If you ask David Hamilton how he ended up serving on so many boards in Edgar and Clark Counties, he won’t give you a long answer. He’ll give you a few words.
“Just show up.”
That answer — short, repeatable, almost a personal motto — is part of why Hamilton, a partner at Wilkinson Law in Paris, has just been named to the 2026 Edgar County 20 Under 40 class by The Prairie Press, Paris Beacon News.
At 35, he is also the president of the board of directors at the Human Resources Center of Edgar and Clark Counties (HRC), the region’s nonprofit behavioral health agency, where he has served since July 2019.
Hamilton was born in Terre Haute, Indiana, and grew up on the family farm between Terre Haute and Paris. He attended Paris schools and earned both a law degree and a master’s in social work from Washington University in St. Louis. Many of his law school classmates took jobs in major cities. He came home.
“I just missed it,” he says. The pull of a place where people know each other, he explains, was stronger than the pay scale of a big-city firm.
HRC — founded in 1970 and headquartered at 753 E. Court St. in Paris — provides mental health counseling, substance use treatment, intellectual and developmental disability services, employment support, and the free 24/7 Living Room Program for anyone in crisis. The agency just renewed its three-year accreditation from the Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities (CARF), the top level available.
Hamilton, asked at a coffee shop what HRC does, gives a one-sentence answer he’s clearly given before: “It does all the things our community really needs that nobody else can do or does do.”
What the board actually does
Hamilton’s description of his most important duty as board president is not what most readers would expect. “It’s the boring stuff,” he says. “Process and procedure. The only way to get out of constantly dealing with crises is to have good processes.”
That discipline, he says, is what has stabilized HRC after a stretch of years when staff were taking pay cuts to keep the agency open. By keeping a steady eye on finances, billing, accreditation standards, and the resources each department actually needs, the board has put HRC in a position to invest in its staff — raises, better benefits, a modernized facility.
“I think we’re an organization that our employees deserve,” Hamilton says. “I’m really proud of that.”
He credits the agency’s executive leadership and staff for the culture. The board’s job, he says, is to give that culture room to breathe — and to provide the kind of oversight that keeps any one person, internal or external, from taking advantage of the agency.
The expertise around the table makes that oversight possible. HRC’s board includes a lawyer, a pharmacist, a banker, an ER nurse, a retired school psychologist, a recovery advocate, a retired farmer, and a facilities operations professional, among others.
Hamilton tells a story to illustrate the point. A vendor recently quoted HRC roughly seventeen thousand dollars for a repair. The board’s standing practice on major expenses — informed by the range of experience around the table — is to ask for additional quotes before signing off. The second quote came back at a forty-five-dollar part.
“You don’t know what you don’t know,” Hamilton says of why that diversity matters. “You’ve got to have a diversity of voices and experiences in the room.”
Hiring the next executive director
The board’s emphasis on process was tested last year during HRC’s search for a new executive director. The board worked through more than two dozen applicants using a structured rubric, met in extra sessions, and refused to rush a decision
Susan Tybon began as executive director in November 2025.
“I was impressed with her when I interviewed her, and I’m more impressed with her every meeting,” Hamilton says. “I think we’re in good hands.”
He describes Tybon as a leader who spent her first months listening rather than rewriting — building relationships, learning the staff and the region — and is now beginning to articulate her longer-term direction. “I’m excited for the next six months,” he says.
The “why”
Asked for one sentence about why he volunteers his time at HRC, Hamilton offers it without pause.
“I believe in people’s capacity for growth.”
It is, almost word for word, the conviction HRC was built on. The agency’s long-running tagline — helping people help themselves — rests on the same idea: that with the right support, people can change, recover, and rebuild.
Hamilton extends the same conviction to how he wants neighbors to think about the people HRC serves — people sometimes shadowed by stigma around mental illness, addiction, or disability. He doesn’t ask for sympathy. He asks for curiosity.
“Come at it with a curious mindset, rather than a mindset of ‘I already understand,’” he says.
Still showing up
Hamilton also serves on the boards of the Paris Area Chamber of Commerce, the Terre Haute Symphony Orchestra, and the Gridiron Alumni Club. He credits his wife Millie Arp Hamilton, his parents Jim and Angie Hamilton, his siblings Nick and Kacey Hamilton, his grandmother Marilyn Burba, and longtime mentor David M. Frisse for the values he carries into each room.
“I know there are so many people in the community who are there for me,” he says. “And almost as importantly, there are younger cousins. You get to be there for them when they need it. That’s part of what being part of a good community is.”
For readers wondering whether they have anything to offer their community, Hamilton goes back to the only answer he seems to need. “Don’t be afraid to show up,” he says. “Everybody’s looking for more help. Everybody needs more people to be involved.”
To learn more about HRC, volunteer, donate, or access services, visit their website or call 217-465-4118. The 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline is available by call or text, 24/7.
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