In Memory of Edwin Hampton Perry - March 9, 2025

Obituary

Edwin Hampton Perry, 94, died peacefully at The Enclave of East Louisville, on March 9, 2025. 

Ed was born and raised in Louisville, having graduated from Male High School, the University of Louisville, and what is now UofL’s Brandeis School of Law, working his way through UofL in the claims department of Yellow Cab (and no, he never drove a cab). After receiving his Master’s in Tax Law from New York University, he returned to Louisville and joined the firm where he would practice law nearly all of his career. 

Ed was a lawyer with Greenebaum, Doll and McDonald (now Denton’s Bingham Greenebaum), where he practiced tax and employee benefits, corporate, and mergers and acquisitions law. He joined the firm in 1964 working with founding partner Samuel Greenebaum and A. Robert Doll to grow the firm from a then six partner law firm to one of the largest and most prominent tax and corporate law firms in Kentucky. 

Ed was tasked in the mid 1970’s with chairing and building the firm’s corporate and mergers and acquisitions practice. In that role, he recruited and mentored many of the firm’s top corporate lawyers, who teamed with Ed and admired his deal-making skills, along with his acumen on the golf course. Under Ed’s leadership, Ed and his protégés crisscrossed the country doing high level legal transactions, building the firm’s M&A practice to national prominence, and attracting and representing many US and international clients. 

Ed loved the law and demanded excellence of himself and from the lawyers around him. His admonition to those representing the firm’s clients in M&A transactions was straightforward: “Negotiate well, and do the deal. That’s what clients want and expect of their lawyers.” Ed was regarded by clients and lawyers alike as an illustrious member of the legal profession and a superb negotiator. His name has appeared in the ‘Big Deals’ column of the American Lawyer magazine and he was selected to Best Lawyers in America for over 25 years. 

Community service was an integral part of Ed’s professional and retirement life. After the 1974 tornado, he with two friends created Trees, Inc., which planted thousands of trees in Louisville to help restore the tree canopy after the devastation of the tornado. In the 1980s, he was the first president of Scenic Kentucky, Inc., raising awareness of the inundation of billboards across Kentucky, and sat on its board for many years. He was one of the founders of the Olmsted Parks Conservancy, developing a public/private partnership to restore and rejuvenate Frederick Law Olmsted’s historic park designs across the city. He served as its second President and board member for many years. He was a long-time Trustee of River Fields, Inc., and an active promoter of its mission. 

Ed would count among his personal high marks a motorcycle trip to LA on Route 66. He and his wife K. traveled extensively over their nearly fifty-year marriage. There were annual trips to the farm in France, many trips to Europe (including cooking school in Italy), Russia, China, Turkey, Egypt (in time for a revolution), Peru and Thailand. 

Ed was fortunate enough to travel on many golf outings to Ireland and Scotland. In Louisville, he spent time on the golf course at Harmony Landing and Valhalla, having won the Harmony Landing Club Championship three times (and birdied #16 at Cypress Point). 

After his retirement in 2000, Ed began volunteering with an Urban League program at Shawnee Golf Course that introduced golf to youth in underserved communities. He worked diligently to raise the funds to merge that program with The First Tee, a national organization that taught golf as a way of introducing Life Skills and Core Values through the game. In 2005, Louisville became the 200th First Tee chapter. Ed remained as President for 13 years. Today, First Tee continues to make an impact on underserved youth. 

He was preceded in death by his father Edwin Perry, his mother Katherine Hampton Perry Harrison, his brother John Gray Perry, and his grandson, Samuel R. Pardue. 

He is survived by his wife, Kathryn Shaver; daughters Anita Brooke Perry Pardue (Tom), Elizabeth Perry Spalding (Jon); brother James Harrison; grandchildren Elizabeth Harris (Cameron), Matthew Pardue (Helena), and Skye Spalding; and two great-grandchildren, Wyatt and Elaine Harris. 

Funeral Service was held on Monday, March 24,2025 at Pearson’s 149 Breckenridge Lane. 

It was Ed’s request that expressions of sympathy or memorial gifts be made to The First Tee of Louisville or to St. Mark’s Episcopal Church.