Co-founder of journal liked travel, photography

9/1/2006

EDGERTON, Ohio Robert A. Rob Whetro, 42, co-founder and editor of the Northwest Ohio Scholastic Journal here, died of heart failure Tuesday in the Community Hospitals and Wellness Centers, Bryan.

Mr. Whetro and his father, Hal E. Whetro, co-founded the Northwest Ohio Scholastic Journal in 2003. Since then the younger Mr. Whetro had been its editor, covering youth activities in area schools. His father, Hal E. Whetro, died in 2005.

Before that, Robert Whetro was sports editor for several years for The Bryan Times, where he began as a sports writer in 1995. He previously was a sports writer for the Edgerton Earth in the early 1990s.

Mr. Whetro also taught disabilities classes in elementary and junior high schools in the Bryan, Montpelier, and Edgerton school systems in the late 1980s through the early 1990s, at which time he also coached junior high softball in Edgerton.

Everything he did as far as teaching, photography, coaching baseball, and working for newspapers all that was preparation to fulfill his dream of starting his journal, his brother, Kerry Whetro, said.

A native of Bryan, Mr. Whetro graduated from Edgerton High School in 1982 and later got a bachelor s degree in education with specialization in learning disabilities from the Defiance College in 1988.

In his free time, Mr. Whetro enjoyed photography, traveling, and attending the Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pa.

Mr. Whetro was a member of the Church of Christ in Edgerton, where he was a past youth group director and taught Sunday school and Bible school.

Surviving are his mother, Carolyn Whetro; brother, Kerry, and sister, Cheryl Hahn.

Funeral services will be at 1:30 p.m. today in the Edgerton Church of Christ. Arrangements are by the Krill Funeral Home, Edgerton.

The family suggests tributes to the Edgerton Church of Christ.