Current:Home > ScamsSouth Carolina naturalist Rudy Mancke, who shared how everyone is connected to nature, dies at 78 -EverVision Finance
South Carolina naturalist Rudy Mancke, who shared how everyone is connected to nature, dies at 78
View
Date:2025-04-16 13:04:22
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — South Carolina naturalist Rudy Mancke, who shared his vast love for the outdoors with public television viewers and radio listeners for decades, died Tuesday.
Mancke’s wife, Ellen, told South Carolina Public Radio that the host of NatureNotes on radio and NatureScene on television died from complications of a liver disease while surrounded by his family. He was 78.
The folksy scientist with the wide-eyed appreciation for flora and fauna loved a quote from naturalist John Muir, who died in 1914: “When you try to touch one thing by itself, you find it hitched to everything in the universe.”
Mancke spent his life looking for those connections and then sharing them with anyone who would listen.
That audience was vast — NatureScene launched on South Carolina Educational Television in 1978 and ran for 25 years. Mancke headed all over the U.S. and sometimes overseas, sharing how everything in the natural environment was interconnected and beautiful in its own way.
His career continued with NatureNotes on public radio. In the one-minute segments, Mancke identified a picture of a plant or animal sent to him and told a story about it, or waxed philosophically about the changing of the seasons or the circle of life which eventually returns everyone back to the environment they came from.
Mancke was also a huge believer on how nature could heal the psyche and recommended a short walk in the woods or on the beach or through a meadow when things got overwhelming.
“When everything else is discombobulated, just take a little short walk — I’ve done this all my life — and that’s what I did on television programs for about 25 years ... If you know the names of things and the relationships between them, it helps you realize you’re a part of something bigger than yourself,” Mancke told Columbia Metropolitan magazine in a 2021 feature.
Mancke grew up in Spartanburg as the eldest of four children. He graduated from Wofford College and took graduate courses at the University of South Carolina. He considered becoming a doctor before going the naturalist route.
Mancke was natural history curator at the South Carolina State Museum and a high school biology and geology teacher before his work with South Carolina Educational Television.
Mancke’s NatureNotes segments were pre-recorded and Mancke kept producing them as his health worsened. A segment on the fig beetle ran Wednesday, just hours after his death.
A listener in Myrtle Beach had sent him the photo and Mancke said it was a flower scarab beetle similar to a June bug. “Flower scarabs. They feed on nectar. They feed on fruit and they are amazing,” he said.
On Nov. 2, All Souls Day, Mancke spoke about how everyone ends up back where they started and how important that interconnectedness is.
“Death is a part of life of course. We all know that. That’s not good bad right or wrong. But that’s what the system is like on the third planet from the star we call the sun,” Mancke said. “And were a part of that system aren’t we? Death is a part of life because of the recycling system we’ve got. It doesn’t work if death doesn’t come into play.”
veryGood! (94)
Related
- Biden administration makes final diplomatic push for stability across a turbulent Mideast
- What to know about the Silicon Valley Bank collapse, takeover and fallout
- Some of Asa Hutchinson's campaign events attract 6 voters. He's still optimistic about his 2024 primary prospects
- SAG actors are striking but there are still projects they can work on. Here are the rules of the strike.
- Toyota to invest $922 million to build a new paint facility at its Kentucky complex
- Man gets 12 years in prison for a shooting at a Texas school that injured 3 when he was a student
- Kate Spade 24-Hour Flash Deal: Get This $360 Reversible Tote Bag for Just $89
- The Fed already had a tough inflation fight. Now, it must deal with banks collapsing
- Selena Gomez's "Weird Uncles" Steve Martin and Martin Short React to Her Engagement
- Former Wisconsin prosecutor sentenced for secretly recording sexual encounters
Ranking
- Meet the volunteers risking their lives to deliver Christmas gifts to children in Haiti
- The U.S. takes emergency measures to protect all deposits at Silicon Valley Bank
- Yes, The Bachelorette's Charity Lawson Has a Sassy Side and She's Ready to Show It
- Facebook parent Meta slashes 10,000 jobs in its 'Year of Efficiency'
- Taylor Swift Eras Archive site launches on singer's 35th birthday. What is it?
- Alaska man inadvertently filmed own drowning with GoPro helmet camera — his body is still missing
- Thawing Permafrost has Damaged the Trans-Alaska Pipeline and Poses an Ongoing Threat
- Fossil Fuel Companies Are Quietly Scoring Big Money for Their Preferred Climate Solution: Carbon Capture and Storage
Recommendation
Can Bill Belichick turn North Carolina into a winner? At 72, he's chasing one last high
Civil Rights Groups in North Carolina Say ‘Biogas’ From Hog Waste Will Harm Communities of Color
16-year-old dies while operating equipment at Mississippi poultry plant
3 women killed, baby wounded in shooting at Tulsa apartment
Rylee Arnold Shares a Long
The Maine lobster industry sues California aquarium over a do-not-eat listing
Pollution from N.C.’s Commercial Poultry Farms Disproportionately Harms Communities of Color
The Keystone XL Pipeline Is Dead, but TC Energy Still Owns Hundreds of Miles of Rights of Way