Deceased December 2, 2023
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In Memory
Ferguson McKay, who died Dec. 2, 2023, from complications of Parkinson’s disease, found his professional calling at Amherst. When he started in college, at Harvard, he thought he would major in music or philosophy. But when he transferred to Amherst after a break from college, he switched to English. It was the subject he had had the most trouble with all through school. But it was the one he most cared about.
Ferg excelled in his new choice and went on to graduate school at Yale. As a professor of English at Lyndon State College (now Vermont State University–Lyndon), he embraced creative writing and the narrative. He taught students how to tell their own stories, requiring them to write draft after draft to break away from “the constraints of ‘school writing.’” Ferg also served as dean of faculty, then acting president, and helped bring a nationally renowned meteorology program to Lyndon.
A Renaissance man before that was a thing, Ferg was a delicate writer, tender soul, pragmatist, lover of classical music and good food and L.L.Bean plaid flannel shirts. Although raised in the Ivory Tower of academia, he had little tolerance for elitism. Ferg judged people by their character, not by their titles or stock portfolios and was at ease talking to tradespeople and academics alike. He could quote Shakespeare, expound upon the problems of a septic system, figure out why a car wouldn’t start and wonder aloud what astrophysicists know about dark matter. He cultivated a huge vegetable garden, embraced organic food decades before it was a trend and renovated and rewired a historic family house in Vermont.
Above all, Ferg was devoted to his family: his two daughters and wife Jane Coyle McKay, who, heartbroken by his loss, passed away exactly two weeks after he did.
Betsy McKay ’83 and Peggy Shinn ’85