In Memoriam: Willis P. Whichard - North Caroliniana Society

Portraits, Inc.: Michele Rushworth, Artist

Justice Willis P. Whichard

May 24, 1940 –
November 18, 2025

North Caroliniana Society President
1994 – 2014

When Willis Whichard was honored by the Society with the North Caroliniana Society Award in 2016, Whichard said, upon accepting the award “There are people here tonight who have inspired, influenced, and assisted me. There are others who are not here, and many more who, in Shakespeare’s phrase, have now parted ‘this mortal coil.’ … My wish and prayer would be that I, and all of us, would have those roles with the generation now coming along and its successors.”

Eulogy by Martin Brinkley

January 23, 2026

A TRIBUTE: NO DARKNESS HERE

by James W. Clark, Jr.
~from SO FAR North Caroliniana Society at Fifty: An Overview

Not long after Bill Whichard handed me the gavel of the North Caroliniana Society in 2014, he, Martin Brinkley, and I were having lunch near the Raleigh- Durham Airport. Our conversation turned to my health, I having recently received a stent after a heart episode. Bill said, all smiles, something to this effect: “Jim, for two decades I presided over the Society. It tried to kill you in just over a month.” We laughed and went on with our lunch and discussing the road ahead. Looking back on the decade Bill and I were closely associated since then, I want to place five stars by the Honorable Judge’s storied name.

Order always prevailed in his Society venue; all minutes were examined and corrected as necessary.

He deeply revered William C. Friday and Houston G. Jones and championed his reverence of them to the lasting benefit of the Society and the State of North Carolina.

Bill was as well and as resourcefully connected as any person I have ever known; yet he met others as one of them and not as a polymath, a trait that drew especially teachers to him as the Society is committed to support their professional development.

In our personal conversations he advised me pointedly and just as specifically sought from me the names of North Carolina authors we might read and discuss together as lifelong learners; we spoke of Thomas Wolfe, Fred Chappell, Wilma Dykeman, Paul Green, Bernice Kelly Harris, and Doris Betts.

My fifth star is for Bill Whichard’s splendid carriage, his honesty of manner, spirit, and character.

Justice Willis P. Whichard

May 24, 1940 – November 18, 2025

Eulogy by Martin Brinkley

A TRIBUTE: NO DARKNESS HERE

The North Caroliniana society, Inc.

May 24, 1940 –
November 18, 2025