UK's first Marshall Scholar, Charles Whaley, was in the inaugural class of Marshall Scholars. He was one of 12 Americans selected for the award in 1954.
Whaley graduated from UK in 1949 with an undergraduate degree in journalism. He was a Phi Beta Kappa, editor of The Kentuckian yearbook and received the Sullivan Medallion as outstanding senior man.
With his Marshall Scholarship, he chose to attend the University of Manchester and earned a master of arts degree in English literature. He found out about the Marshall Scholarship through a press release while working at the Courier-Journal in Louisville. Prior to his time as a Marshall Scholar, Whaley earned a master of science degree from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism and served two years in the Army in the Korean War.