Richard Arthur Manning was born July 16, 1942, to Robert and Ruth (Good) Manning at St. Helen Hospital in Chehalis, Washington. On Aug. 8, 2026, he peacefully entered eternity from his home in Okanogan, Washington.
Dick spent his entire childhood in the peaceful Boistfort Valley west of Chehalis. There, he picked strawberries and cucumbers at local farms, picked Douglas fir cones for Weyerhaeuser and collected empty beer bottles for pennies from the loggers at Camp McDonald, who also gave him an occasional ice cream bar. When he was old enough, he planted trees for Weyerhaeuser.
In 1960, Dick graduated from Boistfort High School. After one semester at Washington State University and one at Centralia College, he transferred to Western Washington University, where his future wife was enrolling. After high school, he worked part time pumping gas for Standard Oil.
But he always took the last weeks of summer before school started again to camp at Chinook and fish the mouth of the Columbia River for king salmon, one year with a commercial license. He had caught his first big king when he was 10 years old, and he was hooked for life.
After he retired, he and “Uncle John” built a little shanty on Coffeepot Island, a small sandbar adjacent to Puget Island in the Columbia River near Cathlamet. In March and April, they fished for “springers” and later tried to catch the summer run. He fished there as long as he was able.
As much as he loved salmon fishing, fishing Rufus Woods for triploids and the Okanogan River for steelhead became his passion until he could no longer navigate the steep trails.
Dick graduated from Western in 1964 with a degree in speech pathology. In the spring of 1965, he married Elaine McCoy and was hired by the Okanogan County superintendent of schools to work in schools in Okanogan and Ferry counties and on the Colville Reservation.
Dick planned to stay in Okanogan for two years, but he grew to love the area, the hunting and fishing it offered, its people and the children he worked with, so he never left. Even after retiring, he worked several more years at Pascal Sherman Indian School.
Dick coached a men’s fast-pitch team and then a men’s slow-pitch team for several years, but after his son, Lance, was born in 1974, he started coaching youth baseball and hunting and fishing with Lance. Dick was never one to sit around. If the Mariners game was too slow, he’d go out and find some weeds to uproot. He was always a “git ’er done” guy.
Thank you to all of you who enriched his life in so many ways. May God bless you!
Dick was preceded in death by his parents. He is survived by Elaine, his wife of 61 years; his son, Lance Manning (Christina); his sister, Roberta “Bobbi” Manning; and his niece, Lauren (Will) Honemann.
A memorial service for Dick will be held at 2 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 29, at Okanogan Evangelical Presbyterian Church.
