Ronald Tyler Whitley

1937 - 2020

WHITLEY, Ronald Tyler, 83, of Richmond, Virginia, died on November 18, 2020. He was born in Knoxville, Tennessee on August 4, 1937, but lived in Richmond from the age of two. He was the son of Raymond Pope Whitley and Daisy Hudgins Whitley.

He is survived by his wife of 55 years, Nancy Prickett Whitley; and by their three children and four grandchildren: son, Ronald Tyler Whitley Jr. (Melissa Kennedy) and grandsons, Forrest Tyler Whitley and Pritchard Parks Whitley, of Richmond; son, William Bland Whitley (Sarah Torian), grandson, Samuel Mason Whitley and granddaughter, Anne Pryor Marie Whitley, of Princeton, New Jersey; and daughter, Rebecca Pryor Whitley (Hugh Clark Small) of Canillas de Albaida, Spain. He is also survived by his twin brother, Donald Pope Whitley (Laura Butler) of Richmond.

Tyler was a graduate of St. Christopher's School in Richmond and Hampden-Sydney College, where he was a member of Phi Beta Kappa, Omicron Delta Kappa and many other honor societies. He was also a member of the fraternity Pi Kappa Alpha and served as editor of the college newspaper, the Tiger.

After a stint in the Army, during which he was stationed at Fort Dix in New Jersey, Tyler began a 50-year career as a reporter, first with the Richmond News Leader and then with the Times-Dispatch. Beginning as an obituary writer, he became business editor of the News Leader before segueing into a long tenure as a politics reporter. He covered dozens of sessions of the state General Assembly as well as multiple national presidential nominating conventions. As reporter, he accompanied state trade delegations to Jamaica, Spain, Turkey, South Korea and Japan, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Tyler was a member and past president of the Richmond chapter of the journalism society Sigma Delta Chi and was elected to the Virginia Communications Hall of Fame in 2012. A 2010 resolution of the House of Representatives honored his 50 years of journalistic excellence.

Tyler had a sharp wit and exuded kindness and decency throughout his life. He brought delight to his friends and relations with his penchant for puns. He loved salty treats (and even added salt to melons!) and a glass or two of bourbon in the evening. He enjoyed reading long works of history and was active in the American Revolutionary Roundtable, serving on the organization's book awards committee. A lifetime fan of the Brooklyn, then Los Angeles, Dodgers, he was able to revel in the end of the team's long championship drought last month.

A private memorial service will be held December 3, at Hollywood Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that memorial contributions be made to the Parkinson's Foundation, 1359 Broadway, Suite 1509, New York, N.Y. 10018 or www.parkinson.org, or to Hampden-Sydney College, Hampden Sydney, Virginia 23943, info@hsc.edu.