On Oct. 31 this year, WUWM and Lake Effect experienced a profound loss. Our newest producer, Eilee Heikenen-Weiss, passed away after a car accident. She was 39 years old.
Eilee had just started as a Lake Effect producer earlier that month, but before coming to WUWM she worked at WBEZ in Chicago in a variety of roles over seven years. Starting as an intern in 2007 on their Eight Forty-Eight magazine show, Eilee advanced to producing roles on Eight Forty-Eight, Morning Shift and Afternoon Shift, and then become the director and producer on Worldview, WBEZ’s international affairs show.
After WBEZ, Eilee took a nearly 10-year break from public radio. During this time, she led adventure trips and experiences for Backroads, an active travel company, becoming their Peru expert. She also spent time traveling throughout the United States.
Despite living what would seem to many as a dream life of adventure and travel, Eilee felt the call to return to journalism and audio storytelling. In the summer of 2023 she briefly worked as a staff reporter for Adams Publishing Group in Sun Prairie, Wis. before being hired as a producer on Lake Effect. We were so excited and honored to have her join our team.
Eilee was vivacious, ambitious and will be deeply missed by everyone here at WUWM, her former colleagues at WBEZ, and the countless people whose lives she touched. Here are a few stories her friends and colleagues wanted to share about Eilee:
From Becky Mortensen, Lake Effect executive producer:
"I hired Eilee back in the summer and I was just so, so excited to have her on the Lake Effect team. I knew even before she started that she was going to bring this energy and positivity, and it was clear that was the case from just the first day she was in the office.
I knew even before [Eilee] started that she was going to bring this energy and positivity, and it was clear that was the case from just the first day she was in the office.Becky Mortenson
I have a few key memories of Eilee. First, when she was telling people how to say her name she'd say, 'I'm Eilee, like 'Miley, or smiley,' which I think is just the most appropriate thing for her because she was just such a smiley, happy, positive person. On the first day she was in the office she immediately clicked with everyone. I watched her meet Audrey Nowakowski, who is tall and Eilee is tall, and they immediately started talking about like, 'Hey, where do you buy your pants?,' and it was like watching a conversation between two old friends when they had just met each other.
Eilee was really just starting to do interviews for Lake Effect. She had so many amazing ideas and she was so ambitious, and I could tell she was just so excited to start doing this work. So, I'm really sad that I won't get to hear any of those interviews and that I didn't get more time with Eilee. But to know her at all, I'm just so grateful because she was clearly a very special person."
From Xcaret Nuñez, Lake Effect production assistant:
"I started working [at Lake Effect] about two months ago, a little bit before Eilee started here with us, and I was so excited to start this new journey with her. The first time I met Eilee, the first things I noticed were her big, beautiful smile and how her bright and wonderful energy really filled the room.
The first things I noticed [about Eilee] were her big, beautiful smile and how her bright and wonderful energy really filled the room.Xcaret Nuñez
I remember our executive producer Becky had us get together for a one-on-one meeting just to get to know each other a little bit more. And what was supposed to be a 30 minute conversation turned into an hour of us chatting and laughing. I feel really incredibly lucky to have shared little moments like that with her.
Another moment I think about a lot were our trips to the hot dog man outside Chase [Bank] tower. I remember the first time we went down to the hot dog guy she kept saying she wanted to create an audio postcard about him just because — you really have to go down and see him for yourself, but it's just a trip — like the things that he says and the sounds and so many people around. I just remember being in that moment with Eilee and both of us being astounded by how crazy of a trip it was to the hot dog man.
I feel so fortunate to have had the opportunity to meet Eilee. And just from getting to know her in the time that we shared, I know she was a really beautiful and incredible person."
From Joy Powers, Lake Effect host and producer:
"Eilee is the reason I got my first real job in radio. I started at WBEZ Chicago as an intern working on the Afternoon Shift, where Eilee was a producer and director. After a few months of working with her she announced that she'd be leaving to go lead bike tours in South America and I replaced her. It was amazing to watch her adventures from afar — seeing her explore these really far flung spaces of the globe, it was just really inspiring.
When she reached out to me about the job at Lake Effect, it was such serendipity. She was exactly who we needed. She was smart, energetic, curious, and maybe above all things she was really ambitious. Even now, it's hard to think about Eilee without smiling. There are a million silly stories that I've heard about her since her passing and she was a delightful person to be around. And I think a big part of that was because of how she lived her life.
[Eilee] used to say this phrase, "hit while the story is hitting" — basically cover something while people are interested and engaged. But Eilee also lived her life that way. She always seemed like she was exactly where she wanted to be and when she wasn't, she would change it so she was. She was a really courageous person.Joy Powers
She used to say this phrase, "hit while the story is hitting," [which basically means] cover something while people are interested and engaged. But Eilee also lived her life that way. She always seemed like she was exactly where she wanted to be. And when she wasn't, she would change it so she was. She was a really courageous person and I wish Milwaukee had gotten to know her the way that I got to know her."
Eilee Heikenen-Weiss was a stone cold killer when it came to producing radio. She was tenacious and feisty and unapologetic about her desire to uplift communities that were ignored.Steven Bynum
From Steven Bynum, former Afternoon Shift seinor producer & current WBEZ DEI manager:
"Eilee Heikenen-Weiss was a stone cold killer when it came to producing radio. She was tenacious and feisty and unapologetic about her desire to uplift communities that were ignored and to tell the stories of the suffering. I think back to a cold January day in 2013, when she and I produced Afternoon Shift together and it was a live broadcast at the Old Town Ale House. There was a woman, her name is Shirley Chambers, and she had agreed to come on the show to talk about having just lost her fourth child to gun violence. And the woman in time just didn't think she could do it and she backed out, and Eilee said, 'You know, I think from our conversations, this would really be healing for you.' And Miss Chambers said, 'Well, I really want to do it, but I don't know if I can.'
