Steve Smart ’75 had spent much of the hot summer day making the rounds of the various landscaping and construction projects his company had underway throughout the Inland Northwest.
Back at his office atop a commercial nursery just outside Spokane, he agreed to take a break and read a selection from his first novel, Whispers of the Greybull. He’d have preferred to stay out on the work sites but got cleaned up and took a seat.
The novel, which Smart wrote while recovering from a near-fatal accident, is set in the Depression-era Midwest and was a recipient of a Will Rogers Medallion for inspirational fiction. Smart drew on his WSU roots in creating the main character, a former Cougar athlete sidelined by injuries who takes a job on a giant Wyoming ranch and stumbles into a decades-old mystery involving a missing fortune, rumors of a lost gold mine and enough intrigue to test anyone’s mettle.
Listen to a section from Whispers of the Greybull: