Edwin W. Vernon

CHAMPAIGN – Edwin W. "Ed" Vernon, formerly of Champaign and St. Joseph, passed unexpectedly, but peacefully, at home in the arms of his adoring wife Alice on Saturday, Oct. 31, 2015.

He was born Oct. 12, 1927, on a humble sand hill farm outside of South Bend, Ind., to Ina Wills Vernon and Edwin Rae Vernon during the height of the Depression. Later they moved to Bremen, Ind., where Ed attended high school.

World War II was in process when Ed was in high school and toward the last years of the war, the Army quietly started recruiting high school students gifted in math to study engineering at The Ohio State University. He was only at The Ohio State for one year before the war ended.

Ed then was sent to Japan for further training in making maps. He was awarded the World War II Victory Medal and Army of Occupation Medal-Japan.

Gen. Douglas MacArthur was in occupied Japan while Ed was stationed there, and Ed loved showing snapshots of the general walking out of the U.S. barracks located in a former Tokyo department store. Years later, when Ed was in Tokyo for a UI Japan Illini Club event, prominent University of Illinois alumnus Hachiro Koyama took Ed for a tour of the elegant department store thriving once again.

From Japan, he was sent to South Korea, where he oversaw seven surveying crews mapping North Korea. It was a puzzling assignment to him at the time, because the Japanese maps always proved to be accurate.

Sadly, he discovered why the accuracy of those maps needed to be confirmed. Shortly after his tour ended, North Korea invaded South Korea, killing most of his crew. While in Korea, he decided he wanted to devote his life to do something that would make a difference in the world. He decided that would be teaching agriculture.

Back in the States, he worked at the Studebaker plant to help finance an education at Purdue University, where he hoped to enroll. Ed called his high school principal and asked what he needed to do, since the military program had interrupted his high school education.

His principal drove him to Lafayette the next Monday, and the following Tuesday Ed was enrolled in agriculture education. That was a record, even then, due to his character and outstanding performance.

He then earned his bachelor of science degree in agriculture and was awarded the prestigious Distinguished Military Graduate of the Advanced Course, Senior Division, ROTC, in 1952. Before that he was the ROTC Fort Belvoir, Va., rifle champion.

Returning to Bremen, Ind., he taught vocational agriculture for 10 years while he and his wife, Ruth Henry Vernon, started a family. He also began working on his master's degree at Purdue, a double minor in agronomy and animal science. During this time he was honored with the First Class Award for outstanding teaching by the state of Indiana.

He resumed his studies at Purdue and was granted the master of science in education in 1960. Ed then came to Illinois to work on his doctorate in ag education at the University of Illinois.

After that, he was recruited by Hadley Read, head of the UI Cooperative Extension Service's Agriculture Communications, to investigate innovative ways to incorporate technology into effective teaching. At that time, any idea of teaching that was not "face to face" was very futuristic, if not impossible.

He was a pioneer in long-distance education. As electronic tech specialist, Ed studied possibilities and initiated one of two 24-hour dedicated-line university teleconferencing systems in the United States. They named it TeleNet, and it exists to this day, bringing long-distance education to the public. He also charged his staff to create supporting materials and techniques for more effective teleconferencing.

In 1993, the National Agricultural Communications Editors Association awarded him the ACE National Teleconferencing Award. He served as CES director, distance education, for almost three decades.

On his last day of work, Ed addressed his staff with an upbeat, challenging list of goals and inspirations, ending with the following statement: "My hope is that each of you is ready to look for the bigger picture and is willing to do whatever it takes in the hundreds of small ways to shape and form the big picture of distance education."

Ed also held leadership positions universitywide. He was chair of the Professional Advisory Committee in 1990, and numerous search committees, including the search committee for the UI chancellor in 1979.

After retiring from the UI Cooperative Extension Service in 1997, he and his wife, Alice Patterson Wiese Vernon, moved from St. Joseph to the Patterson family cottage at Shangri-La Club where he and Alice were married in 1977.

Wherever he was, Ed was devoted to and served in leadership positions in his church. At the First Methodist Church in Urbana, he was proud to be a layperson. At the University Place Christian Church in Champaign, he served as property chair for the building, chair of the elders and Sunday school teacher for the Gher Class.

In the Champaign-Urbana community, he was recognized for his volunteer service for Family Service in 1997 and in 2000 was presented a certificate of appreciation for six years of service on the Family Service Homecare/Telecare's Advisory Committee.

In Danville, he served on the Danville Symphony Board and with his wife Alice presented several benefit events for the symphony at their lakefront home. He also was an active member of the Champaign-Urbana Symphony Guild.

Ed loved traveling with his family, but his get-away recreation was golfing with his buddies at the Urbana Country Club and later at the Danville Country Club. He proved his skill when he won first place in the 1996 College of Agriculture Golf Tournament.

As a natural mentor, Ed found happiness and pride in the professional and personal accomplishments of all of his surviving children and grandchildren - with a special appreciation of his children's and grandchildren's military careers.

He was proud of serving his wife her wake-up coffee in bed every morning of their 38 years together.

There are five surviving children, five grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. Each has individually declared him as the bedrock of their lives, always supportive, warm and loving. He never needed to be the center of attention; instead he was an active listener, offering quiet words of nonjudgmental wisdom.

He was preceded in death by his parents and his 21-year old son, Stephen Vernon.

He is survived by his sisters, Bonnie McCready of Indianapolis and Dorothy Whitehead of Turah Mountain, Mont.; son, Michael of West Palm Springs, Calif.; daughters, Kathryn Hunt of Oklahoma and Patricia Horn of Florida, and their mother, Ruth Etherton; stepson, Anderson "Andy" Wiese II; stepdaughter, Rachel Wiese; granddaughters, Suzanne Chapman of Texas and Sharon Calamia of Alexandria, Va.; grandsons, Mathew Boller and Stephen Boller; and stepgrandson, Adrian Bettridge-Wiese.

The memorial service is scheduled for 11 a.m. Saturday, Dec. 5, at the University Place Christian Church at 403 S. Wright St., Champaign. A coffee reception hour will be held immediately following the sanctuary service in the adjacent church lounge.

In lieu of other expressions of sympathy, a gift to the Edwin W. Vernon Scholarship Fund at the University of Illinois College of Education would help a dedicated future teacher/educator.

Sunset Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.