Any other producer would have just left it at that — not Eilee. She didn't know exactly where the woman lived, but she had an idea. And so within a two to three block radius on this freezing cold day in January, she knocked door to door, door to door, asking if Ms. Chambers lived here or if they knew where she lived. And we were on live while she was doing this and she was checking in by text.
And then, lo and behold, she found [Shirley] and she got her over to the Old Town Ale House and walked her through the door. We're on the air and [Eilee] sat her next to Paul Krugman who's a world renowned economist, and she told this powerful, painful, but hopeful story about who these children were to her and how she was going to manage to go on with her life. And she thanked this woman who tracked her down and she was glad that she came on the show. And that was Eilee and I'm just very thankful for Eilee's example and her fearlessness. And I hope that we as people in media will continue her legacy and forward that fearlessness, and support one another as she has supported others."
From Linda Lutton, Eilee's friend and former WBEZ colleague:
Eilee was spontaneous, fearless, adventurous, big hearted — such a free spirit.Linda Lutton
"[Eilee] was in Seattle, I was in Chicago. We had both quit our jobs and decided to meet in the middle at Glacier National Park. For a week we wandered through the woods past turquoise lakes. We called out to bears to scare them away. We hiked to a glacier and put our bare feet in ice cold water. We reminisced about starting a union back at work and we plotted to get Eilee back on the radio. I'm so glad she made it.
Eilee was spontaneous, fearless, adventurous, big hearted — such a free spirit. To me, Eilee and that trip will always be reminders to live life to the fullest. Quit your job, live out of your van, ride the trains, put your feet in a glacial lake, start a union, make radio travel, halfway across the country to see a friend — because nobody knows when it might end."
From Leah, Eilee's friend:
"Eilee and I met in kindergarten and she was always just a sweet smiley, funny kid — "Smiley Eilee." She was one of my first friends and we stayed very close our whole lives, but she was always a huge presence in my life. She was always part of my support system, gave great advice asked amazing questions, sometimes to a point where I was like, 'OK, you hit the button on the head here, let's, let's move on.'
She has always been a light in my life and I just have to continue to see her that way... And I just hope that people can see what a sweet and beautiful and caring and original spirit she was.Leah
The story that I thought would best sum up for me, the Eilee spirit, is a couple years ago on April Fool's Day I thought it would be funny to post a video of myself dancing to a cheesy rock and roll song (poorly and enthusiastically) and announce that I was going to quit my job in healthcare and pursue my first love, which was dance. The video really made it clear that this was a joke — and everybody took it that way except Eilee. And she texted me and was like, 'This is so exciting! I am so happy for you, you're gonna rock it!' And, you know, I had to be like, 'Hey, Eilee, what's the date today?' And she was like, 'Ooooh, OK.'
But of course, Eilee would think that you should quit your stable, boring job to pursue your passions. In her world that was perfectly normal and she was gun-ho, and really supported that decision for me. She has always been a light in my life and I just have to continue to see her that way. Because I haven't really accepted that she's gone yet. So she's still around for me, and I talk to her all the time. And I just hope that people can see what a sweet and beautiful and caring and original spirit she was."
From Cate Cahan, former WBEZ editor:
"Eilee, I'm sitting by the lake you love on a big rock and I'm thinking of you... I always will think of you in relationship to nature and to the world. And even though I feel so much the loss of being able to see you, and know what you're doing, and know what you're contributing — I have a very, very strong feeling your spirit is here with us and around us. It's here in the water and in the rocks and the sky that is so pink and blue this evening. I love you, I believe, believe, that you contributed a great deal to this world. And I hope your family and your friends take a lot of comfort from that. You changed me in many ways, just by your energy by wanting to follow in the kind of energy you brought to the rest of us. Thank you."
From Kendell Klein, Eilee's friend:
"I've been trying to think of one story about [Eillee], but I'm finding that it's rather impossible to know where to begin. Because with Eilee every single moment was memorable. She had such a way of sparking joy and humanity and wonder in even the most mundane of circumstances. So maybe I'll share about that, a mundane moment with Eilee:
We met at CU Boulder on orientation day. We were both roaming campus and we were hopelessly lost, and I remember so distinctly that long before I saw her, I heard her. Because she was laughing so hard standing in the sunlight, her hands on her hips in the middle of those crossroads where several walkways converged. And her laugh, it was this fully embodied event. It was startling the people passing by her and they were going wide to keep their distance. And she ended it all with a snort.
Well, I was downright intrigued, so I approached, slowly. Her laughter had reminded me of the mating call of some creature I'd heard in the woods at night and I told her as much, which started the progression [of laughter] all over again. And I stood there beside her in awe, that one person could radiate so much joy. And she had such an effect on all the people around her. Those who had first gone wide were now circling back they were so curious, and others had just stopped walking altogether and they were just watching her. And it was so clear to me then, that Eilee's bliss was absolutely contagious.
Eilee's bliss was absolutely contagious.Kendell Klein
Eilee was honest and wild and strong, and also so deeply loving and tender. And I think such combinations are pretty rare, and I'm just so thankful that her laugh was rumbling that day because it drew me in and my life has been so much more vibrant for all these years of knowing her. I so wish I had, though I never did, ask her what was so funny that day we met - why she was standing at the crossroads in stitches. But I do remember [her laugh] exactly."
WUWM would like to thank our friends at WBEZ in Chicago and everyone else who contributed memories and photos of Eilee Heikenen-Weiss to help us remember her.
