Whitworth Stokes is a Nashville native and a 1954 graduate of West End High School. He majored in English at Vanderbilt University graduating in 1958 with a BA degree. While working and serving in the US Army Reserves he attended law school at night and graduated from the Nashville School of Law in 1963. He practiced law in Nashville from 1963 to 1968, and served as a part-time Assistant Public Defender in 1965 and 1966. 

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He worked for the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in Memphis (1969) and Washington (1970). From 1971 to 1978 he practiced law in Washington, DC and Maryland, specializing in Employment Discrimination class actions and criminal defense . 

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Mr. Stokes moved to Florida in 1978 to take a position on the faculty of Bethune-Cookman College in Daytona Beach. He received a Masters of Business Administration (MBA) from Nova University in 1984 and a Masters degree in Computer Education in 1987. He was originally hired to teach Business Law, but his combination of degrees allowed him to teach other courses in the Division of Business. He also supervised students in the Division of Business internship program and designed a new computer lab for Business students.

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He has been self employed as a business consultant and author since 1988 and presently lives in Louisville, Kentucky with his wife, Nancy Rankin, and an assortment of animals. He is the author of "All The Way For Doc," the story of the 1954 West High basketball team which won the State Championship. He has also written two other books about his high school "The Transition Years" and "If These Halls Could Talk."