{"id":15872,"date":"2025-08-13T18:23:54","date_gmt":"2025-08-13T23:23:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thexradio.com\/news\/?p=15872"},"modified":"2025-08-13T18:24:29","modified_gmt":"2025-08-13T23:24:29","slug":"william-otis-bill-whightsel-69-formerly-of-mattoon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thexradio.com\/news\/obits\/15872-william-otis-bill-whightsel-69-formerly-of-mattoon\/","title":{"rendered":"William Otis &#8220;Bill&#8221; Whightsel (69) formerly of Mattoon"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"pdfprnt-buttons pdfprnt-buttons-post pdfprnt-top-right\"><a href=\"javascript: window.print()\" class=\"pdfprnt-button pdfprnt-button-print\" target=\"_self\" ><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thexradio.com\/news\/wp-content\/plugins\/pdf-print\/images\/print.png\" alt=\"image_print\" title=\"Print Content\" \/><span class=\"pdfprnt-button-title pdfprnt-button-print-title\">Print<\/span><\/a><\/div><p>William Otis \u201cBill\u201d Whightsel, age 69, formerly of Mattoon, Illinois, passed away on Monday October 7, 2024.<\/p>\n<p>Services celebrating Bill\u2019s, life will be held at 12:00 PM (Noon) \u2013 Saturday, August 16, 2025, at the Meyer Funeral Home in Newton, Illinois, with Rick Britton officiating. The burial will be in the Trexler Cemetery west of Newton, Illinois. The obituary can be viewed and condolences left at www.meyerfh.com.<\/p>\n<p>William \u201cBill\u201d was born on June 30, 1955, the son of Otis and Rose Mary \u201cRosie\u201d (Jenkins) Whightsel. Due to Bill having a childhood illness, his family moved to Arizona, for the climate when he was 2 years old. A few years later his illness went into remission and the family moved back to Illinois to be near relatives and friends.<\/p>\n<p>Bill participated in Cub Scouts in his younger years and enjoyed sports until his illness returned, limiting his mobility. He continued with an interest in sports serving as the manger for the football team in high school, Mattoon, Green Wave. His senior year he learned some business skills serving on the student counsel and graduated with the Class of 1974. Bill went on to further his education by attending Eastern Illinois University, graduating in 1978, with a Bachelor of Science in Business. He was employed with the Lakeland College Business Department in financial aid services from 1976 until 2005. Bill later moved to Jonesboro, Illinois, to be near family.<\/p>\n<p>Bill attended the Methodist Church in Mattoon during his youthful years with his family. He enjoyed arrowhead and rock hunting, cars and liked to buy and trade them, and especially enjoyed cruising in his cars.<\/p>\n<p>Bill is survived by: Sister Carol Ann Chapman of Marion, Illinois; special Aunt Shirley Sanders of Flat Rock, Illinois; and several aunts, uncles, and cousins.<\/p>\n<p>Bill was preceded in death by his parents and brother-in-law Danny Chapman, paternal grandparents Frederick \u201cFred\u201d and Villa E. (Kirkham) Whightsel and maternal grandparents William O. and Mabel Joy (Oliver) Jenkins.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bill died on Monday, October 7, 2024.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":15874,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-obits"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>William Otis &quot;Bill&quot; Whightsel (69) formerly of Mattoon - Effingham&#039;s News and Sports Leader, 979XFM and KJ Country 102.3<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Effingham&#039;s News and Sports Leader\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.thexradio.com\/news\/obits\/15872-william-otis-bill-whightsel-69-formerly-of-mattoon\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"William Otis &quot;Bill&quot; 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