Springfield had over a foot of snow, Decatur had 10 inches and Champaign had 7 ½ inches. Central Illinois had five tornadoes, with three of them on May 30. That was the night that sent many central Illinois residents to their basements. “It’s so comforting to sit in the basement after the siren has gone off and hear Ed telling us exactly what is happening … even before the official stuff comes out,” said AM listener Linda Lee Lorenz.
Trying to Understand a Tragedy
W
hen the University of Illinois community found out that one of their own, a graduate student in social work, had been the gunmen who killed six people and wounded 18 in February in a Northern Illinois University classroom, people were shaken. In the aftermath, WILL-AM 580 provided a space for discussion of the tragedy and an attempt to understand why a person could unleash such violence.
Illinois Radio Reader The following day, talk show WILL-AM Focus 580 host David Inge and The Afternoon Magazine host Celeste Quinn teamed up to talk with Katherine Newman, Princeton professor and author of “Rampage: The Social Roots of School Shootings,” and U of I sociology professor Jan Carter Black to discuss the incident. A listener named Carolyn wrote to thank the station for the program. “It’s just the ideal role that public radio can play in a crisis like this to provide so much un-sensationalized information, and to really be an outlet at a time when there’s something very distressing like this that happens in the community,” she said. “Wonderful job!!”
I
llinois Radio Reader, a service of WILL, raised $12,000 for its programs by hosting the Vintage Vinyl used record sale. With the help of more than 80 volunteers, IRR keeps blind and print-handicapped audiences in east central Illinois up to date on world, national, state and local news. IRR also presents descriptive narration of public television shows so that visually handicapped people can enjoy them. “It just opens a door, when you can’t see, to be able to hear the news, the grocery ads, so many things that sighted people have access to that we don’t,” said Decatur’s Dee Dee Adams, a regular user of the service.