Though Jay Whorton spent much of his life selling ads for various newspapers, there is a good chance he wouldn’t call himself a salesman.
While sales did happen, what he did was far more personal than just closing a deal, said one of his sons.
“I believe he’d say he was in relationships, not sales,” said Mike Whorton, of Marietta, with a laugh. “He built relationships more than anything.”
The people to whom the elder Whorton sold advertising weren’t customers, they were friends, said son Rick Whorton.
Jay Whorton was the associate publisher of the Marietta Daily Journal, where he’d worked since 1971.It was his philosophy that person-to-person contact was essential when doing business said Otis Brumby III, publisher of the Marietta Daily Journal.
“He didn’t like leaving messages on voicemail,” the publisher said. “He liked to get out and go see somebody. He liked to see them face-to-face and sit down and talk to them.”
Whorton never retired from the Journal, and even worked the day before he ended up going to the hospital in September. And even then, he didn’t stop working.
“He was still conducting business from his hospital bed,” said Rick Whorton, who lives in Marietta. “He loved it, and the people, just that much.”
Whorton of Marietta died Sunday of complications from aplastic anemia. He was 85.
A memorial service is planned for 11 a.m. Friday at First United Methodist Church, Marietta. Mayes Ward-Dobbins Funeral Home was in charge of cremation arrangements.
Joseph Perry Whorton, who was named after his father and grandfather, was born in Dutton, Ala. By the time he was 14, his two brothers and his father were dead. Living with his mother, a young Whorton learned the benefit of community, Rick Whorton said.
“He learned that folks looked after folks, and the people pitched in to get things done,” Whorton said of his father’s childhood. “He took that background and brought it to the big city.”
In the 1950s, Whorton was a minor-league baseball player in Alabama, who taught in a school sponsored by the Daughters of the American Revolution. He married the former Laura Arrington and the couple soon began a family, which would eventually include three sons.
In the summers Whorton coached sports and ran a camp that was owned by newspaperman, B. Carmage Walls, the founder of Southern Newspapers, Inc. It was through Walls that Whorton got into the newspaper business; and in 1955 Whorton took a job with Walls and never looked back, family members said.
In 1971 Whorton moved from Carrolton to Marietta to take a job at the Marietta Daily Journal. Sen. Johnny Isakson, his real estate agent at the time, said he learned a lot from Whorton during that house-hunting experience.
“He always said, ‘You sell the benefits, not the product,’ ” Isakson said in a phone interview from Washington. “That has always served me well, because when you’re trying to get somebody to buy something, if it doesn’t benefit them or solve a problem, what good is it?”
Whorton passed on his years of experience to as many people as he could, especially young people who came through the Journal, Brumby said.
“He would talk to them and tell them what he knew,” the publisher said.
“His door was always open to them,” Mike Whorton said, of his father. “It was still about those 1-on-1 relationships for him, and that’s what he tried to tell others.”
In addition to Whorton’s wife of 61 years and two sons, he is survived by son, Tim Whorton of Athens; and eight grandchildren.
About the Author
