Shelby Scates, a 1963 Nieman Fellow and longtime political reporter and columnist for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, died on Jan. 3 at the age of 81. He covered wars and presidential campaigns as well as the ins and outs of Washington state politics. An avid climber, he scaled Mount Rainier nine times, reached the summit of Mt. McKinley and in 1978, covered the first American party to climb K2. Scates was the author of three books and a memoir, “War and Politics by Other Means.”
A native of Tennessee, he graduated from the University of Washington, served two years in the Army and worked as a merchant seaman. His journalism career included work for International News Service, UPI, The Associated Press and the Seattle Argus before he joined the P-I.