Charles Edward Whaley

Charles Edward Whaley, born Feb. 29, 1928, an award-winning education editor during his affiliation over many years with The Courier-Journal for which he also reviewed books and theatre and contributed op-ed articles, died Thursday October 30 at his home in Louisville, Kentucky at age 97.

While at the newspaper he became one of the original 12 Marshall Scholars chosen in 1954 from throughout the U.S. by the British Government for study at a British university in gratitude for U. S. Marshall Plan aid following World War II. He received a master of arts degree in English literature from the University of Manchester, focusing on Thomas Hardy, after a two-year residency while on leave from the C-J.

Whaley joined the C-J staff after earning a master of science degree at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism in 1950, where he had been accepted in a class limited to 50 after graduating from the University of Kentucky with highest honors in 1949. There he received U.K.’s Algernon Sydney Sullivan Medallion as outstanding senior man and was a member of Phi Beta Kappa, editor of the Kentuckian yearbook, and president of his fraternity, Sigma Phi Epsilon.

He headed SuKy, the student organization promoting athletics, and was elected to Omicron Delta Kappa and every other honor society for which he was eligible.

(https://uknow.uky.edu/professional-news/leap-day-legacy-remarkable-life-uk-s-oldest-living-alum-born-feb-29)

Soon after starting at the newspaper he was drafted for Army service in the Korean War and served two years in public information at Fort Knox, Fort Meade, Md., and Fort Slocum, N. Y. His Marshall Scholarship came after his return to the C-J. He was elected secretary-general of the Association of Marshall Scholars and Alumni during its formative years, serving from 1965-1971.

Whaley received another singular honor when for the 70th anniversary of Marshall Scholarships in 2025 and the annual report to Parliament, he was selected as the featured scholar profiled by the British Council’s Marshall Aid Commemoration Commission from the inaugural 1954 class. (www.marshallscholarship.org)

In 1962 he received the top national award of the Education Writers Association for “clear and comprehensive coverage of education in Kentucky.”

Whaley joined the Kentucky Education Association staff in 1964 as its first director of research and information, later becoming director of communications. While there he received the KEA’s Lucy Harth Smith—Atwood S. Wilson Award for Civil and Human Rights in Education and was co-author with Dr. Kern Alexander, later president of Murray State University and Western Kentucky University, of “Beyond the Minimum,” a major study that led to improvements in Kentucky’s foundation program for education.

A native of Williamstown, KY, he was the son of Mary Kathleen, known as Kate, nee Neal, and Fred Whaley. He was a graduate of Williamstown High School, where he was valedictorian and drum major of the marching band. In 2006 he received the school’s Distinguished Alumnus Award. In 2024 his photo and biographical information were added to the school’s Wall of Fame.

In 1957 he married Carol Sutton, Courier-Journal staff writer and women’s editor, who later became the first woman to be named managing editor of a major American daily newspaper—The Courier-Journal. She was on Time Magazine’s “Women of the Year” cover in 1976. The Charles Whaley—Carol Sutton Collection of their papers is at Louisville’s Filson Historical Society.

In 1985, after his beloved wife’s death from lung cancer, Whaley moved to California to become executive director of the American Lung Association of San Francisco. There he was elected president of the San Francisco Bay Area Chapter of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), of which he was an accredited member. He had been PRSA president in Kentucky of the Bluegrass Chapter.

Whaley was a longtime member of the American Theatre Critics Association and the Society of Professional Journalists. While in San Francisco he was regional editor and columnist/reviewer for Stages, a New York magazine, as well as secretary-treasurer of the Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle.

He retired in 1993 and returned to his Cherokee Triangle home in Louisville where he wrote theatre and book reviews and op-ed pieces for the C-J, reviewed theatre for The News and Tribune in Southern Indiana, and contributed articles to The Sondheim Review and Virginia Woolf Miscellany. He also was regional correspondent for In Theater magazine in New York.

In Louisville he had been president of First Unitarian Church board of trustees, chairman of the Quito, Ecuador committee of Sister Cities of Louisville, and board member of the English-Speaking Union, Kentucky Branch.

He also was a guest lecturer at England’s University of Reading on Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group as well as American musical theatre. In 2002 a song for which he wrote words and music, “I’d Like to Show You London,” was featured via Jeane Carlin’s “Jazz With a View” CD in an Atlanta stage production of “Trevor” by British playwright John Bowen.

His research material for a projected biography of New York off-Broadway producer Ben Bagley, who issued a major series of recordings of early lesser-known songs of famous musical theatre composers such as Cole Porter, the Gershwins, Leonard Bernstein, Rodgers and Hart, and Rodgers and Hammerstein, is in Ohio State University’s library collection archives.

His and his wife Carol’s abiding interest in the Bloomsbury Group led to lasting friendships with Virginia Woolf’s nephew and biographer Quentin Bell and his wife Anne Olivier Bell, editor of Woolf’s diaries, along with artist Duncan Grant and others associated with the group. Their collection of Bloomsbury art by Grant and Dora Carrington traveled to shows in major British and American museums. They also had an extensive collection of books by and about the group and its members.

Whaley is survived by daughters Carrie Orman (Doug) of Louisville and Kate Archer (Robert) of Florence, KY, grandsons Clayton (Carolina) and Casey Orman and William Archer (Erin), and sister Martha O’Connor, Hebron, Ky, great grandson Sebastian Orman, and several nieces and nephews. Another sister, Ruth Young, died in 2020 at age 90. The family would like to thank his wonderful caregivers throughout the years and his “angel on earth” Marissa, for caring for him as she would her own father.

Cremation was chosen and a small gathering of friends will occur at a later date. Expressions of sympathy may be made to First Unitarian Church, 809 South 4th Street, Louisville, KY 40203, or Carol Sutton Endowed Scholarship, University of KY College of Communication and Information, 308 Lucille Little Library, Lexington, KY 40506-0224.