Media match: For the last year, cable television viewers in Joliet have been watching Jeff Steer and Julie McCabe deliver public service announcements.
About once a week, with the help of Joliet Community Television volunteer Ward Ambrose of Joliet, the two have kept the community informed about park district events, activities for senior citizens, fundraisers and city announcements, among other things.
But other news has been brewing behind the scenes. Steer, who works in the City of Joliet’s Neighborhood Services Department, and McCabe, a social worker at the Will County Jail, have developed a romance that soon will take them down the aisle.
It all started in June 1997 when a mutual friend, Vicki Martell of Joliet, tried to arrange a blind date for McCabe and Steer, McCabe said. They met and soon were always together, although they didn’t go on what could be considered a date until months later.
Soon after they met, McCabe asked Steer to help tape a promotional announcement for a fundraiser to benefit the Center for Correctional Concerns, a Joliet group that helps inmates at the county jail. After the taping, Ambrose asked them to tape announcements for the Joliet community cable channel, Media One, which is seen on Channel 6.
“He said we were a natural and that we fit together well,” Steer recently recalled.
“I guess that we got together in the public eye,” McCabe said. “I am still amazed that people recognize us from the cable, stopping us in the store to ask if we’re the ones on television.”
The couple, both Joliet residents, are planning a July 24 wedding in Wilmington. Their children from previous marriages — McCabe has an 8-year-old daughter and a 6-year-old son and Steer has sons 12 and 6 and a 10-year-old daughter — will be in the wedding.
“I couldn’t be happier,” McCabe said.
“Neither one of us was looking for anything to transpire out of our work together,” Steer said. “We were just a good fit, and one thing led to another.”
