William F. Cellini

William F. Cellini (born November 5, 1934) is co-founder of the New Frontier Companies, a group of Illinois-based real estate companies with headquarters in Chicago that employ more than 250 people statewide. He was previously the chairman of the -listed Argosy Gaming Company, was the treasurer of the Sangamon County Republican Party and has held several public offices within the state of Illinois.

Mr. Cellini has served on the boards of Lakeside Bank of Chicago, the Illinois National Bank of Springfield, Roosevelt National Life Insurance Company, Illinois College Board of Trustees, and the Boys & Girls Club of Springfield, Illinois. He was the statewide chairman of the USO, and has appeared on numerous professional panels for the road building industry. In 2007 he received the Bradley University Department of Engineering Outstanding Achievement Award. He is a member of the Lanphier High School Hall of Fame. From 1957 to 1988, Cellini served in the Illinois National Guard and retired under the rank of Colonel after 31 years of service.

A classically trained musician, he plays piano and had a dance band that played throughout the Midwest from 1953 to 1969. He was elected chairman of the American Federation of Musicians Local 19 and he remains a lifetime member of the American Federation of Musicians

William Cellini was born in Springfield, Illinois, in 1934. His family lived and worked in the blue-collar North End of Springfield. From the 1930s until the 1960s, the neighborhood where he lived was an enclave of Southern and Eastern European families. Most of the fathers on his block were coal miners or worked in Springfield's factories. His father, William Cellini Sr., was a coal miner and amateur boxer from the age of 12 until he was 22 when he became a 37-year member of the Springfield Police Department working the 11pm to 7am shift for 20 of those years. During Cellini's childhood, his mother Edith took in laundry and worked as a waitress at their family's restaurant. Later in life, she was a cashier in the office of the Sangamon County Treasurer.

Cellini was president of his graduating grade school class and he attended Lanphier High School, graduating in 1952. He was the first member of his immediate family to attend college, earning a degree in physics from Illinois College in the late 1950s. In 1960, he was on faculty at Niantic-Harristown High School in Niantic, Illinois, where he taught physics, algebra and English. To help pay his way through college, he played dances in Central Illinois with his own bands, The Hi-Fis and the Bill Cellini Orchestra. His first professional music job was in 1953 in Springfield.

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