Wiley S. Mitchell

Wiley S. Mitchell, 97, passed away Tuesday, January 15, 2019, at Brandon Woods where he has resided for the past six years. Private inurnment services will be held at a later date in Pioneer Cemetery.

He was born on April 19, 1921 in Valley Falls, Kansas, the son of James W. and Marie K. (Schuler) Mitchell. He attended school in Valley Falls and graduated from Valley Falls High School in 1939. He received a Bachelor of Business degree from the University of Kansas in 1943. While serving in the US Air Force from 1943 – 1946 in Dayton, Ohio, he met and married Gwendolyn A. White, his wife of seventy years prior to her death in 2016.

He returned to graduate school at the University of Kansas, and began part-time teaching. He received his MBA degree in 1947 and started full-time teaching that fall at the University. During the years while teaching, he also participated in summer programs at Harvard School of Business and at Carnegie institute of Technology. He was a visiting professor for a year at Northwestern University, and also at Instituti pour I’Etude des Methodes do Direction de I’Enterprise (IMEDE) in Lausanne, Switzerland. Wiley spent another two years as a visiting professor at North European Management Institute (NESMI) in Holmenkollen near Oslo, Norway. On the KU campus as a professor, he many times was also an administrator, over twelve years as Associate Dean, two occasions in transition between deans as Acting Dean and ten years as Director of the Master’s Program.

He was a member of Alpha Kappa Psi Professional Fraternity, Beta Gamma Sigma Honorary Business Fraternity, American Accounting Association, American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, Kansas Society of Certified Public Accountants, Kiwanis Club, Plymouth Congregational Church and Endacott Society (Retirees Club) of KU Alumni Association. His Volunteer activities included: On the board of Lawrence Memorial Hospital, Lawrence Community Theatre, Friends of the Lawrence Public Library and delivery of Meals on Wheels.

Survivors include; two daughters – Nancy Moore, Lawrence, Kansas and Kathy Mitchell, Middlesboro, Kentucky; two grandchildren; five great grandchildren; and two great-great grandchildren.

The family suggests memorials to the Endacott Society of the KU Alumni Association or Plymouth Congregational Church and may be sent in care of Warren-McElwain Mortuary.