Lockport Township High School District 205 Superintendent Robert McBride will check an item off his bucket list when he runs the Boston Marathon on Monday.

McBride is running the marathon as part of the CITGO community team, a group of runners comprised of employees from each CITGO refiner in the country and two selected educators or first responders from those refiners’ communities.

Employees represent the company’s three refineries in Lake Charles, Louisiana, Corpus Christi, Texas and Lemont, as well as the corporate headquarters in Houston.

This year, McBride and Romeoville Police Officer Jason Michael Sluzewicz were selected as the community members from the Lemont refinery’s community. They are joined by local employees Dennis Cleveland, Drew Smith and Dawn DeSandre.

Sluzewicz is also married to Lockport Township High School employee Kourtney Sluzewicz, who will be traveling to Boston to cheer on the whole community team.

“We have a great partnership with CITGO,” McBride said. “They sponsor STEM grants and our district STEM nights, and provide volunteers for our events like our Illinois Robotics competition, plus they do things like this, supporting teachers and first responders.”

A group of teachers, administrators and students – including the school’s pep band – gathered by the school’s main entrance to throw the superintendent a surprise celebration on Friday, including a miniature parade around the first floor of the building.

District 205 Director of Communications Jeannette Castillo acted as a distraction, leading McBride on a walk from the administrative office to the main entrance through the parking lot instead of his normal route through the school, so students could assemble with their instruments and signs to surprise him.

“He’s not easy to surprise,” Castillo laughed, “But it was so rewarding to celebrate our superintendent going off to Boston and to see all the Porter support.”

After surprising McBride with cheers and well-wishes, the band followed McBride on a lap around the school’s first-floor halls, which were lined by more cheering students and teachers, playing the school’s Loyalty song.

“I really appreciate you guys doing this,” McBride told the students after the parade as they posed for photos. “I was very surprised.”

McBride said he is very excited for the opportunity to run in Boston, not just because “it is the Super Bowl of marathons,” but because of his sentimental attachment to the city, where he earned his master’s degree and taught for several years.

“When I first started my career, I was living near Boston in Cambridge,” McBride said. “There’s a giant CITGO sign in Boston that is a city landmark. I rowed as a student, and when we would row on the Charles River, we would use that sign to navigate. Coming in or out of the city, you’re always looking at that sign like your star to follow, so it feels kind of emotional and sentimental now to bring it all the way back to that now.”

As he prepares to run his first marathon in 20 years in Boston, McBride is also preparing to enter his last year as superintendent at District 205 before his retirement in 2027.

“I’m really grateful to CITGO for this opportunity, because I would not qualify on my own,” McBride said. “There are about 33,000 runners taking part in the Boston Marathon, and most of them qualify with times from other races, so they’re the best of the best.”

CITGO brings its more amateur team of employees and community members each year since it is a sponsor of the marathon.

The giant CITGO sign sits along the marathon route and serves as a marker for the final mile of the race, which CITGO is the annual sponsor of, according to CITGO Lemont Refinery’s Public Relations Manager Jen Hannon.

“Every year we open applications to be on our community team to employees, first responders and educators,” Hannon said. “They have to write an essay about why they run and why they want to join the CITGO team.”

McBride said he has “had his eye” on the CITGO application for several years, and after a successful half-marathon season last year, he “decided this was the year.”

McBride said he has been running half-marathons for years, and has previously run the Chicago Marathon four times, though he has not done so since “the early 2000s.”

Despite the long gap, McBride says he “feels good” about the race and that he’s looking forward to it.

“We’re very proud of him, and we’re glad he’s getting the opportunity to do something on his bucket list, that’s always very exciting,” said Board of Education member Candace Gerritsen, who attended the surprise reception.

“We’re all excited for him,” agreed Board of Education Vice President Ann Lopez-Caneva. “He’s really the face of LTHS in the community, and I think this shows how much he’s loved and respected by the students and the community.”