The Center has completed the processing of the Nancy Stagg Papers and WILL Radio Station Administrative Records, an exciting new addition to our collections that provides crucial information about the life and work of Nancy Stagg and her work as a broadcaster with the University’s WILL Radio Station.
Nancy Sue Stagg was born June 15, 1937 in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. She earned her bachelor’s degree in organ performance from the University of Oklahoma in 1959 and a Bachelor of Divinity in religion and higher education from Yale Divinity School in 1962. Stagg was awarded a Master of Music degree in musicology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1972. Her thesis was entitled “Cyclic Coherence in Selected Song-Cycles of Robert Schumann.”
Stagg remained in Urbana-Champaign and served as a program assistant and organist at the McKinley Presbyterian Church between 1962 and 1976. Between 1973 and 1994 she worked at the University’s WILL Radio Station as a broadcast assistant, announcer, producer, program coordinator, music librarian, and music director.
Her papers and the WILL Radio Station administrative records document her work managing the University’s radio station, her role as a local church organist, and her deep interest and support for the community’s social justice movements, graduate student rights, and gardening.
The collection consists of University of Illinois’ WILL Radio Station administrative records produced or compiled by Stagg, including correspondence, staff directories, salary information, radio show scripts, original interviews, promotional materials, artist and subject files, and a sound recording card catalog with Stagg’s research notes that were used by the station’s radio announcers. In addition, the collection also includes Nancy’s University of Oklahoma student student papers, her graduate research from Yale Divinity School and the University of Illinois, local Champaign-Urbana newsletters and bulletins collected as a graduate student and community member, and an audio recording of her senior-year organ recital.
For further information about the Nancy Stagg Papers and WILL Radio Station Administrative Records contact Scott Schwartz at schwrtzs@illinois.edu or 217-333-4577.