• Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer

Steve Vogel | Author of The New York Times Best-Selling book Reasonable Doubt

The official website of New York Times Best-Selling Author Steve Vogel

  • Home
  • About Steve Vogel
  • Books by Steve Vogel
    • The Unforgiven
    • Reasonable Doubt
  • Steve Vogel’s Clippings
  • In the News
  • Contact

Fifty years ago tonight

May 15, 2018 By admin Leave a Comment

It was 50 years ago tonight a tornado struck DeWitt County, Ill., killing four people and causing extensive damage.  It was also 50 years ago tonight I “cut my eye teeth” as a journalist.

As a college student (I was still a couple weeks away from graduation), my newspaper work had been confined almost exclusively to the Bloomington Pantagraph’s sports department.  I had stopped by the newspaper office on that Wednesday evening when word arrived that a twister had hit Wapella, about 20 miles south of Bloomington.  I nearly begged the night editor, Marshall Geiler, for a chance to go there.  With no one else instantly available, he gave me the green light.

I had no plan, (obviously no cell phone), and no experience covering something that didn’t include some type of box score.  I drove into the near darkness, found a rural home whose side had been ripped off, causing a “dollhouse” effect.  It was among photos in the next morning’s paper.  I also shared a byline with one of the paper’s top reporters, Dick Streckfuss, who later became a journalism professor at the University of Nebraska.  I was proud.

Today’s Pantagraph has “remembrance” coverage of that storm, including a sidebar with George Spray, a friend and Pantagraph reporter who lived in Wapella.  Find the stories at The Pantagraph

Filed Under: Steve Vogel's Clippings

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Footer

SteveVogelAuthor.com

Steve Vogel is an award-winning print and broadcast journalist, columnist, and talk show host who covered every minute of the original murder trial described in the New York Times best-seller Reasonable Doubt.

Navigate

  • Home
  • About Steve Vogel
  • Books by Steve Vogel
    • The Unforgiven
    • Reasonable Doubt
  • Steve Vogel’s Clippings
  • In the News
  • Contact

Follow me on Facebook!

Copyright © 2023 · Steve Vogel · WordPress · Log in