Steve Pankey

Steve G. Pankey, 83, passed away Saturday, Aug. 10, 2024, at the St. Mary's Hospital in Cottonwood. He was born to Gray and Eugenia Pankey in Kamiah, on Jan. 13, 1941. The family soon moved to Kooskia where Steve would live nearly all of his life. He attended Kooskia schools and graduated from Clearwater Valley High School in 1959. After high school Steve attended Lewis-Clark State College in Lewiston for one year. He spent the summers of 1959 and 1960 working for the Bureau of Public Roads on a crew that was surveying for the eventual placement of Highway 12 along the Lochsa River up over the pass to the Montana border. These summers spent on the Lochsa were some of his favorite life memories.

Steve's working career began as manager for Joe Hartman's meat market in Kooskia in 1960, in the location on Main Street that currently houses Carisa's Cake Company. Steve and his brother Jim had learned meat cutting skills in their childhood from their father Gray, who had owned several meat markets in Kamiah and Spokane. Steve was hired to run the market and within a few years he and his brother Jim bought the meat market and created a bustling meat business that included not just retail but a large wholesale and custom cutting business that incorporated processing big game for the local hunters. Eventually, in 1966, the Pankey brothers expanded their business to the open lot across Main Street where they built a supermarket that held groceries as well as meat. This was the beginning of Pankey's LoLo Foods. Under Steve and Jim, the store thrived, and Steve had many warm memories of this time spent working and growing a business he was proud of with his brother.

During the early years back in the meat market, in 1961, Steve began dating a local girl, Mary Parsell. They were married on May 5, 1962, in Grangeville. They remained together for 62 years, just missing their 63rd anniversary as Mary passed away earlier this year in April. They had two children, Julie Ann (1968), and Mary Michelle (1969).

For many years, Steve and Jim Pankey and their wives, Mary and Susie, ran Pankey's Foods. In the late 1980's, Steve and Mary decided to sell out their portion of the grocery business and try their hand at something new. Julie was at this time doing her undergraduate degrees at the University of Idaho, so they moved to Moscow to be near to her and bought two Fantastic Sam's hair salons in Moscow and Pullman. Steve and Mary took these two struggling franchises into the top 50 producing stores among the existing 600 Fantastic Sam's franchises in America. They enjoyed this venture but by the early 2000's they decided to move back to the Kooskia area. During this time Steve decided to go into real estate. He renewed his realtor's license which he had studied for and earned back in the 1980's when he was first considering leaving Pankey's Foods. He opened Idaho Country Properties (ICP) on Main Street and began selling real estate. About a year later, he and Rob McHone joined forces and moved the business down the street to the office building Rob had built. Idaho Country Properties remains there to this day. Steve worked at ICP in the role as broker initially and then as an agent, slowly transitioning over about a decade into full retirement. Steve was very pleased with the business he and Rob built. He felt gratified to be involved with creating two successful Kooskia businesses during his lifetime and would often express how blessed he was to do so in a geographic area that he loved.

After retiring from Idaho Country Properties, Steve enjoyed spending time in the mountains on pack trips and relaxing for the weekend at his cabin on the Selway River. Steve was a lifetime hobbyist of many outdoor activities and when he was able to find the time throughout his life, he was in the wilderness or on the rivers of north central Idaho, enjoying digging for arrowheads and bottles as a child and young adult, camping, cookouts, metal detecting, gold panning and jewelry making, fishing, backpacking, huckleberry picking, grouse hunting and picking Morrell mushrooms. He obtained a pilot's license and loved to fly around the region in the 1980s and 1990s. Steve enjoyed spending time laughing and talking with his friends and family. He was an admirer of Native customs and Nez Perce artwork, tools, beadwork and writings. He was an avid reader and enjoyed non-fiction about the Nez Perce, books by local historians, and the subjects of classical literature, sociology and archaeology. He was a generous, loving person who enjoyed telling jokes and stories about the old days and all the local lore/characters as well as his own adventures. He will be missed by many.

Steve was preceded in death by his parents, his wife Mary Parsell Pankey, his daughter Mary Michelle Pankey, his brother Gene Pankey, and stepfather Bill Slasor. He is survived by his daughter Julieann Pankey Mamula (Tyler), his grandsons Gabriel Kirish and Jaxon Mamula, his brother Jim (Cherlyn) Pankey, his sister Lynda (Leon) Swinehart, and many nieces and nephews.

Steve requested no services.