Richard Newton Shaw departed this life on June 19, 2024, at his home in Brevard, N.C., following a brief illness. He was 77. His wife Patti and dog Ozzy were at his side, along with a veritable horde of redheaded relations there in spirit.
NB: Yes, his middle name was Newton. No relation to Sir Isaac or the cookie.
The son of the late Miles and Betty Shaw, Rick was a native North Carolinian who developed his great love of nature through summers at the Episcopal Church’s camp at Vade Mecum (now part of Hanging Rock State Park). There he enjoyed the usual wholesome summer camp fare – trailblazing, horseback riding, swimming – and met his high school sweetheart, Louise Jeffress. Vade Mecum also introduced Rick to lifelong close friends John and Jane Maddocks and in general molded him into the musician, outdoorsman and balladeer we all came to know and love.
Vade Mecum was, in short, a Thing.
After his first two decades in the Tarheel State, the Shaw family moved lock, stock and two smoking barrels to western Pennsylvania, where he finished his history degree at Youngstown State. Because everyone digs a Happily Ever After, you should know he also married Louise in 1969, albeit back in North Carolina, and embarked on a career teaching high school. Because that’s what people with undergraduate degrees in history and English did back then.
The teaching career lasted about as long as his first beer after a round of golf.
After moving back to North Carolina, Rick made a brief foray into law school, decided Torts was Latin for “rubbish”, and switched to the University of North Carolina’s School of Library Science. MLS in hand, he commenced his true career as a school librarian, eventually winding up as The Technical College of the Low Country’s Dean of Libraries in the teeming metropolis of Beaufort, S.C. (pop. 13,848), from which he retired.
Following Louise’s death in 2014, Rick moved to Greenville, S.C., where fate granted him Happily Ever After #2: he found, fell in love with, and married his “bonus wife”, Patti, an elementary school teacher in Saluda, N.C., Upon Patti’s retirement, the couple settled in Brevard to live among the mountains he always loved.
Those of us blessed to have him in our lives knew that, while he loved library science, Rick was so much more than a librarian. His many interests included golf (not just for the post-round brews), card games, movies, books, camping, and travel. A particular favorite destination was the city of New Orleans … the town not the train. The man loved his Creole and Cajun food and learned to cook a lot of it well enough that Chef Paul Prudhomme would have approved.
Athletics in general were a big, big deal in Rick’s life. In addition to his love (and occasional hate) of golf, Rick was a lifeguard as a teenager and stayed outside so much his freckles were baked in. He also enjoyed playing and watching basketball, especially his Tarheels; a favorite story he told was facing off against Tarheel legend James Worthy in a pickup game in the Dean Dome when a graduate student in Chapel Hill. It went about as expected, by the way: as the tale was related, on Rick’s only attempt at shooting over his opponent, Big Game James blocked the shot into the fifth row of the bleachers.
As you may surmise, storytelling was a core element of Rick’s life. He was a brilliant guitarist and loved listening to and performing bluegrass, folk, country and rock music…basically anything he could replicate with his beloved six-string Martin. At times he played in a band or was accompanied by John Maddock’s banjo, but most of us have memories of countless evenings listening to Rick alone playing, singing, and telling stories with the verve of a master raconteur. He also applied his quick wit to conversations on politics or the latest movies, particularly bad ones, which he ruthlessly skewered. And yes, “bad ones” refers to both movies and politicians.
Along with his many and varied hobbies, avocations and time killers, Rick was a devoted father to his two daughters with Louise, Sarah and Katherine, and ensured their education was well rounded, particularly where culture was concerned. For example, the girls both knew Monty Python and the Holy Grail well enough for accurate quotation before they were teenagers. Classy, no? He also was a passionate and highly competitive bridge player, earning a number of masters points before calling it quits.
Rick is survived by his wife Patti (nee Albee), daughters Sarah (Eric) Shaw Koti and Dr. Kathy (Tony) Hatzigiannakis, brothers Paul (Precia) Shaw and Peter (Deborah) Shaw, sister Pamela (John) Alexander, and enough friends and family of the heart to populate a bluegrass festival.
A memorial service is planned for 2 p.m. on Saturday, June 29, at Mt. Pisgah Baptist Church in Easley, S.C., with reception to follow at the home of Paul and Precia Shaw in Greenville. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations to the Association for Frontotemporal Degeneration.
Asheville Mortuary Service is honored to serve the Shaw family.
See original obituary HERE.