Coleman Alexander Harwell was born in 1905 in Nashville, Tennessee and graduated from the University of the South at Sewanee, TN in 1926. He began his career as a journalist when he joined the Nashville Tennessean as a reporter in 1927. He served as editor of The Tennessean from 1948 until 1959, and later published newspapers in Cookeville and Sparta, Tennessee. While at The Tennessean he hired and helped advance the careers of some of the most respected journalists in America including David Halberstam, Tom Wicker, and John Seigenthaler. Coleman A. Harwell died on February 26, 1987 at the age of 81. As part of his will, Harwell established the Mary McClure Hotchkiss Scholarship at Vanderbilt University in memory of his aunt.