Jonathan Turner
Jonathan Turner has three decades of varied Quad Cities journalism experience, and currently does freelance writing for not only WVIK, but QuadCities.com, River Cities Reader and Visit Quad Cities. He loves writing about music and the arts, as well as a multitude of other topics including features on interesting people, places, and organizations. A longtime piano player (who has been accompanist at Davenport's Zion Lutheran Church since 1999) with degrees in music from Oberlin College and Indiana University, he has a passion for accompanying musicals, singers, choirs, and instrumentalists. He even wrote his own musical ("Hard to Believe") based on The Book of Job, which premiered at Playcrafters in 2010. He wrote a 175-page book about downtown Davenport ("A Brief History of Bucktown"), which was published by The History Press in 2016, and a QC travel guide in 2022 ("100 Things To Do in the Quad Cities Before You Die"), published by Reedy Press. Turner was honored in 2009 to be among 24 arts journalists nationwide to take part in a 10-day fellowship offered by the National Endowment for the Arts in New York City on classical music and opera, based at Columbia University’s journalism school.
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In a very divisive, violent world, we could all use more peace, love and understanding, and Rock Island’s Rita Melissano is just the person to help provide them. -
Dozens of concerned Quad Cities residents filled St. Anthony’s Catholic Church Parish Hall, in downtown Davenport, for a Saturday morning meeting on how to prepare and respond to potential ICE activity in the area. -
Hundreds of concerned residents in Scott County oppose approval of a new natural-gas power plant proposed for prime farmland east of Maysville, Iowa. -
City of Moline leaders and Project NOW officials held a press conference Wednesday morning (Jan. 21) at 1 Montgomery Drive, to announce the plan to serve a capacity of 60 unhoused individuals on a first-come, first-served basis. The shelter will operate from Wednesday night through April 15. -
After 24 years of dedicated service to Girl Scouts of Eastern Iowa and Western Illinois, Chief Executive Officer Diane T. Nelson has announced her retirement, effective July 2026. The Board of Directors will launch a national search for her successor in the coming months. -
The Mississippi River is more than 1,800 miles from the Pacific Ocean, but the two major bodies of water have both been misused as dumping grounds over the decades. Los Angeles Times environmental reporter Rosanna Xia will urge strong protection of both when she appears in Davenport Sunday, Jan. 25, during and after the 3 p.m. screening of the award-winning 2024 documentary, “Out of Plain Sight,” which was inspired by her uncompromising coverage of jaw-dropping pollution of the ocean just off the Los Angeles coast. -
In the past, students at the Rock Island private liberal-arts school volunteered without sustained relationships with organizations and neighbors beyond campus. Last spring, that changed to form Participate, a student-led initiative within Augustana’s Office of Student Life and Leadership designed to link students more consistently with community partners across Rock Island and the Quad Cities. -
Representatives of many of those organizations met Tuesday night – at a “Power To the People” event in East Moline (in a local carpenters’ union hall), which attracted over 200 members of the public. Speakers and ordinary people vented their frustrations and sought ways to successfully counter a threatening government, especially following the Jan. 7 fatal shooting of an unarmed female motorist in Minneapolis by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer. -
The Porter McNeil Public Service Foundation will award two $2,500 scholarships a year to graduating seniors from Moline High School who are pursuing education in public service, civic engagement, or social impact fields. Applications are open now through April 30, 2026. -
The Quad Cities National Organization for Women (NOW) will hold a Rally for Reproductive Freedom on Sunday, Jan. 18 in Rock Island, near the 53rd anniversary of the Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion before being overturned in 2022.
