Stephen McNamara OBITUARY

Stephen McNamara OBITUARY

Stephen McNamara, pioneering writer, publisher, and journalism mentor, died peacefully of natural causes on November 24, 2025, at home in Mill Valley, California.

He was born July 9, 1934, in Chicago, IL His birth parents were Susan Deuel Shattuck and R. C. McNamara Jr. His parents divorced when he was three years old, and he grew up in Urbana, IL, with his mother and stepfather, Prof. Charles H. Shattuck, a prominent Shakespearean scholar and author. He graduated from Princeton University in 1955.

McNamara was a path-setting journalist and inveterate organizer who leaned firmly toward adventure. In high school he hitch-hiked through a blizzard from New York City to Chicago, in college he climbed the Mexico peak El Popocatepetl with no training or equipment, once had the president of Gulf Oil in Pittsburgh rescue him from a storm, met a stranger in an upstate New York bar who for no apparent reason handed him his convertible to drive away, created a House Parties Weekend bike race from Vassar to Princeton, started a lifetime career in journalism with absolutely no experience, taught the subject at San Francisco State University and created both national and state organizations to support it, befriended one of the world’s greatest race car drivers, Stirling Moss, hung out with Bruce McLaren, whose company came to to dominate Formula 1 racing, was assigned the name “Rodney” while working college summers on a road construction company, created two significant newspapers, the Pacific Sun serving notable San Francisco suburbs that was voted the best weekly paper in California and is the oldest alternative newsweekly in the U.S. He also led the revival of the prize-winning San Quentin News inside California’s oldest state prison, started a computer software company, Sunlight Software, and a newspaper printing company, Marin Sun Printing, tried and failed to create Marin Solar Village, an energy-efficient community, and was once banned from Cuba because he reported on too many dead spectators at the 1956 Grand Prix of Havana.

But Steve’s greatest success came on September 22, 1976, when he encountered Kay Copeland, a beautiful, adventurous therapist and publishing partner from Texas who enabled their married life for half a century and supported adventurous lives for their family. Their six children ranged from Kevin, an assistant director in film and Chris, one of the world’s leading big wall rock climbers/BASE jumpers and entrepreneur, to Natalie, a magazine publisher in Sonoma County and Marisa, a former San Francisco assistant district attorney and leader of the revival of San Francisco’s Union Square, Lise, an occupational therapist and kinesiologist in Denmark and Morgan, a project manager for Apple in Japan. They were all richer for not traipsing down a straight and narrow path. Steve recommends it.

A memorial service will be held on Thursday, August 6, 2026, at 2:00 p.m. at The Outdoor Art Club in Mill Valley. Memorial website: murial.life/steve-mcnamara