Dr. Cheryl Mann Bacon Celebrates the Life and Legacy of Dr. Charlie Marler

My journalism professor, mentor, and guiding light, Dr. Charlie Marler, died May 27, 2022, and I am creating a series of blog posts about the impact he had on my and his other former students’ journalism and media careers. I am bringing his colleagues and others into the conversation as well.  In this post, I share the text of Dr. Cheryl Mann Bacon's remarks from the Celebration of Life service, held June 1, 2022, at the University Church of Christ, Abilene, TX.

Third Post: Dr. Cheryl Mann Bacon's Remarks at Dr. Charlie Marler's Celebration of Life Service, June 1, 2022

Dr. Cheryl Mann Bacon

Cover of the program for the Celebration of Life service, held June 1, 2022, in Abilene, TX.

Download the .PDF from the memorial service

​By Dr. Cheryl Mann Bacon
A few nights ago I was scrolling through Facebook posts by and about Dr. Marler and came across the post he wrote when I retired.  He began by recalling when we met – in the fall of 1978 – and continued to relate the details of our four-decade friendship. 

Dr. Charlie Marler was Regina Burns' former Communication Law professor and mentor.

Charlie was my teacher. He chaired my master’s thesis.  He hired me to be his graduate assistant and to the JMC faculty. He was a part of the faculty I led when I succeeded him as chair. He was my elder, mentor, editor and friend.​

He concluded his post with four things he thought were important:
​• the love of civil discourse
• a passion for the First Amendment
• writing well and teaching others to write well
• and being a good mom.  

In the dozens of tributes from former students this past week, variations of those same themes emerged over and over.

Paul Anthony, a former Optimist editor who’s now a doctoral student himself, recalled a conversation in Doc’s office when he was working through his views on some difficult topics. 

He said Doc “never felt the need to make clear his own position. He knew that what I needed was an ear, not an opinion. The result was that I came away from those talks a more tolerant, more compassionate, more open-minded person.”

That was typical.  Charlie had no patience for shallow thinking, but he loved a challenging conversation with students or colleagues who might disagree with him – so long as they were thoughtful, had their facts right, and could be civil about it. 

Many students described that civility as kindness. The student who was struggling to pass received exactly the same kindness as the one he was encouraging to go to grad school, which he did frequently.

He often paraphrased Deuteronomy and said we must teach our students in the classrooms, the halls, the labs, our offices, the sidewalks, the parking lots and our homes.  His civility and kindness were like that, too.  Everywhere and at all times. 

Then there was his passion for the First Amendment.

I remember him vividly describing his visit to James Madison’s grave on the grounds of Montpelier, in Virginia.  When I had the chance to visit there a few years later and stood in that small family cemetery, I could just imagine the conversation that must have transpired in Charlie’s mind as he stood by the grave of his hero.

​Charlie understood that nothing else about our Constitutional form of government works if we fail to honor and protect those freedoms – of religion, speech, the press, and the right of the people to assemble and petition for redress of grievances.

Fact: Dr. Marler was inducted into the Texas Intercollegiate Press Association's Hall of Fame in 2003

He believed passionately that all truth is God’s truth – and if the truth is hidden or suppressed, then we cannot make informed decisions –about government, or religion, or life.  And he was all about making informed decisions.

​That passion inspired his philosophy of student journalism, which demanded absolute excellence of his students --- and occasionally drove university presidents absolutely crazy. 

​But he believed that if we want students to go out into the world prepared to speak truth to power,  well then they have to practice it -- here, now and unfettered. 

​His Optimist staffs consistently rose to the occasion because they knew he would go to the mat for them – and because disappointing him was unthinkable. 

At the heart of not disappointing Charlie was writing well. Professional journalists all over the country hear Doc’s voice in their ears when they recall that
• a lot is two words
• that and which are not interchangeable
• redundancy wastes the reader’s time
• concision doesn’t mean short – it means the shortest path to understanding
• Always cite your sources
• And my personal favorite – avoid dead construction. 

​Now, my friend Cole Bennett tells me that ‘dead construction’ is not a grammarian’s term.  They call passive constructions like ‘it is’ and ‘there are’ etc., ‘expletives’.  But Charlie called them dead.  I know this, because when he returned my 40-page graduate Comm Law paper I got a 98.  Not a 100, because somewhere on about page 23 I had used “It is” one time, and there in bright red capital letters, underlined twice, were the words:  AVOID DEAD CONSTRUCTION.

​The analogy merits chasing just a bit.  He called it dead because excellent writing should never have a vague subject and a passive verb.  Excellent writing, and an excellent Christian life should be focused, vibrant and alive. 

​Finally, Charlie wrote to me in that post about being a good mom.  Anyone who was around Charlie for even a little while knew that he adored Peggy, and he loved being a dad, and a grandfather.  He could not talk about family without his trademark twinkle.  Great journalism was important.  Family was more important.

​Lance Fleming, in his tribute last week wrote that when he sought Doc’s advice about a job change, “He agreed that my time on the road was better spent being at home with Jill, Ashley, and Ryan.”

For two years, Doc and Peggy had prayed every day for Rex, Lance and Jill’s oldest son, and for two years Doc ended every email or text to Lance with the words, “God, please kill Rex’s cancer.”

​On the morning after Rex died, Lance had this message from Doc. 

“Wow, God is good.  Rex is healed forever; you guys now have an even more special connection to heaven,” he wrote.  “You know hope is real. You will be finding new ways to touch Rex every day.”

So to Peggy, David, Todd, Scott and all the Marlers – and to all of us, I close with a very careful edit of Charlie’s own words:

​“Wow, God is good.  Charlie is healed forever.  We now have an even more special connection to heaven.   We know hope is real, and we will find new ways to hear Doc’s words in our ears every day.”

Learn More:
Journeying Through Grief: The Death of My Mentor, Dr. Charlie Marler
Mourning the Death of Dr. Charlie Marler, My ACU Professor and Mentor