Shaker Heights --Considering how Ned Whelan exposed leaders and mobsters, you might have worried that the acclaimed journalist and publicist would die at angry hands.
Instead, Whelan fell down the stairs in the dark at his daughter's home in Phoenix on March 16 and suffered irreversible brain damage. After life support was removed, the 70-year-old died Wednesday, March 20, at a nearby hospital.
"Ned was relentless. He'd work 24 hours a day to beat you," said Mike Robert's, Whelan's boss at The Plain Dealer and Cleveland Magazine. "People loved him. He got all kinds of stuff from them he shouldn't have."
Dan Coughlin, veteran local journalist, said, "He had a wry sense of humor. He had a chuckle. He knew everything that was going on. He knew things that were going to happen."
Whelan loved to call out, "Let's do this!" He'd also say "Take the high road" but never the expressway. Instead, he'd insist, "Make one more call."
He won state and national honors for revealing abuse of patients at Lima State Hospital. He also revealed leaders' foibles.
In 1974, he wrote about Mayor Ralph Perk, "He's looking better than ever, his white boots gleaming, his once singed hair now coiffured and his ego swelling with the helium of senatorial dreams."
Yet friends and family said Whelan loved breaking bread with the upper crust. The child of a blue-collar, Irish-American family was proud of his admission to the Union Club.
Still, he wouldn't drink there or anywhere else. He belonged to Alcoholics Anonymous and never kept his membership anonymous.
Edward P. Whelan was raised in Lakewood with three siblings and graduated from St. Edward High School. He earned a bachelor's degree at Ohio University. He started part-time in The Plain Dealer's sports department in 1965 and went full-time in the city room two years later
He covered City Hall and more. He was part of a investigative team that prompted 31 indictments of workers from Lima State Hospital. The Associated Press of Ohio created a "Sweepstakes" prize to honor the series as the best work of the year in any category. The story also won honorable mention for the Heywood Broun Memorial Award from The Newspaper Guild and a letter from President Nixon: "Such investigative reporting is an excellent example of journalism at its best."
In 1972, the reporter covered Mayor Perk's tour of Europe. That same year, Cleveland Magazine was born. In 1973, Mike Roberts, former PD city editor, brought Whelan to the magazine. In 1978, Whelan became managing editor.
His stories included vivid yearly reports on the mob, exposing not just brutality but ineptitude. In 1978, he wrote, "The Cleveland mob has become another Cleveland joke."
Roberts says mobster Danny Greene used to send Whelan critiques in green ink.
Like many energetic writers, Whelan had several sidelines. He corresponded for Us magazine. He hosted "Dimensions," a public affairs program, for WVIZ-TV in 1968 and 1987. From 1985 to 1987, he was editorial director of WJKW-TV, writing editorials, interviewing sources on camera and hosting a "News Makers" program. He often appeared on Dick Feagler's "Feagler and Friends"on WVIZ.
In 1987, he started Whelan Communications, a public relations firm downtown. Clients included the Jones Day and Kelley and Ferraro law firms, the Steamship William G. Mather and leading transportation projects, such as the Innerbelt, Euclid Corridor and Opportunity Corridor.
He wrote news releases, advertising copy and books. He wrote "Cleveland: Shaping the Vision," for the Greater Cleveland Growth Association. He wrote "The McGregor Story" for the McGregor Foundation, affiliated with the like-named nursing home in East Cleveland.
Whelan turned conservative in later years, supporting Republicans, denouncing unions. But he was glad to represent Laborers Local 860 and tout Cleveland to the Democratic Party as a national convention site for 1992.
He grew conservative in manners, too. He hated to see jeans or gum at the office, He sent thank-you notes long after the means of delivery became known as snail mail. He used voice-mail, too, but taped a genteel greeting that said, "Your call is very important to me."
Whelan insisted on good grammar and accuracy. He made every colleague, even an intern, proofread each piece before it went to the printer.
He was a trustee of many nonprofit groups, including the Cleveland Bar Association, Cleveland Food Bank, St. Edward High, Cleveland Zoological Society, Center for Families and Children and the local French American Chamber of Commerce'.
He lived in Cleveland Heights, South Russell and finally Shaker Heights. He had a lakefront vacation home on Kelley's Island. He visited St. Martin every December. He loved to travel, run and hike.
His firm swelled to about 20 people at its peak, including co-owner Rory O'Connor. It shrank in recent years as Whelan semi-retired. He never tried to groom a successor. "He was the business," said a niece, Bridget De Chagas, who used to work there. "The clients trusted Ned."
Edward P. Whelan
1943-2013
Survivors: fiancee, Hedda Dempsey; children, Colleen Lopez of Phoenix and Matthew Whelan of Walnut Creek, Calif.; four grandchildren; two brothers and a sister.
Funeral: to be announced.
Arrangements: McGorray-Hanna.