Former EWU professor and author Patrick McManus died on April 11 at the age of 84.

“He was the Mark Twain of the Northwest,” said Dr. William Stimson, a journalism professor at EWU and a lifelong friend of McManus.

Renowned for his works, influence and personality, McManus will be remembered by the many people whose lives he touched.

Beginning his career as a humor columnist for Field and Stream magazine, McManus used his childhood as inspiration for his characters and stories. He built his reputation as a respected writer from the start.

Spokesman-Review journalist Rich Landers met McManus while working as an intern for Field and Stream in the 1970s. The two soon developed a long-lasting relationship.

“I went on several hunting and fishing trips with Pat,” Landers said. “He liked to go fishing with people in the business because he liked to talk about writing while he was fishing […] He was the type of person that made you want to be better as a writer.”

To call McManus a humorist would not be an unfitting description to many of those who knew him.

“He was very wise and funny; he was a philosophical comic,” Stimson said. “He never took life too seriously, but he understood life, and still saw the humor.”

Humor columns later turned into the novels that made McManus the recognized author he was. By the end of his career, he had published two dozen books that sold a combined 6 million copies. McManus made The New York Times Best-Selling list for three of his books.

“I just love to write stories.  It’s not about the accolades or money…but I don’t mind it,” McManus said in an interview in 2013. “I see a future in nonfiction stories, with humor folded in.”

Pat Spanjer, also a former student of McManus, was admiring of the way McManus was able to bring his playful demeanor into his work as an author and journalism professor.

“He taught us to tap into our own childhood—what’s funny about the world, what’s interesting about the world— to make ourselves more vulnerable,” Spanjer said.

Spanjer nominated McManus for the EWU Distinguished Faculty Award in 2013. In her letter, she credits his teaching and mentorship for her own successes, as well as many other students of his that went on to pursue journalism and writing careers.

“’Distinguished?’ I don’t know how ‘distinguished’ I am!” said McManus upon receiving the nomination, according to Spanjer.

McManus was a professor at EWU from 1959 to 1983. In 2007, he created the Patrick and Darlene McManus Scholarship in Creative Writing and Journalism.

“He wasn’t just in it for himself, he wanted students to learn creative writing and journalism in perpetuity,” Spanjer said.

McManus will leave a legacy that reaches past EWU. Many still engage with McManus’ undying sense of humor from the works he left behind.

Stimson recalled a specific example of a letter to McManus from a child who, startled by the noises coming from his room, found her terminally-ill father laughing hysterically at one of McManus’ stories.

McManus received numerous letters from people of all ages, some even as young as elementary school age.

“He was proud of the fact that he got letters from 5th graders: ‘Dear Mr. McManus, your book is the first book I ever read,’” Stimson said.

For many of the people impacted by McManus, his death serves as a time to commemorate McManus for the person he was.

“His reputation is going to last,” Stimson said.