Jack LeChien was May's co-worker for nearly two decades at Belleville's WIBV AM radio station. He remembered May as an incredibly dedicated co-worker who would do anything to present a game to fans.

"During the playoffs in 1980, Joe and his broadcasting partner Bob Gagen were covering an Althoff football game at Chicago (Heights) Marian when they arrived to find the press box phone line connecting them back to the station in Belleville wasn't working," LeChien said. "Time wasn't on their side, and Joe knew he was going to have to think of something fast or they weren't going to get the game on the air."

When it looked like all was lost, May noticed an apartment complex next to the stadium. He and Gagen started knocking on doors of the upper floor apartments, begging residents to let them into their home to watch the game through a window and use their telephone to make a collect call back to the WIBV studio in Belleville.

"A lady opened the last door in the apartment building and Joe and Bob told her their situation," LeChien said. "She asked them what they were going to give her to use her phone and her living room. They told her they could give her 50 bucks and she said, 'Come right on in.'"

LeChien handed over the money and the woman was so excited to have it that she whipped up some popcorn and a batch of brownies for the broadcasters to enjoy while they watched the game through an apartment window with binoculars and called the play-by-play back to Belleville on her Princess phone.

Longtime Althoff football coach Glenn Schott said the successful broadcast meant a lot to Crusader fans because Althoff won that game and then the next one against DeKalb, giving the team its first state championship.

"I think they appreciated it very much," Schott said. "It was a new experience for the community to win a football state championship. I think people really appreciated the extra effort he made so they could share in it."

Former WIBV station manager Norm Greenberg said Joe May was one of his favorite hires.

"The game in Chicago is just typical of how he applied himself," Greenberg said. "He was a really hard-working guy. Always full of ideas and innovations. I called him the Harry Caray of our broadcasts because he was so colorful. This is a terrible loss."

In addition to covering amateur games, one of May's passions was St. Louis Cardinals baseball. In the early 1980s, he co-hosted The Whitey Herzog Show with the former Cardinals manager and was the editor of a newsletter about the team called the Redbird Review.

"He was so good at so many things," Herzog said. "He had a whole bunch of energy, and there was no bigger booster for high school sports on the Illinois side of the river. He's sure going to be missed."

May started his career at WHCO radio in Sparta before moving in 1969 to the Belleville airwaves, becoming the sports director at WIBV. He broadcast McKendree College, now McKendree University, and St. Louis University sports contests, as well as thousands of high school games over the airwaves and on local cable during his 40 years behind a microphone.

"He had a great passion about everything he did," LeChien said. "For a lot of people, he was what they remember about WIBV."