Arles Hendershott Love Ran a Rockford Newsroom When Few Women Did, Then Spent Two Decades Raising Money for People Who Need It Most

ROCKFORD, Ill. In the middle of the 1980s, when fewer than one in twenty television news directors in the country were women, Arles Hendershott Love was running the newsroom at WIFR. She decided what Rockford saw on the evening news. Decades later she still spends her days deciding what her city needs, only now the job is raising the money to pay for it.

She was born in Rockford and has built her entire career there. That career began at Illinois State University, where she was among the early students at TV 10, the campus television news station, and graduated with high honors in 1979.

Her first job out of school was at WTVO, where she worked as an anchor, reporter and producer from 1979 to 1983. In 1983 she moved across town to WIFR, and by 1986 she had been promoted to news director. She would lead the station's news operation for years, and in 1985 she produced a news story called "Pee Wee Explosion," one of the projects she remains proudest of. The Associated Press honored her work with an award in 1986.

Her peers noticed. She served on the executive committee of the Illinois Associated Press in 1989, became president elect in 1990 and was elected president in 1991. From 1989 to 1996 she was the Illinois state coordinator for television with the Radio Television News Directors Association. In 1990 she also completed graduate level coursework in broadcast management at the University of Missouri in Columbia.

In 1997 she moved into a corporate role as community relations director for WIFR and Benedek Broadcasting. There she created new sources of revenue and built community events that put money back into the towns the stations served. She stayed with WIFR until 2004, closing out roughly twenty five years in broadcasting.

In 2005 she became development director at Milestone, Inc., the largest provider of services for children and adults with developmental disabilities in Northern Illinois. Working largely as a department of one, she had raised about $24 million for the organization by 2024. She has said this is the work she is proudest of, because it reaches people who cannot care for themselves. In 2024 she earned three credentials from the National Association of Nonprofit Organizations and Executives: certified nonprofit executive, certified development executive and certified nonprofit consultant.

Volunteer work has run alongside both careers. She served as president of the board of directors of the American Heart Association in Winnebago County from 1999 to 2002, has been involved with Rockford CrimeStoppers since 1992 and the Rockford Boys and Girls Club since 1997, and served on the boards of YWCA Rockford and the Rockford Airshow. She was a member of the Rockford Chamber of Commerce President's Club from 1993 to 2005 and has also been active with Zonta and the Discovery Center Museum.

Rockford has thanked her many times. She was named Crimestopper of the Year in 1996 and again in 2000, received the American Heart Association Distinguished Service Award in 2000, the Kiwanis Touch A Life Award in 2003 and the Lifescape Community Services Volunteerism Award in 2009. Her earliest honor came in 1980, a Leadership Award from the Ken Rock Community Center.

In April 2024 Illinois State University inducted her into its TV 10 Broadcast Hall of Fame. The same year she received proclamations from the Governor of Illinois, the Illinois House of Representatives, the Illinois Senate and the Rockford City Council.

She has also made sure the next generation gets a better start than she had. She paid her own way through college, and in 2019 she and her late husband, Joseph Love, created the Hendershott Love Scholarship for a TV 10 student in the junior or senior year. Away from work she enjoys travel and photography, and she trains and competes with her dogs. With her husband she raised Keanu, a rescued border collie who earned 81 titles and served as a therapy dog across Rockford.

Dynamo Times recognizes Arles Hendershott Love for a career that opened doors for women in broadcast news and for two decades of fundraising that has changed lives in her hometown.