Straight Talk

There’s a move to rename the park on the near northside of Peoria after our friend, Royce Elliott. Morton Square Park was a favorite “playground” for Royce and his many friends. They played football and some softball on the square block between Monroe and Perry, bounded by Evans and Morton. It was close to...
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LOSING MY FRIEND JONATHAN WINTERS It was a stunning loss, especially the way I learned it. I was driving home listening to the news on WOAM when the reporter announced Jonathan Winters had died. I couldn’t believe it. We had talked as usual about three weeks before. While frail in voice, I...
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STUNNING! The recent announcement that Proctor Hospital had sold all of its Prompt Care offices to OSF St. Francis Medical Center was a stunning surprise, especially to officials at Methodist Medical Center, past and present. Truth is, historically, Methodist and Proctor have had a close and cooperative relationship dating back to the days when Norm...
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Harry Caray was considered by many as the greatest play-by-play announcer in the history of baseball. Fans of Mel Allen of the Yankees and Vin Scully of the Dodgers would disagree, but to those of us in the mid-west, Caray was the best. He was still the announcer for the Chicago Cubs when he...
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Much has been written and spoken about Jim Maloof. And rightfully so. He touched thousands of lives, including mine. I’ve had the good fortune to know Jim for over 43 years. The friendship really began to blossom in November of 1971 when he inked an agreement with Methodist Hospital on behalf of St....
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The office building of our main WiredTree support offices will be undergoing fire safety system upgrades and the main power to our building is going to be shut off to undergo this planned maintenance. As a result, our support offices will have limited or no power during the estimated hours of 10:30AM – 6:30PM...
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POST ELECTION NOTES Congratulations to the winners and losers in last month’s elections. The losers deserve special praise because it’s not easy to spend money, work hard, and wind up losing. No one enjoys losing. I congratulate you for trying. People who have the initiative to run for public office in today’s bitter and vindictive...
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COMING SOON! R & R!! Believe it or not, “Breakfast with Royce and Roger” is returning to WOAM. After extensive discussions with owner Larry Nelson, an agreement has been reached for the two friends, make that three friends, to once again brighten the radio dial with their humor, stories, good music, interviews and conversations with...
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The old saying, “When you’re handed a lemon, make lemonade,” sure applies to the Peoria Chiefs. After Chicago Cub management unceremoniously dropped the Peoria Chiefs as one of their minor league teams, it took Chief officials two days to turn a negative into a positive. They did it by signing a four-year agreement with the...
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Under the leadership of Mayor Jim Ardis, Peoria County State’s Attorney, Jerry Brady, Sheriff Mike McCoy and several others, Peoria is implementing a new program to combat youth violence. Badly needed in our city, it’s called “Don’t Shoot.” It was developed by Boston criminologist David M. Kennedy after extensive research that included riding in...
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