Squealin’ Alright: Herscher native returns home to win BBQ competition

Mike Janssen always enjoys coming back to Kankakee County.

On his most recent trip home, the Herscher High School graduate and WGN-TV weatherman was feeling alright as his BBQ competition team, Squealin’ Alright, collected some hardware at the Squeals Showdown on July 12.

“It was a lot of fun, and you run into a lot of people that I’ve known my entire life,” Janssen said.

Janssen, a 1994 Herscher grad, took to the closed block of South Main Street in downtown Herscher to win the rib competition, place second in pork and third in chicken, ultimately taking home the grand champion prize.

“I can’t believe we were able to pull it off, because for so many years, everything I cooked was one good thing, and the other two things you wouldn’t want to feed to your dog,” he said. “It was amazing to go do something like that.”

He said it was extra special being able to share it with his wife, Kasha, who helped him with the preparation and recipes, and his daughter, Lexi, who served as the team’s taste tester.

“When they were talking about handing out the prizes, Lexi, she’s like, ‘Just have faith it’s going to go your way,’ ” he said. “So I kind of got a kick out of that.”

You might know Janssen for his work as a WGN-TV meteorologist, where he works mostly on weekend broadcasts. You can watch his reports and forecasts at 5 p.m., 9 p.m. and 10 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday.

“Then I’m sprinkled about in a lot of different time periods, Wednesday through Friday, when we’re on the air,” he said. “I spend a lot of time behind the scenes doing other things.”

Janssen, 49, has been at WGN since 2010, and Kasha works there as a news producer. They live in the northern suburbs.

This year was the fifth time he entered the Squeals Showdown, which was the ninth annual event. Janssen said he hasn’t always been able to enter the competition as he works weekends. It turned out to be a great weekend.

“I just happen to work in a business now where they can see what I do at WGN,” he said. “So a lot of people stop by and say hello that have known me since I was a toddler.”

The Janssens didn’t make it to the 49th annual Herscher Corn Bowl the night before, which roasts the Janssen family’s sweet corn, but they spent time at his mom’s house in Herscher. His mom, Jean, lives right in Herscher, where they moved to from the family farm when Mike was a kid.

“To win something like that here, I got congratulations from a lot of people that I’ve known a long time, and that makes it even better,” he said.

Learning the grilling trade

Janssen learned to grill and sharpen his skills while working at TV station WGNO in New Orleans in 2005. After graduating from Southern Illinois University in 1998, he worked at WSIL in Carterville, just down the road from Carbondale.

He then landed a job at WGNO just before Hurricane Katrina landed, so it was baptism by fire in the weather department.

“My debut was on that Saturday, the 27th of August, and Katrina made landfall on the morning of the 29th,” Janssen said.

While in New Orleans, a colleague of the Janssens did a lot of grilling, and Mike took notes.

“When we moved into our house, I could have a smoker in the backyard, and I just started kind of tinkering around and trying to get better at certain things,” he said.

Three years later, Kasha landed a job at WGN in Chicago, and they decided to make the move even though he was without a job initially. He worked for a PBS TV station in Merrillville, Indiana, for about a year.

“I’d drive over to Merrillville four days a week and do some stuff, and then just to keep my skills up, did some reporting, did some weather for them,” Janssen said.

A weather producer job opened up at WGN Chicago, and Janssen started working there in September of 2010. He got to work with the weather guru, Tom Skilling.

“There’s Tom Skilling, and then there’s the rest of us,” Janssen said. “The man who lives and breathes weather, and no matter how much school I think I could take, every class known to man, he’s got so much knowledge just in his pinky.”

He’s grateful for working at WGN and under Skilling, who retired about a year ago.

“He built that total department,” Janssen said. “Now our weather office is the Tom Skilling weather office.”

Family ties

Janssen will always have ties to Kankakee County, with family still living in the area. His cousin, Brian, is known for the Janssen sweet corn that is sold across the area each summer. Mike was also instrumental in getting the WGN Weather Bug camera placed on top of the Kankakee County administration building at 189 E. Court St. in Kankakee in 2020.

Video from the Weather Bug camera in Kankakee is often shown during the weather forecasts.

“I wanted to have a view of Kankakee County to see what weather is rolling around,” Janssen said. “It gives us a nice vantage point.”

Janssen hopes to come back next year to defend his grand champion title as long as he can get the time off. He gives a shoutout to Jeff Long and Dan Martin, who organize the Squeals Showdown on the weekend of the long-running Corn Bowl. He said that’s what small towns are built on – the festivals.

“There’s so much tradition there,” he said. “I grew up in Herscher, which has now had its Labor Day festivities for over 100 years.

“That used to be a four-day event. It’s not quite as big as what it once was, but Squeals will turn 10 next year. The Corn Bowl will turn 50 next year. It’s just kind of nice to be part of something. I haven’t lived in Herscher since 1998, but just to be part of something, maybe a new tradition that’s being built there, is a lot of fun.”