He is from Urbana, and he really never left.

Roger Ebert’s mark on this community is permanent. 

The famed film critic of more than 45 years and former editor-in-chief of The Daily Illini could stipulate the success or demise of a movie with a simple thumbs-up or -down. But what he did for films, for his home in Champaign-Urbana, for his friends and colleagues, for The Daily Illini and for everyone who reached out to him was anything but simple. It was profound. 

The Chicago Sun-Times announced his death Thursday afternoon, following Ebert’s 11-year battle  with cancer, which left him without a voice but never without words. Ebert, 70, was the first to win a Pulitzer Prize for his film criticism and his reviews were read and respected by the millions that followed him. 

But even though he found his success in Chicago, there was always a part of him that remained in Champaign-Urbana.

Roger Ebert had a disdain for the editorial “we,” but we stand unified in what we think of him.

We have the greatest respect for this man — and perhaps “respect” does not quite do that feeling justice. Hundreds of editors and writers at The Daily Illini have looked to Roger Ebert for inspiration, for direction, as they pursue their own career paths, be them in journalism, the arts or the sciences. 

Ebert’s alma mater, the University of Illinois, sits between corn fields and cow farms, far from a major city. At times, it can feel as if our diplomas will not show us an open door to our dreams, but then we look to Ebert, and we, too, might achieve greatness.

Deadspin founder and former sports editor at The Daily Illini Will Leitch wrote about the film critic in March 2010, “He was proof there was a ticket out. I went to study journalism at the University of Illinois, simply, because I wanted to be Roger Ebert.”

A poster of him — his smile and those eyes behind silver spectacles — is on one wall of our newsroom, but what he did for this paper is everywhere.

It was hard to keep up with the man. At 15, Ebert started out at The News-Gazette writing high school sports stories. He enrolled at the University in his hometown of Urbana studying journalism, like many of us, and assumed the highest position at The Daily Illini as the editor-in-chief in 1963. 

He published one of his first film reviews under the title “Ars Gratia …” in the Oct. 4, 1961 edition of the DI, and it shines not because it is among letters to the editor about women’s makeup and the drinking age but because the writing is indistinguishable from his next 10,000 reviews.

Ebert said that his time as editor of the paper changed him, but those closest to him then have said that this was one of the most definitive years for the accomplished critic.

Admiration and love from his coworkers in the early days was certainly not in short supply. Bill Nack, the sports editor at the DI under Ebert said, “Of all the people who worked at The Daily Illini in the early 1960s, no one brought Roger’s energy, intellect and unbridled enthusiasm to the often difficult, always demanding job of putting out a paper five days a week.” 

His roots here are strong, and he has been there for us since he left in 1964. 

When we owed $250,000 to our printer and other vendors, when we were behind on our mortgage payments and when we were falling victim to the changing world of media, Roger Ebert was there for us. We reached out to him to write a letter to a handful of our alumni to help with our deficit. The letter, which was subsequently made public first by Crain’s Chicago, helped to alleviate some of our debt.   

We will forever be indebted to him. 

Ebert gave a $1 million donation to the College of Media to start the Roger Ebert Program for Film Studies Fund, an effort to eventually establish the Roger Ebert Center for Film Studies, which will house the activities of the program. He gave Champaign the beloved Ebertfest, where Ebert handpicked some of the best overlooked films.

He hadn’t spoken at the festival for years — the cancer and subsequent surgeries took his voice from him. He didn’t need it, though, to leave himself in his work, with the people he knew and with those who read his reviews. 

He may have passed, but he hasn’t gone anywhere. 

His hometown will never forget him. We cannot. He gave this city, this University, this paper — us — so much life, so much everything. He gave everything he could to us, often without blinking an eye.

The frontpage of The Daily Illini is dedicated to him not so much as a memorial but as a thanks. 

You’ll find one of his first reviews reprinted there — it’s of the 1960 Italian film “La Dolce Vita,” and he wasn’t that big of a fan of it then. 

However, he begins the review: “There is in ‘La Dolce Vita’ a great deal to be puzzled about, and a great deal to be impressed by, and perhaps a great deal which we as Americans will never completely understand.” 

While Ebert was critiquing what would become one of his favorite films, he was simultaneously penning one of the greatest lessons of life: We struggle to grapple with this sweet life we have been given and the options it sets before us; we don’t understand the pain we feel, the cancers that attack us, the legacies we leave. 

A legend he became, but he didn’t see himself becoming one when he left The Daily Illini.

In his final column as editor-in-chief of the paper, he wrote that the outgoing editor before him facetiously labeled himself as a “has-been.” 

“It’s been fun,” Ebert wrote in April 1964. “But now it’s time to be a has-been, like Freeman and Karen Lucas and 90 other DI editors. And being a has-been might be fun, too.” 

Roger Ebert was anything but.