Jim Whymer

Year Inducted: 2014

Sports have been a way of life for Jim Whymer.
From playing football, basketball and baseball growing up in Grand Rapids to writing stories about athletes and teams in Port Huron and the Blue Water Area for the Port Huron Times Herald, Whymer has enjoyed himself.
The 1974 Grand Rapids West Catholic graduate started his newspaper career in 1976 writing up football games at the Grand Rapids Press. He took a job as a sportswriter at the Times Herald in the fall of 1978.

Whymer served as Times Herald sports editor three times in his career, including the final stint from 2003 to 2012. He attended Associated Press boys/girls basketball and football all-state meetings and voted on the AP high school polls for 25 years.

Coverage of the annual Port Huron Mackinac Race, high school state playoffs and the Croswell-Lexington Little League girls softball team winning the World Series title resulted in Associated Press awards.

Whymer was inducted into the Basketball Coaches of Michigan Hall of Honor (media division) in 2002. He also received the AVCA Grant Burger Media Award during the 2006-07 school year for coverage of high school volleyball.

Following more than 34 years of covering sports at the Times Herald, Whymer retired in April 2012. He is the community relations specialist at St. Clair County Community College, working in the marketing and athletic departments. He also is a freelance sportswriter for The Voice Newspaper, covering St. Clair County schools.

Whymer becomes the third former Times Herald sports editor to be inducted into the Hall of Fame. Fred H. Vincent was in the first induction class in 1977 and Edward “Ed” Senyczko was in the class of 1985.

In addition to his writing, Whymer has been a registered official in basketball, baseball and softball for close to 30 years. He played recreation softball and basketball in Port Huron along with coaching youth basketball teams in Grand Rapids and Port Huron.

Whymer and his wife, Patty, have three children, Traci, Kyle and Joel.