Bill Kemp is the Librarian and Archivist for the McLean County Museum of History. During his tenure at the museum, he has significantly enhanced the primary source material at the museum, including printed materials, photographs, artifacts, oral histories, and more. As excellent as his work is at the Museum, he is also a noted essayist who has produced an extraordinary number of pieces for the Bloomington Pantagraph. Since December 2005, Bill has researched and written 188 weekly columns that embrace and celebrate local history. Each column is illustrated by a photograph from the Museum collections and links current events directly with our past. His essays have recounted such topics as Martin Luther King's visit to Bloomington; the end of the street car in 1936; local survivors of Titanic disaster; the great fire that gutted downtown; the introduction of the telegraph; and the Poor Farm and orphanages that once existed here. The range is extraordinary and his writing sharp and evocative.

Mayor Steve Stockton says, "Bill's weekly essays are a gift to this community and essential reading for Pantagraph subscribers and local historians. His work reminds us of our connections with our past and the values and experiences upon which Bloomington is based."