Longtime Courier & Press arts journalist Roger McBain has died

Roger McBain, who covered arts, entertainment and culture for Evansville's newspapers for nearly 30 years, died Wednesday after a long battle with cancer. He was 73.

McBain was an integral member of Evansville's journalism scene across four decades, starting at The Evansville Press in 1985 as an entertainment writer and retiring from the Courier & Press in 2014.

His writing documented everything from the stage to ballet to the local orchestra and Evansville's connections to movies, television and beyond, as well as the stories of the people behind the leading roles, artwork, music and writing.

Linda Negro, a former Courier & Press managing editor who worked with McBain, lauded his approach to both life and his career.

"Roger continued to be an inspiration because he gave himself wholly to whatever he was doing, whether it was reading Harry Potter aloud when his children were young, writing his autobiography, bicycling the Pacific Coast Highway or fighting three different cancers," Negro said.

McBain's writing turned on "minute details," Negro said.

He believed "an honest critique was essential to the process," she said. So much so that he agonized over some reviews, especially when he was assigned to write critiques of high school performances for the Courier & Press, according to his wife, Jo Ann Learman.

McBain knew the honesty was a must, but "he felt awful when he had to write something negative about someone's kid," Learman said. "He'd say, 'It's different when it's a touring Broadway production and people are paying $100 for a ticket.'"

McBain's life was filled with interesting journeys. After growing up in Long Beach, California, he served in the United States Naval Construction Battallion, better known as the Seabees. He got hooked on theater when he saw a performance of "The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail" while stationed on Midway Island.

"He heard people talking after the show and how it affected them and how passionate they were about what they'd just seen," Learman said. "He was hooked from that point forward."

McBain later attended Mesa College in San Diego, then the University of Wisconsin, where he met Jo Ann during a three-week, intensive critical writing course. They spent the next 45 years together.

There was also travel in Europe, lots of bicycle trips and spending time with his children, Austen and Carson.

Learman said McBain felt "lucky" to have his career in journalism.

"He loved being able to go talk to people and hear their stories," she said. "That part came easy for him. The writing part was very tough for him.

"He felt really committed to covering the arts community, and he struggled hard to always be fair, and to always find something positive to say," Learman said.

He retired nine years ago and celebrated the new phase of his life by riding his bike along the Pacific Coast from Seattle to Mexico, a trip that took six weeks.

Cancer in his kidneys metastasized to his bones in 2018, but what could've been a life cut short instead gave way to five "bonus years," his wife said, much of it with McBain in "good shape."

And though he wasn't a full-time journalist anymore, it was obviously still in his blood, Learman said.

"He'd be laying there interviewing the nurses and physical therapists, whenever he'd get a new one, about what got them into doing that as a job, where they were from, that sort of thing," Learman said. "He loved hearing their stories."

Toward the end of his life, McBain set up a plan for his family to follow in his final weeks. He died in hospice care, and there will be a celebration of life sometime "down the road," his wife said.

McBain donated his body to the Indiana University School of Medicine. He'd heard that during the COVID-19 pandemic the school had a shortage of cadavers for aspiring doctors to study, and McBain said he wanted to help.

Of course, he also joked that "it was the only way I'm going to get into medical school," Learman said.

"Roger never tired of learning, yearned to understand the human condition and mapped out his final days to be surrounded by friends and his loving children and wife," Negro said. "He lived honestly and died graciously on his own terms."

This article originally appeared on Evansville Courier & Press: Longtime Courier & Press arts journalist Roger McBain has died