Naturalist, traveler, birder, reader, teacher, Sam Pate died at Columbus Hospice House with his wife of 41 years, Nan, and his friends by his side. A celebration of his life will be held September 5, 2019 at 10:00 AM in the sanctuary at the First Baptist Church, 212 12th Street, Columbus, GA.
Sam was a man of faith, scholarship, and courage who had an appreciation of the natural world, and who believed in the eternal goodness of man. These traits were nurtured in his boyhood in Ashford, Alabama where he explored the woods, creeks, ancient Indian sites, and critters of Southeast Alabama. That constant curiosity continued for the rest of his life.
Sam graduated from Ashford High School where he played three varsity sports, was President of the student body and played clarinet in the band. He graduated from Auburn University where he majored in pre-medicine and attended Medical School at the University of Alabama in Birmingham for one year. He was selected for academic recognition at both universities. Deciding he wanted to do other things, he traveled to the American West and Alaska.
Sam settled in Columbus, Georgia where he taught school for the next fifty-one years – the same number of years his grandfather practiced medicine. He spent the last thirty-five of those years at Brookstone School where he held the Chair of Environmental Science.
Sam “talked the talk and walked the walk”. He shared his knowledge by giving hundreds of nature programs to groups from Alaska to the Caribbean. Believing that one should reach out beyond your geographic boundaries he helped bring to Columbus nationally known wildlife painters and among many writers Pulitzer Prize winning author David McCullough. He arranged programs including an adult Florida panther, raptors and even an Andean Condor.
In the weeks before retiring from Brookstone School Sam prepared to lead his last of over one hundred field trips to Wakulla Springs, Florida and St. Mark’s NWR. He was pleased so many adults who had been his students long ago asked to come with him on this final trip. Long an advocate of taking field notes and dating them in their field guides he was pleased to see that so many of the adult former students had their original field guides filled with notations of decades of their sightings.
In the 1970’s, when the local Audubon Society had few members and met to decide whether to disband Sam and a few others felt it was an important group and worked to continue it. He agreed to be the president for the next two terms, wrote the nature newsletter for forty years The Observer and regularly presented programs that brought in hundreds. For decades, he led the Audubon Christmas Bird Count in Columbus, Georgia and the Eufaula, Alabama NWR.
Nan and Sam enjoyed over thirty-five summers in mid-coast Maine. There they found much happiness in a place they both adored. They have missed their Maine lifetime friends and house by the sea everyday they have been away. Over the decades in Maine, Sam first walked the marshes at Weskeag, then as illness hit he walked with a walking stick, then walker, then wheelchair, and then watched the birds at Weskeag Marsh with a scope from the car.
Sam is pre-deceased by his parents, Benjamin Sanford Pate, Sr. and Lucy W. Baughman Pate; and his sister, Mary Nell Pate Budnaitis. His wife, Nan; his loyal rescue lab, Bo; his friends and his cousins, Edward C. Burdeshaw (Suzanne) of Columbus, Georgia, John William Baughman III (Connie) of Lawrenceville, Georgia, Joe Pate (Leslie) of Raleigh, North Carolina, and Oakley Guy (Sharon) of Cleveland, Tennessee survive him. He also leaves behind all of his former students who can still identify a Barred Owl’s call, identify a bird by its genus and species, and who teach their kids to do their part to preserve the planet. Sam is already missed.
In lieu of flowers, the family asks that friends consider remembering him by supporting Columbus Hospice, 7020 Moon Road, Columbus, Georgia 31909, the Koart Academy of Music of First Baptist Church, P. O. Box 828, Columbus, Georgia 31902, Brookstone School, 440 Bradley Park Drive, Columbus, GA 31904, and Georges River Land Trust, 8 North Main Street, Rockland, Maine 04841 designated for Weskeag Marsh – Bob O Link Trail.
Fond memories and condolences may be shared at www.shcolumbus.com for the Pate family.
