Longtime Seattle Times travel writer Stanton Patty dies

To others, he was the bow-tied, crew-cut reporter who covered The Beatles' first visits to Seattle, crafting these words about fans from a 1964 concert: There was no escape.

Mr. Patty, who retired as the newspaper's assistant travel editor in 1988 and moved to Southwest Washington to be near his family, died Wednesday of complications from diabetes in Woodland, Cowlitz County.

Though Mr. Patty's family moved during his high-school years to Seattle, where he earned a master's degree in communications from the University of Washington, Alaska was a beacon throughout his life.

When Mr. Patty retired, he converted the garage in his Vancouver, Wash., home to hold a massive collection of Alaska photos, clippings, books and artifacts, later archived at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks, which awarded him an honorary doctorate in 2005.

"When he was your friend, he was your friend," says Richard Garvin, of Anchorage, a former assistant vice president with Alaska Airlines, whose travels with Mr. Patty included the airline's inaugural flight to Russia in 1970.