URBANA – As radio program director and station manager at WILL in the late 90s and early 2000s, Jay Pearce frequently filled in for others at the station, whether he was reading the news, hosting a talk show, or interviewing analysts about commodity prices on WILL’s agriculture programming.
On the morning of the September 11, 2001 attacks, Pearce went on the air to read bulletins about airplanes crashing into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, after NPR’s Morning Edition was slow to pick up on the story.
Pearce died at the age of 69 on August 21 at an Urbana hospital, three months after announcing he had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.
The Detroit native, who grew up in the Chicago suburb of Winnetka, spent his career in radio, mostly in Illinois, and much of the time in public radio.
Pearce was at WILL from 1998 to 2012, moving from a radio program director and station manager to director of created content, overseeing original content across media platforms.
In 2004, Pearce discussed the difference between commercial and public broadcasting on WILL’s call-in talk show, Focus 580.
“We do have to pay attention to the business end, we have to pay the bills, we have to be able to afford to do these things,” Pearce said. “But it’s not the same kind of a business model that would be greatly successful in the commercial world, I’m afraid. The shareholders in this are our supporters, our listeners. We hope we’re serving you well with the programs.”
Peace’s early career included work at southern Illinois radio stations, including WCIL in Carbondale and WDDD in Marion, before going to WSIU at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale.
Before his time at WILL, Pearce worked for a time in commercial radio. He was news director for the Illinois Radio Network, a statewide service that delivered news stories to local stations, and WEBX, “the Web”, a Champaign-Urbana FM station that was one of the first broadcasters to stream programming online.
In 2012, Pearce left WILL to be the CEO and general manager of WVIK in the Quad Cities. He worked there until his retirement in 2022, also doubling as the station’s local Morning Edition host. During the last six years of his time there, Pearce also served on the NPR Board of Directors.
Herb Trix was WVIK’s news director for much of Pearce’s time at the station.
“I credit him with saving the station,” said Trix of Pearce in an interview for WVIK, “and helping it advance to where it is now. We were in kind of a bad way when he took over. And I think in some ways it was just in time.”
Trix says Pearce laid the groundwork for the establishment of a second radio station at WVIK devoted to classical music. WVIK Classical signed on in 2023, a year after Pearce’s retirement.
Jay Pearce’s wife, Melisse Trentz, wrote on Facebook that friends and family are planning memorial events in southern, central and northern Illinois, three regions where Jay spent important parts of his life and career. She suggests that memorial donations be made to a favorite NPR station or to Common Chord, a non-profit organization based in Davenport, Iowa, promoting local, live music in the Quad Cities.
CORRECTION: This story has been revised to correct the year when Jay Pearce left Illinois Public Media. It is 2012, not 2009. – JM 9/7/24