Steve Tarter
CorrespondentSteve Tarter retired from the Peoria Journal Star in 2019 after spending 20 years at the paper as both reporter and business editor.
He joined WCBU in 2020 shortly before the pandemic hit. Tarter, married with four adult children, enjoys old movies, especially film noir. The former president of the Apollo Theater in Peoria loves those old black-and-white crime movies so much he hosts a free annual film noir series at the Peoria Public Library every spring. He also continues to host a weekly podcast, Tarter Source, started at the Journal Star several years ago, with a spotlight on Peoria-area personalities.
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While familiar faces were common on Peoria TV stations, media talent would flow through this market—not just at 25 but on other local TV stations. -
Cited as one of “the unsung heroines of the home economics program,” Nellie Kedzie Jones “had tremendous influence and perhaps should be considered one of the many founders of home economics,” said one commentator. -
In 1910 the Young Buffalo troupe staged not one but two parades in Peoria to mark the start of a string of performances. A torchlight street parade was followed by a parade the following morning. -
Dr. Richard Olson is a Peoria chiropractor who’s also a pulp magazine fan. Olson has written several books involving Nick Stihl, Private Investigator. -
When Tom Arbogast decided to do his master’s thesis on WWCT-FM, the Peoria rock outlet he’s listened to since 1979, it wasn’t just a labor of love for the station. -
The problem of news deserts—regions without a local news outlet of any kind—tend to be in rural parts of the state. -
Rural Illinois is more than corn and soybeans, the state’s two principal cash crops. The 35th annual Rural Community Conference, scheduled for Feb. 27-29 at the Abraham Lincoln Hotel in Springfield, will showcase issues from business succession to renewable energy. -
If you thought Garry Moore would take it easy in retirement after 33 years with Peoria’s WEEK-TV, most of which were spent as the station’s morning news anchor, think again. -
William Engelbrecht says that Elmwood native Nelson Dean Jay may be the best-kept secret in central Illinois. -
John Leezer has been selling insurance since 1982 when he joined his father’s independent insurance agency in Toulon, the Stark County town some 40 miles northwest of Peoria.
