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.