Retired Linfield professor and Linfield Review advisor passes away

Yamhill County resident and retired Linfield professor of journalism Charlotte Colleen Filer, 83, died March 24, 2015, at the Vineyard Heights assisted living facility in McMinnville. She had been diagnosed with liver cancer.

Filer was born on March 7, 1932, in McMinnville. Her parents were Lena Marie Filer and Emmett Sylanus Filer, and she had a sister, Audrey Lippens, and a brother, Martin Emmett Filer, all of whom are deceased. She grew up in Dayton and graduated from Dayton High School.

She graduated cum laude from Linfield in 1954, and worked as a journalist for the McMinnville News-Register and an administrator for the college.

Filer attended the University of Iowa in 1960 to obtain a Master of Arts degree, and later worked as a journalism professor and press officer for the news bureau for Linfield until 1974. She was also the advisor for the Linfield Review, the Oak Leaves student yearbook, and edited the Linfield Bulletin, the alumni publication.

After working for Linfield, Filer worked as the public information director for Pacific University in Forest Grove. She retired in 1989.

Former students of Filer established a communications/media endowment scholarship in 1986 in her honor. Linfield continues to award the Charlotte Filer Journalism Scholarship to deserving students from Yamhill County.

Contributions can be made to this scholarship through Linfield’s Office of Institutional Advancement or to the Charlotte Filer Endowed Scholarship Fund at Pacific University.

A memorial service will be held at 11 a.m. April 17 at the Dayton Pioneer Evangelical Church. A private burial was held for family and friends at the Dayton Odd Fellows cemetery.