Bill Wheelhouse
Bill is a former general manager, economy reporter, Harvest correspondent and Statehouse Bureau Chief for NPR Illinois. He has won several awards including the Associated Press Best Investigative Reporter.
Bill traveled to Cuba in 1999 with then-Governor George Ryan and provided coverage of that trip from Havana. He has reported on national political conventions in 1988, 1996 and 2000. He has also contributed reports to NPR and other syndicated radio programs.
Bill moderated the weekly public radio talk show State Week after Rich Bradley retired. He served as an adjunct professor in the Public Affairs Reporting graduate program at the University of Illinois at Springfield.
Prior to arriving at NPR Illinois, he worked as a news director at the public radio station in Macomb and worked in both commercial radio and television.
Bill served two terms as President of the Illinois News Broadcasters Association and is a past president of the Illinois Associated Press Broadcast Advisory Board. He was a member of the Association of Capitol Reporters and Editors, the Illinois Legislative Correspondents Association and Public Radio News Directors Incorporated.
He is a 1981 graduate of Rushville High School and a 1985 graduate of Western Illinois University. In 1999 he earned a Masters Degree in Political Studies at the University of Illinois Springfield.
Having retired in 2016, Bill has rejoined the NPR illinois News Department to temporarily help cover the pandemic and its aftermath.
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Colleges and universities in Illinois want their campuses to be open to students in the fall, after classes were forced online in March due to COVID-19. A…
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Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, along with other legislative leaders, are "ready to convene" a special session as early as next week, according to…
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Governor Bruce Rauner has been in office one year this week and gave a series of short interviews in Springfield this week. And with more than 100 people…
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Bill Wheelhouse is retiring after over 20 years at NPR Illinois. If you've met Bill, you know he's a character who has a lot of character. His no B.S.…
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Tim and Bill chat about the recent spate of business closings downtown & elsewhere.
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Governor Bruce Rauner and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel escalated their war of words this week, with Rauner saying that before he'll help the Chicago public…
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Springfield would like to get its coal for CWLP at a lower price. Bill and Tim talk about how that could affect an area coal mine.
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This week, a look back at the past year in Illinois state government and politics. WUIS News Director Sean Crawford and Illinois Issues Editor Jamey Dunn…
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This week, the panel reflects back on some memorable people and events in Illinois state politics and government over the past few decades, how things…