Riley O'Neil

Riley O'Neil has logged more hours behind a microphone than any other Rockford radio personality, starting out with his hiring at WROK in February of 1983. He’s also the longest-tenured morning show host in WROK's 100-year history, with 22 years as the host of the WROK Morning Show. He’s a multi award-winning commercial producer, voice-over artist, and much sought after product and service endorser for multiple local businesses. In addition to hosting the WROK Morning Show with Joe Dredge, Riley also writes for 1440WROK.com, covering everything from Illinois' best local restaurants, to some of the wildest and funniest things Illinois residents have gotten themselves into, and everything in-between.

Here’s When Illinois Fall Colors Will Be Best, Say The Experts

One of the biggest joys we get living in this part of the country is knowing that we'll get a spectacular show of colored leaves (most years) before we spend several months with snow shovels and scrapers in our frigid hands. The question always is "when is the absolute best time to get out and enjoy it?" Here's what the leaf experts think.

Drinking In Illinois: Here’s The Most-Ordered Item At The Bar

It doesn't really matter what time of year it is, Illinois drinkers have really developed an affinity for a certain type of alcoholic beverage, and they're ordering it more than anything else. Any guesses?

Illinois’ Best Grocery Store? A New Study Names A Clear Winner

Given how much prices have exploded at the supermarket over the last 4 years, I find it somewhat surprising that a study would name the best grocery store in Illinois. When you're paying out an agonizing sum of money for a couple of bags of life's essentials, do you still feel good about the place you're paying it to? In Illinois' case, the answer would be yes.

You’ll Be Seeing More Skunks In Illinois Very Soon: Here’s Why

Why not? This year we've already had to deal with periodical cicadas, annual cicadas, cicada killers, wasps, and yellow jackets. Within the next few weeks, it will be deer on the roadways and skunks all over the place. Here's why the skunks will be prevalent in Illinois.

Here’s How You Can Catch This Weekend’s Meteor Shower In Illinois

There have been far too many times that we could have seen a really cool meteor shower in Illinois skies...but we didn't because the weather just wouldn't cooperate. It's been too cloudy, there's been too much moonlight, whatever. Not this time, according to expert sky watchers. We should have a great look at a really cool sky show.

Illinois Has Quite A Few More Of These Than You Probably Thought

I guess I've always assumed that Illinois had more Bobcat loaders than we have actual living, breathing bobcats (think about which one you see more of)...but not surprisingly, I was wrong about that.

One Illinois City Lands On Best Places To Live For Families List

This Illinois city has a population of about 25,000 people and is ranked as the 20th best place to live for families in the entire country. In 2022 it was ranked 9th. Any guesses?

Big Retail Chain With 29 Illinois Spots Closing 40 Stores In 2024

The way things have been going lately, it might be easier to write about restaurant and retail store chains that aren't thinking about bankruptcy or shutting down multiple stores. We've had a lot of announcements this year, and they don't seem to be slowing down.

Illinois Store Closings Are Up 25%: Here’s Who’s Closing For Good

In spite of some political leaders claiming that everything is just fine, thousands of "brick and mortar" stores in Illinois and across the country have closed this year, and we're only at the halfway point of 2024. Let's take a look at who's shuttering their stores forever, and who's taking a long, hard look at doing it, too.

Illinois Electric Bills: How Much They’ve Risen Over 10 Years

I'm sure that things are going so well for you that you probably haven't noticed how incredibly expensive things have gotten over the last few years. But, in case I'm wrong and you actually have noticed, you're probably going to be less than thrilled to see how much your Illinois electric bill has shot up over the last decade.