A decade ago former Circuit Judge Charlie Satterwhite, an Owen County native, received a dual lung transplant. In the years since, Owen County has regularly ranked near the top of Kentucky counties in which residents make one-dollar donations during license renewal; and an annual golf event held in the county has raised thousands of dollars for a fund bearing Satterwhite’s name that benefits recipients of donated organs.
His daughter, Sara Satterwhite, will speak to the Rotary Club next month as the daughter of a transplant recipient and is active in a campus organization to raise organ donation awareness.
She said she is grateful for the community’s support of such programs.
“Owen County has absolutely blown me away,” she said. “I think there’s something special about a small community.”
Charlie Satterwhite faced long odds early on in life, but overcame them to become a prominent judge and community figure.
He was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis, a disease that builds up sticky mucus in the lungs. The disease often proves fatal in teenage years, but Satterwhite led an active life, finished law school and went on to become a judge before he died in 1998.
“He was very, very lucky to have lasted that long and been able to get the transplant,” said his widow, Paula Satterwhite Piper.
Piper said doctors gave much of the credit for his prolonged survival to his active lifestyle. He played golf, skied, water-skied “and he was a fantastic swimmer,” she said. “His mother didn’t hold him back from doing these things.”
Satterwhite spent a brief period in the hospital in 1991 but, other than that, showed few signs of the disease until late in life.
“There wasn’t a handful of people anywhere that knew what he had,” Piper said. “He just didn’t tell anybody.”
He fell ill again shortly before going to Florida for a vacation in February 1996.
“He kept saying, ‘If I can just get to the sun I know I’ll feel better,’” Piper said.
Still, Piper said, his condition stayed poor and he was again hospitalized.
“He kept getting sicker and sicker,” she said.
The state Supreme Court granted him a medical leave of absence in October 1996 and he worked from home, signing orders and making decisions on motions he had heard on the bench.
Doctors at a respiratory center in Colorado recommended a dual lung transplant.
“That was the first time anyone hit us with it,” Piper said.
His condition worsening, Satterwhite was admitted to UK Hospital on Jan. 12, 1997. Soon after, he was transferred to Jewish Hospital in Louisville.
He underwent a seven-hour surgery there on Feb. 8, 1997, to receive the dual-lung transplant.
“The one thing that stands out in my mind is his first impressions of waking up and being able to breathe,” Piper said.
After a couple of weeks of rehabilitation at Jewish, Satterwhite returned home, and “everything was wonderful” for the next six months, Piper said.
Satterwhite went to churches and gave testimony.
“His mother raised him with a strong faith and, when he gave testimonies, he would talk about that giving him strength,” Piper said.
Satterwhite mentored people awaiting transplants and served on the board for Kentucky Circuit Clerks’ Trust for Life, an organ-donation advocacy group.
Berkeley Scott, the current executive director of Trust for Life, said Satterwhite headed a panel that picked him for his position in 1997.
“Charlie was an inspiration to a lot of people in a lot of ways,” he said. “He was a hometown boy who did so well and served so well as Circuit Judge.”
“Being on the (Trust for Life) board, it meant a lot to him,” Piper said.
Satterwhite was again hospitalized in the latter part of 1998.
Despite being in the hospital, the family took trips while in Louisville to the Galleria and to Joe’s Crab Shack for Paula and Sara’s birthday in the fall, and they went Christmas shopping on Louisville’s Westport Road just before he passed away.
“There were a lot of fun times and he didn’t let it hold us back from anything,” Piper said.
Late in the year Satterwhite’s condition worsened, and he died on Dec. 15, 1998.
Piper said many of the traits that led him to a distinguished position on the Circuit Court bench also led him to have a distinguished life.
“He was awesome,” she said. “He was one of those people who was truly interested in people. He was a good listener.”
“When he passed away, we knew we wanted to do something in his honor,” Scott said.
The Charlie Satterwhite Fund was started in 1999 to financially help patients needing a transplant.
Scott said the dollars donated during driver’s license renewals, by law, must go toward promoting organ donation awareness.
“What we do is kind of fill in the cracks — things that aren’t covered by Medicare, Medicaid or health insurance,” Scott said of the fund. It covers things such as start-up medication, housing and transportation.
In 2000, the first Charlie Satterwhite Golf Shamble was held. This year will mark the eighth year for the event, held on the first Saturday in April. It will be on April 7 this year.
Owen County Judge-Executive Billy O’Banion said the event raises about $10,000 annually. Half goes to the Satterwhite Fund, with the other half going to benefit Owen County senior citizens.
Scott said Trust for Life also holds a golf scramble each year in a different location throughout the state, in addition to other fund-raisers such as cookbook sales, to benefit the fund.
Since its inception, the Satterwhite Fund has distributed grants totaling $140,000 for 175 transplant recipients, Scott said.
Despite the growing support for such programs, Scott said the number of people in need of a transplant has increased.
At the start of the year, more than 740 people statewide were on the list, a number Scott said was up from more than 300 a decade ago when he first became executive director.
“More and more people can be helped with transplantation now,” he said. “The truth of the matter is if we get every viable transplantable organ, it still wouldn’t be enough.”
Regardless, those who know how deeply such a procedure can positively impact a life are determined to increase awareness for organ donation.
Satterwhite’s daughter, Sara, is a student at Transylvania University and is actively involved in Students for Organ Donation Awareness (SODA).
The campus organization, started three years ago by Transylvania junior Sarah Billiter, raised about $500 this year — more than double last year’s totals — during its “Mr. Transy” pageant.
This year’s event was held on Feb. 8, the tenth anniversary of Satterwhite’s dual-lung transplant.
“It’s a great feeling to know that our hard work has actually paid off,” Sara Satterwhite said. “Especially everything that Trust for Life has been doing and specifically the Satterwhite Fund. We can actually see the impact it’s making on the transplant community.”

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