Stanton "Stan" Patty

Stanton (Stan) H. Patty was born in Fairbanks in July 1926 and is the middle son of Ernest and Kathryn Patty. His father was the first professor of geology at the Alaska Agricultural College and School of Mines in Fairbanks (later named the University of Alaska), managed the mining interests of General A.D. McRae at Coal Creek and Woodchopper Creek in what is now Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve, and in 1954, became the third president of the University of Alaska. As a young boy, Stan accompanied his parents and brothers to the mines each summer. Eventually, as a teenager, he was a member of a drilling crew and his duties included driving a small bulldozer, an experience he truly enjoyed. He left Alaska just prior to the outbreak of World War II, moving to Seattle, where he attended high school and then served in the U.S. Army toward the end of the war. Rather than following his father into the mining world, Stan persued his own interests in journalism. He spent 34 years working for the Seattle Times newspaper, eventually retiring in 1988 as their assistant travel editor. He moved to Vancouver, Washington with his wife, Mabs, who he married in 1946. He kept busy in retirement as a free-lance writer and photographer, and his work frequently brought him back to his roots in Alaska. He was an avid collector of Alaska photos, clippings, books and artifacts, later archived at Elmer E. Rasmuson Library at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, and was awarded an honorary doctorate in 2005. In 2004, he published, Fearless Men and Fabulous Women: A Reporter’s Memoir from Alaska & the Yukon. Stanton Patty died in 2015 at the age of 89.