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Churchill was born to Jack LeRoy Churchill and Maralyn Lucretia Allen in Urbana, Ill., in 1947 and named after his grandfather. His mother and father were divorced when he was 1 1/2, at a time when divorce was highly stigmatized.

He felt that stigma, according to one of his high school friends, buddying up with someone who also came from a split home. He was raised by his mother and stepfather along with a number of stepbrothers and stepsisters.

He was known as "Wardo" in high school, where he struck a clean-cut pose as a student-athlete and letterman at Elmwood Community High School in Elmwood, Ill., a town of 2,100 people 25 miles west of Peoria, where he had lived since he was a small boy. He also was known as Ward Debo for a time in high school, taking his stepfather's name. He graduated in 1965 in a class of 55 students.

Some high school classmates recall that Churchill had mentioned having Indian heritage in the 1960s. U.S. census records from 1950 document no Indians in Elmwood. In 1960, two people in the town identified themselves as "other," but no one claimed to be Indian. Surrounding Peoria County listed 21 people that year as Indian.

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