By Dave Eminian

 Peoria Journal Star

USA TODAY NETWORK

PEORIA — Wes Huett made sure his family knew they meant the world to him in his final days on this Earth.

The beloved Journal Star sports editor needed a heart valve replacement and a repair to an aortic aneurysm. He had that surgery, which was expected to be fairly routine, on Jan. 26.

"He was nervous about the surgery," said Huett's wife, Melinda. "Who wouldn't be? It was very routine, but it was still heart, so it still had its risks. He made sure to spend time with each of us individually."

Doctors told the family the surgery went well and was successful. But Huett never did recover, fighting in the hospital for eight days until his death at age 48 on Feb. 3.

There is no medical explanation. The family says doctors have told them they don't know what went wrong.

A Sunday, the day before the surgery, was a day of last conversations. He was a magnificent friend and colleague. But he was Mount Rushmore as a husband, a father, a sibling.

He loved his people deeply. "It was hard, our final talk," Melinda Huett said. "We were both really nervous. I made all his favorite foods the week leading up to it. Got up on Sunday morning and made homemade donuts. He joked not to tell his cardiologist. We just spent the day together.

"It was very personal."

Huett was always bursting with pride over his teenage sons, 13-year-old Drew and 19-year-old Jake. He attended Drew's sporting events and played NBA2K with him.

He'd play Fortnite with Jake - sometimes walking into the house doing the Fortnite dance. And as an avid movie buff, Wes would often take Jake along to see a show.

"He was terrible at Fortnite," Jake Huett laughed. "And he was aware of that. But whenever I got frustrated with a video game, he'd tell me, 'Well stop playing."'

Just three weeks before his death, Huett, a Buffalo Bills fan, was posting on his social media about how cool it was the Patriots were back in the Super Bowl (his trademark sarcasm), making his Oscar predictions, talking about Star Wars character Kylo Ren in an ""'SNL" skit and penning his thoughts about late Journal Star sports staffer Joe Bates.

'He was so sweet'

Once upon a time, Melinda Jacobsen was a Chicagoland native living in Bloomington, and she and Wes Huett were both Illinois State students.

He was working at the Chillicothe weekly newspaper in 2000 when Huett met her online.

"The whole internet dating thing was new," she said. "American Singles. My friends call us revolutionaries. There were no pictures online. Our first message was on March 1,2000, and our first date was March 18.

"He was so sweet. He was wearing a blue sweater, real shy at the door. Sent me flowers the day before at my work. We went to Bennigan's for lunch. And then we went bowling."

When he brought her back to her apartment, he asked if he could kiss her. "I told him no," Melinda said. "My friends had all told me 'Don't kiss on the first date.' That was it.

"We emailed and talked on the phone and got to know each other between March 1 and the date. So for one of our anniversaries as a gift he printed out all of our emails from when we were dating. All his emails to me and mine to him."

They married on June 1, 2002.

Lori's Kitchen, Doughboys and goodbye

Wes Huett had a busy final few days before his surgery.

He and his wife went to a cooking class on Jan. 20 at Lori's Kitchen in Washington.

He took Drew to watch the NCAA football national championship game on Jan. 19 at Kep's Bar and Grill in Washington.

There were card games, lots of UNO duels with the whole family.

"And he spent a lot of time that week putting together award submissions for the national and state newspaper contests for (Journal Star sports writers) Dave Eminian and Adam Duvall," Melinda Huett said. "He took it so seriously, respected them and the contests."

On Jan. 22, he took Jake to Chicago to see Doughboys, a popular podcast starring comedians Nick Wiger and Mike Mitchell. They rate chain restaurants and chain fast-food places.

"It was one of his favorite podcasts," Melinda Huett said. "When he found out they were coming to Chicago he got front row tickets. The joke was I couldn't sit in the front row so they couldn't see me eye-rolling. So we thought he and Jake would be great for it."

'One of the best days of my life'

Jake Huett will never forget Jan. 22, 2026 in Chicago, sitting with his father in the front row at the Doughboys podcast show.

Wes Huett became part of the show, spotted by the co-hosts. You can see Wes and Jake in video of the show posted by Doughboys on YouTube. Huett appears, with a camera angle from the back, in the front row left of stage in nearly the entire show, with some angles looking at him from the stage. After his death, his son, Jake, posted on the Doughboys Reddit page about his father, and that show, and the co-hosts sent him video footage as a keepsake.

"My dad was a religious listener to the Doughboys ..." Jake Huett said in his post. "To anyone there, he was the guy who had the joke books as a kid, and Nick pointed out my Donkey Kong shirt."

On their ride home to Washington after the show, Wes Huett quietly said to his son, "This was one of the best days of my life."

"He had so much fun, and I'm glad he got that before he passed," Jake Huett said.

His last days with his dad were full of memories.

They went to see Marty Supreme at Shoppes at Grand Prairie.

"We like watching movies, and we would see all of the Oscar-nominated movies in the theaters together," he said. "And of course the Doughboys podcasts. They joked about chain restaurants. My dad, by the way, really loved Outback Steakhouse, Avanti's and Monical's Pizza."

Jake said it was the small things he'll remember. Driving three hours up to Chicago, joking about dumb X posts Wes found funny. Going to the Sonic popup cafe before the show. Going to the restaurant discussed in the show afterward.

"We got Red Hot Ranch food," Jake Huett said. "The fries were soaked in the oil and there was a pebble in it. We were joking about it on Monday, moments before his surgery."

Humor was Wes Huett's foundation. He'd don a silly party hat and sit on his couch, going about his business, pretending nothing was unusual. "Just a dichotomy of him ... it would make me laugh," Jake Huett said.

Wes took Jake to the I Think You Should Leave convention in 2023. While there, Jake took a picture of his dad, capturing him with a serious expression on his face. He loaded the picture into an app and turned Wes Huett's face into a smile.

"Eww, why do I look like I'm haunted?" Wes Huett said.

His passion for journalism was part of his foundation, too. But his bedrock was his family.

"He loved us so much that the word unconditional is an understatement," Jake Huett said. "He just never judged us for anything you couldn't control. So empathetic as a person. And all his jokes were funny. That's why everyone was so fond of him."

Wes Huett went in for a surgery on Jan. 26,2026 and never came back. But he will always be a presence with his family, friends and colleagues.

"I've been writing a letter to him, imagining he can read it," Jake Huett said. "He never treated me as though disinterested, like in small ways. He was so invested in what I liked. I never felt like he wasn't listening. I always felt heard.

"And he never made me feel alone."

Dave Eminian is the Journal Star sports columnist, and covers Bradley men's basketball the Rivermen and Chiefs. He writes the Cleve In The Eve sports column for pjstar.com. He can be reached at 686-3206 or deminian@pjstar.com. Follow him on X.com @iicetimecleve.