On September 11, 2026, people around Illinois, America, and the world are pausing to remember the victims of the terror attacks that took place on that date 25 years ago. Nearly 3,000 people died after hijacked planes flew into New York City’s World Trade Center Twin Towers and the Pentagon outside of Washington D.C. Passengers on another plane that was believed to be headed to the nation’s capital overtook the hijackers, causing the jet to crash in Pennsylvania.
Jim Meadows was a full-time reporter at Illinois Public Media on that day, and he shared some reflections with IPM News and Public Affairs Director Reginald Hardwick earlier this week.
JIM MEADOWS: So, at around 8:30 AM Central Time, I was driving to work and it was just a normal day as far as I knew until I turned the radio on to WILL. And Jay Pierce, the late Jay Pierce, who was a former newsman and our AM radio station manager at the time was on the air reading Associated Press bulletin copy about the attacks in New York City. And so that’s when I first learned that the attacks had happened in New York and at the Pentagon, and I didn’t see the video of anything until I got to work.
REGINALD HARDWICK: I was working as a TV news producer in Dallas-Fort Worth on that fateful morning, and I remember seeing the second crash of the jet into the second Twin Tower live. And I also remember the sense of fear and just starting to gather local information there in North Texas. What were your first thoughts?
MEADOWS: It’s hard to put it into words. I know that just everything was different now, and this was a situation that now we had to adjust to and react to. Even though this was happening hundreds of miles away, it was definitely feeling that it was happening to all of us. And that’s how we were reacting as reporters in Champaign-Urbana that day. We were trying to figure out how are we covering this and what is really going on? Because one of the things that came in mind is are there attacks that are going to happen in other parts of the country? During the day, as the whole community was reacting to this, the station was getting notifications of church services, church services and a synagogue service, as it turns out, that were being held all throughout Champaign-Urbana in reaction to the attacks. My memory is that we got word of 19 of them, and I ended up covering, well, three of those that happened that evening.
HARDWICK: Do you remember some of the other ways that Champaign-Urbana or Central Illinois responded?
MEADOWS: For instance, there were two natives of Watseka up in Iroquois County, Helen Todd and John Whitman, who both happened to be in New York City on the day of the attacks. And it was Helen Todd, who is a professional opera singer, who went back home and founded a music festival in Watseka, which continued for several years. It was known as Sugar Creek Symphony and Song.
HARDWICK: Twenty-five years later, and you’re now retired, you are helping us with the morning edition, filling in as a host while we search for a new permanent host. But how did your life or maybe even your reporting change in the 25 years since 9/11?
MEADOWS: It seemed to me that even though there was an initial reaction to the attacks that was unifying for people, there was a secondary reaction which only sharpened political divisions. And I think there might be a thread that continued through to the extreme political divisions we see today.
HARDWICK: That was Illinois Public Media’s Jim Meadows. He was working here at Illinois Public Media on September 11th, 2001. Thanks for sharing, Jim.
MEADOWS: You’re welcome.