April 11, 1950 (Seattle) – August 6, 2025 (Birch Bay)
I should hear him fly with the high fields
And wake to the farm forever fled from the childless land.
Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means,
Time held me green and dying
Though I sang in my chains like the sea.
– Dylan Thomas, from last stanza of “Fern Hill”
Stan was the second of four children born to Doris Shoemaker Long and Stanley Samuel Long, Jr. Growing up on his grandfather’s farm south of Seattle, Stan learned to hunt, fish, camp, and garden with instinctual adeptness. He spent his fifth birthday party tending to his pea patch. In seventh grade, he began playing guitar, later forming the bands Third Edition and Stone Toothbrush at Kent-Meridian High School.
After a year at Green River Community College, Stan moved to Ellensburg to attend Central Washington University. He graduated from CWU with a BA in Philosophy in 1972 and MA in English in 1976. Notable supports for his studies include selling his treasured Goldtop Les Paul to pay tuition and meeting his future wife Diane in 1971. Stan and Diane married on August 10, 1974.
Following graduate school, Stan earned a Washington State Teaching Certificate and then taught English at Tonasket High School (1978-1992) and Ellensburg High School (1992-2007). He hadn’t intended on being a high school teacher, but he cultivated his calling through creating classrooms in which students experienced a sense of belonging and expanded creative potential. Stan loved his work.
Stan’s wide-ranging interests were reflected in his versatility within the language arts: composition, creative writing, literature, poetry, and mythology. His classroom presence included his guitar, spontaneous one-liners, and his vast knowledge of literature infused with dry hilarity. His gems of literary analysis were incisive and unexpected. May we who love Stan forever remember Freedom Rock Friday!
Stan was a hardy outdoorsman and a reassuringly calm and humorous presence at home. The place he loved living most was Tonasket, where he became a teacher, a father, and communed with the hills and lakes of Okanogan County. He was ever-patient and adoring to his two children, at every stage of life. Days before death, his last interaction was turning his head to smile at his granddaughter.
Stan is survived by Diane, his wife of 50 years; his son Corey and wife Susan; his daughter Rachel and his granddaughter Diana; and his German Shorthaired Pointer Elise.
As Stan told Diane close to his departure, “I’m going down another road now. And I’ll really miss you.”
A Celebration of Life will be on October 4 from 2 p.m.- 4 p.m. at the Squalicum Boathouse in Bellingham, Washington. We will gather for Stan’s favorite snacks, music, and good company of those who carry the spirit of Stan with them.
