W. Clarke Wescoe was born May 3, 1920 in Allentown, Pennsylvania. A wealthy executive at the cement company where his father worked recognized Wescoe's potential and paid his way through school. He graduated first in his class from Muhlenberg College in 1941 and earned his medical degree from Cornell in 1944. He served as a pharmacology instructor and assistant professor at Cornell until 1951, when he left for a professorship at the University of Kansas Medical School.

Wescoe was Dean of the Medical School from 1952-1960 and Director of the Medical Center from 1953-1960. In 1960 he was elected Chancellor of the University.

Wescoe led the university through some of the most prosperous but tumultuous times for KU. The student enrollment and faculty figures nearly doubled during his tenure, but this was a time of significant unrest. Following the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Wescoe canceled KU's game against Missouri as a sign of respect for the fallen president. In 1965, there was a sit-in in the Chancellor's office to protest racial discrimination by University affiliates. The students were arrested and suspended, though Wescoe reinstated them the next day. In 1969, amid rumors of a major protest against the ROTC Review, Wescoe canceled the event. The decision would prove to be prescient, as a year later, the Kent State tragedy happened under similar circumstances.

Known as KU's "Singing Chancellor," Wescoe was well-known for his penchant for writing original lyrics to popular Broadway tunes and singing them at University convocations. He is remembered through Wescoe Hall on the Lawrence Campus and Wescoe Pavilion at the KU Medical Center.

In 1969, Wescoe left the University of Kansas to join the Sterling Drug Company, a Fortune 200 firm in New York. He kept Kansas in his thoughts and used his power as CEO to convince them that the site for a new production plant should be McPherson, Kansas. He and his wife retired to Spicer, Minnesota in 1985. Upon her death in 1998, Wescoe relocated to Kansas City. He died there on February 29, 2004.