Steve Myrick of Manchester-by-the-Sea and Martha’s Vineyard died peacefully at home on Jan. 18 with his daughter and son in law by his side, after a hard-fought battle with cancer. He was 65.

He was a respected journalist with a wide-ranging career in television and newspaper reporting that included 20-plus years at WBZ-TV in Boston and decades covering the elite sport of thoroughbred horse racing around the country. He had been a reporter for the Martha’s Vineyard Times and the Gazette, where he was the senior writer, retiring in 2019.

Steven C. Myrick was born on Jan. 5, 1957, to Charles and Calista Myrick in St. Johnsbury, Vt. He graduated from tiny Danville High School in 1975, where he was a star basketball player known for his trick shots.

In 1977, he earned an associate’s degree in news and radio reporting and began working at WBZ, where he worked until the early 2000s.

His daughter Becky recalled a childhood of summer weekends spent sailing from Cape Cod to the Vineyard, where they would anchor in Vineyard Haven Harbor, swim off the boat and eat at the Black Dog. When she and her sister lost a tooth, the tooth fairy would bring tickets to the Flying Horses.

After he left WBZ, he briefly tried a corporate job but hated it, so he rented out his apartment in Lowell and bought an Allied Luders 33, the last in a series of three fiberglass sailboats he would own, all named Snappy Lede. He sailed from the yacht yard in Newburyport down to the Vineyard with his daughters with a plan to land a job as a reporter on the Island. After freelancing for the Martha’s Vineyard Times, he was hired there in 2007. He left the Times in 2015 to begin working at the Gazette.

An old-school hard news reporter, Steve was a graceful writer, well known on the police and fire beats and also covering hundreds of other stories with a practiced hand and a shrewd eye for detail.

He lived on his boat in summers in Vineyard Haven harbor and rented places in the winter months. He had a cat named Joe, a feral Vermont barn cat who could swim.

A person of wide-ranging interests, he was a jazz aficionado who loved Joshua Redman, Davis, Coltrane and other greats. He had covered minor league baseball for a time and was a diehard Red Sox fan, one time driving his young daughters to games with all four Sox franchises in a single weekend, beginning with a no-hitter at the Paw Sox and ending with a game at Fenway Park.

He was talented photographer who loved to wake before there was light in the sky and capture a Vineyard sunrise, or spend hours chasing snowy owls with his camera. His daughter and son in law recalled one time when they were driving with him on the Island and he stopped in the middle of an intersection and got out of the car to take pictures of turkeys in the trees, oblivious to the traffic jam he was causing.

Well known and respected in the horse racing world, he wrote about the sport widely, from Suffolk Downs in Boston to the Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont Stakes. His daughter Becky recalled going to Suffolk Downs as a child, taking carrots for the horses and climbing into the press box with her father.

Steve was a brilliant, honest and exceedingly decent man. He was kind, but life wasn’t always kind to him. Yet he persevered through every setback, each loss, and every heartbreak with remarkable inner strength, quiet dignity, and grace. His was not an ordinary life, but a life well-lived and well-loved. He will be sorely missed.

He wrote personal essays for the Gazette; the last one was published in October, an ode to the Island he loved.

He was predeceased by his parents, Charles and Calista Myrick, his brother Dennis Myrick, his sister Cyndi Briggs, his cousin Clif Langmaid, and his beloved daughter Allison Myrick. He is survived by his daughter Rebecca Stephenson, son in law James Stephenson, granddaughter Rose Stephenson; former wife Susan Myrick; brothers Andy Myrick and John Myrick; brother in law Tom Briggs; sister in law Rosaleen Myrick; and many nieces,nephews, aunts and uncles.

An informal gathering of friends and family will be held this summer on Martha’s Vineyard. Per his wishes, his ashes will be scattered at sea.

Donations can be made to Old Friends Farm in Georgetown, KY.