Julie Staley

Before becoming the Director of the Henry Mueller Staley Charitable Foundation and a “mommy blogger,” Julie Staley worked an exceptional career as a broadcast news anchor and reporter in several markets.

At Southern Illinois University, Julie Staley was a Dean’s List student and a University Scholar. She worked as an anchor, reporter, and news director for WSIU-TV, the public broadcasting station on campus, and earned a Bachelor of Arts in Radio and Television. Julie Staley accepted a position as reporter and anchor at WCIL-FM, a music station in Carbondale. Later, she accepted a position as a production assistant at CNN. For more than two years thereafter, Julie Staley was a news anchor and talk show host at KCCP-TV in Kansas City, Missouri.

Still known by her family name of Heil, Julie Staley became a producer at All News Channel, a 24-hour news channel based in St. Paul, Minnesota, and broadcast over DirecTV. Later, she served as news anchor for KSDK-TV in St. Louis, an NBC affiliate; news reporter for WAND-TV, an ABC affiliate in Decatur, Illinois; and news anchor for KDNL-TV, the ABC affiliate in St. Louis.

Julie Staley held her longest positions with Fox News. She worked as a news anchor on WRSP-TV and WCIS-TV in Springfield, Illinois, and for WCCU-TV in Champaign, Illinois. Julie Staley distinguished herself as FOX Illinois’s first anchor ever, the only anchor in the state to host a news broadcast on two stations simultaneously, and the longest tenure ever as 5 P.M. anchor for WCIS-TV.

Her work in 2006 brought Julie Staley honors in the form of The Communicator Awards’ Crystal Awards of Excellence. She received the first Crystal Award for anchoring breaking news and a second for anchoring special reports sent to the studio live from the field. Her anchoring also brought three Awards of Distinction from The Communicator Awards in 2006. Julie Staley has won Best Investigative Series from the Illinois Associated Press, the national reporting award from the Restless Legs Syndrome Foundation, Inc., and media awards from The Association for Women in Communications, United Cerebral Palsy, and the Heartland Continuum of Care. The last two honors recognized Julie Staley for an investigative reporting piece that aided people with disabilities and a story about the homeless in Springfield.