Stanley Clinton Rowe

On February 21, 2025 the world lost a kind and gentle soul with the passing of Stan Rowe. Stan died at Samaritan Pacific Communities Hospital in Newport, Oregon after a brief illness.

Stanley Clinton Rowe was born on September 17, 1945 in Fremont, Nebraska to Gail and Alberta (Weihe) Rowe. The timing of Stan’s birth could not have been more auspicious: as the country was celebrating the end of World War II only a few weeks earlier, Stan would spend much of his adult life volunteering within the political system for the cause of peace, both at home and abroad. Eventually it would also become a deeply personal journey.

After several moves, the family would ultimately settle in the small, peaceful Midwestern town of Newton, Iowa. This was still very much the Fifties: a one-company town (Maytag, which actually made things) surrounded by small, modest family farms, many of which had been in the same family’s hands for generations. Of course, change was on the horizon, silent and inevitable, and soon nothing would ever be the same for Newton, Maytag, small family farms or the Class of ’63. But all that was still a few years ahead.

Stan did well in school academically. Upon high school graduation he was awarded a coveted Matag Scholarship to attend college. But Stan’s most vivid high school memories did not take place in the classroom but rather on the hard wood floors of the gymnasium. Stan was the manager of the basketball team, a perfect fit for this mild-mannered bespectacled senior. And it was in his senior season the Newton Cardinals went undefeated on its way to winning the state high school basketball championship. Six decades later a nearly 80-year-old heart would still beat strong and true at the very mention of that Championship Season.

After high school graduation Stan traveled across the state to enroll at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, majoring in business administration. As the war in Viet Nam began heating up on the other side of the world, so did the anti-war movement on college campuses across the country. Then came that horrible year of 1968, with the assassinations of Dr. King and Bobby Kennedy. Stan found himself being drawn towards the peace movement.

1968 was also the year that Stan graduated from Iowa with a bachelor of arts degree in business administration. Except by this time Stan wasn’t very interested in becoming a businessman. So, for the next two years Stan joined that other war: LBJ’s War on Poverty, working as a manager of a community action program in central Iowa.

Three years later Stan returned to Iowa City to pursue a master’s degree in journalism. And now Stan began to find his voice. Stan wrote the usual mundane stories for the Daily Iowan newspaper (city parking, etc.) and eventually became an editor on the editorial page, addressing more timely issues, such as the war in Viet Nam and poverty.

In 1974 Stan headed west, eventually putting down roots – literally – in Monterey, California. For the next 25 years Stan worked for a landscaping company. He loved the spectacular scenery and the moderate climate. In his spare time, he pursued his other life-long passion, working behind the scenes for various progressive candidates for state and national offices. He also joined a flyfishing club, a writer’s club, volunteered at local film festivals (and in the process found himself acquainted on a first-name basis with various Hollywood starlets from the Forties and Fifties). He also worked on and off on a never-to-be-finished novel about Alaska.

In 2006 Stan retired and moved north to the Oregon coast town of Newport. In a town historically friendly to artists and other individual-minded eccentrics, Stan fit in seamlessly. He now added music to his portfolio of passions, becoming a fixture at Open Microphone Night at one of the local establishments. Stan would sit in with other musicians, playing from an odd assortment of instruments with an impressive degree of… enthusiasm.

Stan was predeceased by his father Gail, his mother Alberta, and his younger brother David Rowe. He is survived by his sister Elaine (Rowe) Karnes, his brother-in-law Robin, and many friends, including Tim of Newton, Evans from the music store, Maggie from the library, saintly neighbor Diane, and many, many others. Upon hearing of Stan’s death, one friend shook her head and said: “That guy is going to be missed by a lot of people.”

A better epitaph could not be written.