Rochelle Township High School alum Susan Saunders-Spring has made quite a career for herself in the broadcast world.

The popular morning radio show host, known as Susan Jenner from the RTHS graduating class of 1990, recently celebrated her 20^th year as morning host of the “Susan Show” at WBNQ radio station in Bloomington.

Saunders-Spring celebrated in a big way, having a day declared in her honor from State Rep. Dan Brady, as well as Bloomington Mayor Tari Renner. Both were among many guests to surprise Saunders-Spring on Wednesday, the day marking 20 years since she first hit the WBNQ airwaves on Jan. 17, 1998. Since that time she’s done about 5,000 shows.

Saunders-Spring is not only well known among radio listeners, but she is also a dedicated contributor to many charitable organizations.

“I had lots of surprises Wednesday…I cried the whole time,” Saunders-Spring said, reflecting on the anniversary of the 20^th year at the station. “The privilege of my job allows me to meet and greet tons of charity organizations and I’ve fallen in love with them all, dedicating my time to them. The city of Bloomington decided they want to thank me for my contributions on the radio as well as my charity work.”

Blazing the trails

During her senior year at RTHS, Saunders-Spring completed a six-month internship in Springfield working for the State of Illinois. It allowed her a chance to dabble in her future career choice of television journalism while still in high school. Although that career path wasn’t meant to be, the intern spot gave her the skills needed in radio production.

After graduating from RTHS and while in college, Saunders-Spring did several stints at radio stations in Sycamore and Rockford, working nearly full-time at WZOK in Rockford during her sophomore year. From there she worked at a station in Madison, Wis., and back to Rockford for five years before landing a position in Sacramento, Calif.

All the while, Saunders-Spring had hopes of hosting her own morning show.

“I was trying to do something they told me I couldn’t do — be a lead female morning show host,” Saunders-Spring reflected. “Back then it was a male dominated industry. Girls were either the news reader, hosted mid-day shows, or they were a morning show co-host. Those were the slots you were allowed. I wanted to do mornings and design my own show.”

That’s when Saunders-Spring got the call about an opening at a radio station in Bloomington for a position to lead a morning show.

“I interviewed for the job and came back to Illinois thinking it would be only a couple years,” she said. “It was a smaller market than what I was accustomed to, but I thought it would be a stepping-stone on to other markets. It turned out to be very successful… the community became my second home. I blinked and it’s 20 years later.”

Now, Saunders-Spring spends her mornings from 5:30 to 9 a.m., Monday through Friday at the Top-40 radio station. Along with the music, her show has some humor mixed in but also focuses on local happenings.

At 10 a.m. each morning, Saunders-Springs is a talk show host on a sister AM station for two hours. The AM station, Saunders-Spring says, has a “completely different audience, completely different topics,” but allows her to be more involved in city business, such as with the mayor and police department. Members of those departments were also among the many that visited the studio Wednesday to congratulate her.

Hometown pride

Saunders-Spring visits the “Hub City” as much as possible, coming home to see her parents, aunt, uncle, and cousins. Thanks to social media, she stays connected to friends and has learned of many former Rochelle residents living in Bloomington.

Although she no longer lives in Rochelle, she has fond memories of growing up listening to WRHL-AM and WGN, and being in the marching band at RTHS.

“I was raised on full service talk radio. I just now do it with songs from Taylor Swift and Eminem in between,” Saunders-Spring said, interjecting a little humor.

Saunders-Spring credits her time as a speech team member at RTHS with giving her the tools she needs to be a success. She earned a state championship title in persuasive speaking during her junior year.

“It was very good speech team training at RTHS. I always say I learned how to speak from Mom and Dad, but I learned to speak well at RTHS. My speech team coach, Laurie Pillen… she is awesome. Winning state was a big accomplishment for us both.”

Over the years Saunders-Spring has seen technology steadily evolve, with the advent of compact discs and digital downloading. Each time, she says, someone always believing radio would become obsolete has since proven that to be opposite.

Now with the Internet, people can listen to her on the radio from anywhere with Wi-Fi access.

“The idea used to be more music and less talk… they thought that’s what would win the radio wars. Well, you can get music anywhere, but people love to be able to hear what’s going on in their own backyard while they’re driving, exercising… radio delivers that,” Saunders-Spring said. “I’m so grateful that I got into this profession. Now we’re seeing through podcasts the time shifting to voice entertainment and storytelling… communication of spoken word is coming back. I’m really excited to be in this now.”

With live-streaming on the Internet, her parents, Marvin and Dianne Jenner, can listen to the Bloomington station here in Rochelle by visiting WBNQ.com.

“They prefer to listen to AM talk,” she joked. “They don’t have to get up as early and they don’t have to listen to Taylor Swift.”