Bill Manny died April 24, 2014, after a long battle with melanoma. It’s a natural thing to emphasize a loved one’s good qualities, but Bill’s family knows he was not perfect. He could be opinionated and a bit of a hermit, often preferring a book or his own company to that of others. He didn’t suffer fools, and was particularly annoyed by neighbors who kept barking dogs. But he was kind and generous and honest, and we loved him for his faults as well as his features, as did his many Eastern Oregon friends.
Bill trained in electrical engineering in the Air Force, serving from 1956 to 1960, at radar installations in California and Nevada. After the Air Force, he worked in television repair in Hermiston and Pendleton. In 1970, he went to work at Round-Up Electronics, later becoming part-owner then full owner of the Pendleton electronics-parts distributorship. He retired in 2003, turning his attention to antique radios and radio tubes, a retirement “hobby” that was often a full-time business. He became an eBay expert, selling radios and tubes to collectors all over the world. Some of his collection was on display at the county history museum, and you can still see his radios at Antiques and Art on Main.
Bill was a lifelong jock, playing golf and ping-pong until just months before his death. He was an all-conference basketball and baseball player at Hermiston High School, where he graduated in 1954. He pitched a two-hitter in the 1954 state championship tournament, but lost 5-3. He got a baseball scholarship to Oregon State, where he played a year before joining the Air Force. He played on traveling Air Force baseball teams and was a base ping-pong champion. In his 20s, he took up golf; at age 77, he missed by a just a couple strokes his goal of shooting his age. He played regular weekly ping-pong games with Don Webb’s gang. In 1969, he began the first of 15 years coaching Pendleton Little League’s Dodgers, and serving on the Little League board. He taught his Little Leaguers fundamentals and sportsmanship and made lifelong friendships with his players and their parents. He was a Mariners fanatic, and DVR’d and watched almost every game.
He was a lifelong reader, writer and word lover, and conversations were festivals of puns and word-play. For the past several years, he wrote an opinion/humor column for the East Oregonian. He wrote magazine articles, a nonfiction book and two novels, one of which he self-published in the weeks before his death (order “The Unforgiving Minute” at Amazon.com). The book’s 19-year-old hero is smart-alecky and goofy, gallant and naive — basically, a younger version of himself. Bill was a natural ham, and acted in or directed a dozen plays at the Blue Mountain’s College Community Theater, served on the crew of innumerable productions and sat on the theater board for decades.
He was married for 56 years to Vonna Jo Simpson. They met and married while Bill served at Mill Valley Air Force Station atop Mount Tamalpais in California. They had five children, eight grand-children and numerous nieces and nephews. This past November, he and Jo took three of their youngest grandchildren on a road trip to Mount Rushmore, an experience he treasured and chronicled in his EO column. Bill sat in the back, one of the kids: “We drew pictures. We wrote stories. Read them aloud to each other. Laughed like maniacs.” His great joy in life was having a sprawling family full of characters, readers and word-lovers, all of whom enjoy each other’s company.
Bill’s parents were Harold and Bernice Manny. He is survived by his wife, Jo; sister, Virgina Luisi, of Boston; sons William Jr. (Jennifer), Martin (Jeannine), Robert (Jenny) and Gerald; daughter Janine; granddaughters Emily, Kacey, Helen, Marissa, Natalie and Sienna; grandsons Tyler and Ryan; and Bruce Gianotti, who Bill considered a brother. Sisters Patty and Margaret preceded him in death.
Bill’s family invites his friends to a celebration of life Saturday, May 3, from 2-4 p.m. at the Bob Clapp Theater at Blue Mountain Community College. In lieu of flowers, please consider a donation to the College Community Theater or the Friends of the Library.
