metro Chicago area, both part of families with European roots. Like a lot of us, each had some Irish in them.
”Both of us are sitting here with Italian names,” said the former Margie Pierucci. “And we both have Irish mothers.”
The ancestral common denominator is one bond shared by the Bonuchis, who will ride in the Plainfield Hometown Irish Parade as this year’s grand marshals. Sponsored by John Greene Realtors and staged each year by the Village Preservation Association, the parade will step off at 1 p.m. Sunday, March 15, making its way through downtown Plainfield.
Near the front of the procession will be the Bonuchis, who met in 1993 when both had jobs in Chicago.
”I looked up one day (and thought) that’s the most handsome man I’ve ever seen,” Margie said of her then-future spouse, who had recently moved to Plainfield.
The Bonuchis have lived in the village together since they were newlyweds in the spring of 1995, building and moving into their house in the Spring Hill subdivision when it was completed at the end of that year. They had vowed to put down their roots as close to the downtown area as they could. The new neighborhood was steadily filling up with young families, a demographic especially evident every Halloween.
”It was like Grand Central Station!” said Margie, a current member of the Plainfield Village Board and president of the Riverfront Foundation Board, formerly a technology administrator for Plainfield Community Consolidated School District 202.
The neighborhood on the northeast side of the village has matured and begun to roll over ownership over the years, with new families moving into houses where kids were raised and launched into the world. With grown kids of their own and three grandchildren ages 19, 16 and 3, the Bonuchis get that, They treasure their connections to family and friends new and longtime - including those on the block, of all ancestries. Those relationships are for keeps.
As a kid growing up in a heavily Irish neighborhood on Chicago’s south side, Margie befriended the girl across the street while out selling doughnuts one day. Mary McLaughlin now lives in Beecher, but her longtime bestie always makes it to Mary’s annual St. Patrick’s Day party - always held on the day before the Plainfield parade.
“We don’t miss it!” Margie said.
The couple don’t miss much in their hometown, either. Both give their time to assorted endeavors. Roger sat on the District 202 Board of Education from 2005 to 2015, serving as its president for the last four of those years. For 19 years he also gave his time as a volunteer manager for the Plainfield Emergency Management Agency, advancing from member to lieutenant to captain before moving six years ago to the Kendall County Emergency Management Agency, where he continues to work full-time as its director.
Margie has a long history of volunteering in the community. In addition to her Village Board and Riverfront Foundation positions, she started the Plainfield Band Boosters’ craft show when she was that organization’s board president in 1998. In the first year, 80 crafters rented space in the fieldhouse of Plainfield High School Central Campus. Margie oversaw the hugely popular fundraiser until her retirement from the school district 23 years later - for years staging the show twice annually, and before long drawing hundreds of vendors each time - and remains connected to the yearly show.
”I made the best friends,” said Margie, who also still sits on the board of the school district’s scholarship-granting Foundation for Excellence.
She also has supported other community nonprofits, including veterans’ groups, social service agencies, the YMCA, Daybreak Shelter in Joliet and the Plainfield Lions Club
Roger and Margie are both very fond of the town they call home.
”I like the whole lifestyle, the fact that I’m not afraid to walk around at night,” said Margie. “And I love the people.”
After relocating around the region with his family numerous times while growing up, Roger also finds Plainfield’s small-town feel appealing. Traditions, beloved people and places, and things like the life-sized crèche that goes up outside Plymouth Congregational Church every Advent, courtesy of the Lions Club, help him feel fully at home.
”And the friendliness of the people,” he said.