Bob Whearley, a Denver Post reporter who covered some of the city’s biggest stories, died at a Pueblo hospital Thursday at age 78.
Whearley reported on the kidnapping in 1960 of Adolph Coors III, 44, whose body was later discovered near Castle Rock, as well as the scandal involving a police-led burglary ring in the 1950s.
Whearley was one of The Post reporters on a long-term investigation of right-wing paramilitary groups, including the Minutemen, who had hidden themselves in the Colorado mountains with caches of weapons.
Duane Howell, a retired Post photographer who went on some Minutemen trips with Whearley, called him “a real tenacious investigative reporter.”
“He never gave up,” Howell said. “He was really tough.”
Whearley, not sure he could trust the tipster on one Minuteman trip, carried a snub-nosed revolver, Howell said.
Whearley also covered illegal immigration, border patrol, mining laws, public-land use and a cheating scandal at the Air Force Academy.
In later years, he was a columnist at The Post. In his farewell column, he wrote, “Newsmen like to think they’re cynical (but are) always suckers for a hard-luck story because they always believe in people.”
“In the course of a day,” he wrote, “(a newsman) may get shot at, shouted at, cussed at, fussed at, hung up on or get a brick bounced off his noggin.”
His really real enemy, Whearley said, “is the clock, as deadline rolls around each day.”
Robert Whearley was born Sept. 8, 1928, in Indianapolis. His mother, Gertrude Anderson, died when he was an infant. He was adopted by his uncle and aunt, Jay F. and Mary Whearley. He took their last name.
He dropped out of high school, lied about his age and joined the Army at age 17.
Whearley later earned an English degree and a master’s degree in Spanish literature at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
He followed his two bothers, William Anderson and Frank Anderson, into the newspaper business, but it took persistence to get a job.
He was offered a position at the Daily Worker, the Communist party newspaper. His father threatened “everything, including breaking his head and disowning him for eternity,” said Bob Whearley’s son, Jay Whearley of Worcester, Mass.
So Whearley dropped the Daily Worker idea and came to Colorado, working at a radio station in Pueblo and then the Pueblo Chieftain.
He married Frances Philhour in 1947.
In addition to three separate stints at The Post, he had jobs at the Los Angeles Times, Des Moines Register, Houston Chronicle and Rocky Mountain News.
“I think he had the idea there was a perfect newspaper somewhere,” said Jay Whearley, also a reporter at The Post.
Until nearly the end of his life, Bob Whearley read papers with a careful eye, writing endlessly to the editors about grammatical errors, poor writing and bad reporting.
In addition to his wife and son, Bob Whearley is survived by two granddaughters and his sister, Arianne Whearley of Brooklyn.
Staff writer Virginia Culver can be reached at 303-954-1223 or vculver@denverpost.com.
