Media

Bill Wimmersberg

Year Inducted: 1990

Category: Media

Schools / Organizations:
Jerseyville Democrat News

Biography: For 30 years Bill Wimmersburg served as sports editor of the Democrat-News in Jerseyville. He also did shift work for the Shell Oil Co. Wimmersburg kept tabs on teams in the counties of Jersey and Calhoun along with parts of Green, Pike, Scott, Morgan and Macoupin. Wimmersburg’s career started in 1937 and continued until his death (date unknown). Wimmersburg’s span would offer a complete history of the game of basketball. It is said he covered tiny schools which played on dirt courts through the Dolph Stanley era at Taylorville and tiny district champ Hebron and its state championship.Wimmersburg’s mileage driving to and from games would be enough for an entire company. As a one-man sports staff, there were many late suppers and lots of midnight oil for Wimmersburg. It was all made worthwhile when several times a year, grown men would tell him, “I still have a scrapbook at home with everything you wrote about my dad, about me and about my son.” People in the Jerseyville area will say, that it made them proud to have participated, so Bill Wimmersberg could write about them and their teams.