"Forty Years of Kansas Journalism at Its Best" reads the headline on a 1986 WSU announcement about the Charles G. Pearson Endowed Scholarship in Journalism. The headline still reads true: Pearson was unflagging in his pursuit of excellence in journalism, both as an educator and a journalist.
A graduate of the University of Kansas, Pearson worked as city editor at the Topeka Capital Journal before moving in 1962 to Wichita, where he became an editorial writer and then editorial page editor at the Wichita Eagle-Beacon. His years at Wichita State began in 1977 when he took the position of journalism department chair, a post he held for nearly a decade before stepping down.
He then taught for another three years before retiring. In the classroom, he was noted as being unwaveringly honest with students, who respected him for not only his teaching but also his own professional body of work.
Pearson continued to write until shortly before his death, authoring family histories and writing for Wichita's Active Aging. Ted Blankenship, who met Pearson in 1954 as an intern at the Topeka Daily Capital, says, "He was the most literate and civilized writer I have had the privilege of knowing. To me, he was a kind of gentle H.L. Mencken. He would take that as a great compliment, but would be too modest to concur that it is indeed the case. Kansas has produced very few writers with Charlie's gifts. His death is a profound loss to all who appreciate eloquence and wisdom."
Pearson, who lived his last years in Louisville, Ky., where he was near family, died Nov. 2, 2011.
