Tom McHaney, Georgia State University English professor, dies at 89

Beloved English professor Tom McHaney didn’t just help his Georgia State University students with their careers. He changed their lives with his unique combination of generosity, intelligence and humor.

He was internationally known as an expert on the work of William Faulkner, teaching and lecturing around the world on the Nobel Prize winner. He also wrote award-winning fiction and several plays.

“Tom had the most brilliant mind, and I always loved hearing his thoughts on life and literature. Honestly, if Tom was talking about dirt, I’d listen,” said his former student Elizabeth Crews. “His life experiences mixed with his vast reading knowledge and sharp intellect led to conversations that never ceased to fascinate me.”

The only child of Maxine Brown McHaney and Thomas Lafayette McHaney, Sr., Thomas Lafayette McHaney was born in Paragould, Arkansas, and grew up in Luxora, Arkansas; Tupelo, Mississippi and Memphis, Tennessee. He died on July 8 in Decatur of complications related to Alzheimer’s, said his wife Pearl Amelia McHaney. He was 89.

After graduating from Christian Brothers High School in Memphis, McHaney attended Mississippi State studying electrical engineering, but a trip to the university’s browsing library led him into philosophy and foreign languages, as well as into Faulkner’s books.

At the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, he earned a master’s degree in German and English, and then taught at the University of Mississippi for two years, where he researched Faulkner’s life and work.

He followed his mentor to the University of South Carolina, where he wrote his doctoral dissertation on Faulkner’s “The Wild Palms,” which became his first book.

Armed with a doctorate in English, McHaney started teaching at Georgia State in 1968, both undergraduates and graduate students. He published extensively, received a Fulbright scholarship that took him to Germany, had visiting professorships in other universities and started the school’s creative writing program.

He taught 19th and 20th century Southern literature, creative writing and Faulkner. He went almost annually to the conference on Faulkner at Ole Miss. And he served as the graduate director for the English department, often remaining friends with the students he mentored.

McHaney built a community and the Georgia State badminton club, which led to GSU being the venue for the 1996 Olympic badminton competition.

As part of the Cultural Olympiad before the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, McHaney worked with the late Stan Lindberg, editor of the Georgia Review, to have nine of the 16 living Nobel laureates in literature convene at the Carter Library. McHaney was the organizer of the International Celebration of Southern Literature, held at Agnes Scott College in June 1996.

“He brought great passion and learning to his work. A student once told me that talking to Dr. McHaney was like standing under a waterfall,” said Paul Schmidt, a GSU colleague. “I saw him as a model of everything I wanted to be, though I also realized that he had an energy level that was beyond anything I could hope to emulate.”

Colleagues and students said they could hear McHaney before they saw him — he had a loud, infectious laugh, and he was often laughing. He was known for his colorful socks, his collection of suspenders and his whimsical ties.