Local resident and writer Bill Felker is set to air his final episode of “Poor Will’s Almanack” on 91.3 WYSO on Tuesday, April 1 after 19 years on air. His written “Almanacks” can still be found on page 4 of each issue of the YS News. Felker is shown here in 2017, shortly after the publication of his book, “Home is the Prime Meridian.” (Photo by Audrey Hackett)
Felker retires ‘Poor Will’s Almanack’ on WYSO
- Published: March 29, 2025
WYSO announced this month that the final episode of “Poor Will’s Almanack,” a weekly program hosted by local resident and writer Bill Felker, will air Tuesday, April 1.
As a press release from WYSO reads: “Every Tuesday morning for 19 years on WYSO, ‘Poor Will’s Almanack’ has been the exhale we didn’t know we needed.”
The press release goes on to state that the 85-year-old Felker is wrapping up the program — described by WYSO as “a three-minute reflection on the transformational power of slowing down to notice the natural world and our place in it” — because he is losing his eyesight due to macular degeneration, and writing and reading what he has written have become too difficult.
Felker moved to Yellow Springs in 1978 to teach at Central State University; by that point, he had already been collecting barometric weather data for several years as a way to de-stress, he told the News in 2022. He began to broaden his data set in the early 1980s as a kind of distraction after he decided to stop smoking, taking notes on his findings in “daybooks,” in which he would record a summary of the weather and what he’d seen on his walks, with a new entry every day.
“I started to see the utility of the observations and how you can build a whole structure of time and emotion around the natural calendar,” Felker said in the press release.
After becoming friends with former News Editor Don Wallis, Felker turned his daily writings into a weekly News column, “Poor Will’s Almanack,” with the first entry published Feb. 1, 1984. Felker later expanded the “Almanack” to 15 other news publications over the years, including the Dayton Daily News. In 1995, Felker began recording the “Almanack” for WYSO.
“Working with WYSO has been wonderful,” Felker said in the press release. “I feel really fortunate to have had that opportunity to talk to people on the air like that.”
“Felker and his commentary embody so much of what WYSO is about — curiosity, contemplation, respect for the world around us,” WYSO General Manager Luke Dennis said in the press release. “We are really going to miss what he brought to our programming.”
Felker told WYSO that navigating the world with fading vision is “very disorienting.”
“Not even being able to write to-do lists any more makes daily life challenging — and while he may use voice-to-text to keep writing his column (published in newspapers around the country), he says he’s just not sure how well that will work,” the press release reads. “But as Felker talks about this new phase of his journey, there’s still a trademark lightness in his voice — a gratitude for his experience as an author and a sense of openness to whatever is next.”
“‘Thanks for calling,’ he says as the interview about the end of the series wraps up. ‘And thanks for listening.’”
Felker told the News this month that he continues to find joy in writing and assembling his weekly News column, often with the aid of his partner, Jill Becker, and he intends to keep contributing the “Almanack” to the News — “For as long as you’ll let me,” he said.
Ed. note: The News is fortunate to have had Felker’s words on our pages for 41 years, and will happily continue to publish any work Felker sends us for as long as he decides to do so — with deep gratitude.
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