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Author, historian, and instructor Sam McPhetres, 82
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Posted on Jul 27 2021
Published author, historian, and long-time instructor at the Northern Marianas College Samuel F. McPhetres passed away at the Commonwealth Health Center last Saturday at the age of 82.
On Sunday, NMC president Dr. Galvin Deleon Guerrero issued a statement eulogizing McPhetres. Before retiring from NMC in 2012, McPhetres was a political science and history instructor at the college for almost 30 years.
“The NMC Proa Community is deeply saddened by the passing of Sam McPhetres, who taught at the college for nearly three decades and whose contributions to the institution have been extraordinary. Thousands of students have been guided, inspired, and educated by Mr. McPhetres, and his colleagues at the college have looked to him for his advice and counsel. His research and work in Marianas and Pacific history have also been widely lauded and recognized. We express our condolences to Sam’s family and will make other announcements later this week about how the college will be honoring his memory,” said Deleon Guerrero.
Samuel F. McPhetres
McPhetres graduated from the University of California Santa Barbara with a bachelor’s degree in political science, and received a master’s degree in international relations from the Centre Europeén d’Études Superieures in Nancy, France.
McPhetres spent decades of his life in Micronesia, previously serving as the director of the U.S. Peace Corps in Truk, which is now Chuuk, and as an educator, archivist, and coordinator for International Organizations for the Trust Territory for the Pacific Islands, a region where a portion of which would become formally recognized as the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. Additionally, McPhetres was the co-author of two books: History of Palau, and a civics textbook titled Citizenship and Self-government in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.
