ºÙºÙÊÓƵ

Will Baker, a Western writer whose social and environmental passions led him to embrace global themes, died Saturday, Aug. 27, at his Guinda farm in the Capay Valley. He was 70 years old.

Professor Baker, who also was an inspiring ºÙºÙÊÓƵ English teacher for 26 years, was born May 10, 1935, near Nampa, Idaho, on a hard-scrabble ranch, where his father was a logger and his mother a teacher.

Those early lessons on the ranch became the basis for fiction and nonfiction works about the American West, including the novel "Track of the Giant"; the nonfiction "Mountain Blood"; and a 2000 memoir about a Sierra Club officer and personal friend accused of slaughtering a herd of cows, "Tony and the Cows: A True Story From the Range Wars."

Baker became active in preserving the Capay Valley, actively participating in Rumsey and Guinda neighborhood organizations to protect the valley. He was on the forefront of Capay Valley residents bitterly opposed to the Cache Creek Casino.

But he was an environmentalist who understood the contradictions in trying to preserve the wilderness where humans live. In an interview with Davis Enterprise reporter Elisabeth Sherwin in 2000, Baker said:

"My whole take on a lot of environmental issues is that not only are there no easy answers, there are no answers you can fully commit yourself to at all. ... It boils down to compromise -- how we are going to stay economically prosperous and at the same time protect wild things. And to be perfectly frank, I don't think you can do both. And that's an answer that people don't want to hear."

From the beginning of his career, when he published a book about the syntax of English poetry, Baker transcended the "regional Western writer" label by exploring a broad palette of intellectual, environmental and political interests.

He wrote popular science fiction novels, including "Shadow Hunter" and "Star Beast," and a memoir, "Backward: An Essay on Indians, Time and Photography," about the year he spent living with a Peruvian tribe while on a Fulbright scholarship.

In reviewing Baker's short-story collection "What a Piece of Work," a reviewer for Publishers Weekly described Baker as "a quietly lethal satirist of popular culture" whose stories "paint a terrifying picture of an America without a moral center."

Colleague Jack Hicks, who directed the ºÙºÙÊÓƵ Creative Writing Program during Baker's tenure, said the writer was talented in both fiction and nonfiction, with a flair for speculation and invention.

"By the time he retired in 1995," Hicks said, "Will had teamed up with his colleagues Gary Snyder, Sandy McPherson, Clarence Major, Alan Williamson and Sandra Gilbert to form the first generation of a national creative writing faculty that eventually would make ºÙºÙÊÓƵ one of the best in the nation."

Baker combined a wicked, deadpan sense of humor with empathy for his students and faculty. Hicks said he was extraordinarily generous with his time and attention to ºÙºÙÊÓƵ creative writing students, nurturing a number of young writers.

Baker started his academic career at the College of Idaho in 1952, intending to major in chemistry. He earned his bachelor's degree in English from the University of Washington in 1956, a master's degree in English from the University of Hawaii in 1960 and his doctorate in English from UC Berkeley.

While at Berkeley, Professor Baker studied with the late Josephine Miles, a distinguished poet and critic. He emerged with one of the few academic publications on his long list of books, "Syntax in English Poetry, 1870 to 1930." He also edited another academic book, "Critics on George Elliot," in 1973.

Following five years as a professor at Reed College in Portland, Ore., Baker was hired at ºÙºÙÊÓƵ in 1969 where he taught for 26 years before retiring to his Capay Valley property.

He is survived by his wife, Malinda Penn-Baker of Guinda, daughter Willa of Cambridge, Mass., and son Cole and daughter Montana of the family home in Guinda.

A wake for friends and colleagues is scheduled for noon Sunday, Sept. 4, at Rumsey Hall in Rumsey, Calif. Before he died, Baker established a scholarship for Esparto High School students interested in art and creative writing. People interested in contributing in Baker's memory mail a check to Esparto Foundation for Public Education, P.O. Box 774, Esparto, CA 95627.