With a B.A. from Illinois Wesleyan University and a master’s degree from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, Steve Vogel built a career that spanned print and broadcast news, radio programming, corporate communications and newspaper column writing. His work has appeared in publications ranging from The Congressional Record to Corvette Magazine. A speech he wrote was judged by American Speaker magazine to be the best business speech of 2005.
He claims his journalism career began with production of a neighborhood newspaper (circulation was in the low single digits–he lived on a farm with very few neighbors). While in high school, he covered sports and wrote a weekly column for The Minonk (Ill.) News-Dispatch and worked part-time in the sports department of the Bloomington, Ill., Pantagraph during his years at IWU. (His undergraduate degree is in political science with a minor in economics.) His graduate school education was interrupted by service in the U.S. Army, including a year in Europe where he was assigned to the American Forces Radio Network.
After finishing grad school, Steve resumed his broadcasting work with WJBC Radio in Bloomington, where he did a daily talk show and headed the station’s award-winning news department while also doing commentaries on the Voice of America. He later headed the media relations department of State Farm and served the company’s chairman and CEO as a communications assistant. He retired from that position in 2012 and returned to his print journalism roots by writing an opinion page column for The Pantagraph.
He is the recipient of numerous journalism awards, including a Champion-Tuck Award for economics reporting from Dartmouth College, from the Freedom Foundation, the National Headliners Club and the Associated Press. He was also a semi-finalist in NASA’s First Journalist in Space competition.
Steve and Mary, his wife of 50-plus years, divide their time between Illinois and Arizona. They have three children and two grandchildren. Steve loves music and serves as board president of the Phoenix-area East Valley Pops Orchestra. He likes to read almost as much as he likes to write.
