Tall, smart, athletic and blessed with a commanding voice and an integrity that earned him the nickname “Straight Arrow,” former Gov. Dan Evans, who died Friday at age 98, possessed all the qualities of a great politician but developed a growing dislike for one aspect of his job: politics.

Make no mistake. As Republican governor of Washington (1965-1977) and as Senator (1983-1988), he was a passionate supporter of honest and spirited debate. And as a campaigner, he had few peers. His failed attempt to win the presidency of his class of 1965 at Roosevelt High School in the 1940s was the last political battle he lost.

But as Evans watched politics become increasingly polarized and government less effective, he could no longer contain his frustration.

“I have lived through five years of strife and prolonged paralysis,” he wrote in a 1988 New York Times Magazine article explaining his decision not to seek re-election to the Senate. “I simply cannot endure another six years of frustrating gridlock.”

For a man who had been considered a possible Republican vice presidential candidate in recent decades, retiring from politics was not easy. However, he remained in public service, most notably as a regent of the University of Washington from 1993 to 2005.

“Dad had an extraordinarily full life,” Evans’ sons Dan Jr., Mark and Bruce Evans said in a written statement. “Whether it was public service, working to improve higher education or mentoring aspiring public servants … he just kept getting involved in things right up until the end. He touched many lives. And he did it without sacrificing his family.”

Daniel Jackson Evans, born on October 16, 1925 in Seattle, learned to appreciate the wilderness at an early age and climbed Silver Peak in the Cascades at the age of 12.

At home, the son of a former King County engineer and the grandson of a state senator from Spokane learned to stay informed and get involved.

After graduating from Roosevelt University in 1943, he joined the Navy and served as an ensign. After World War II, he studied engineering at UW, completing his bachelor’s degree in 1948 and his master’s degree a year later.

During the Korean War, he returned to the Navy as a lieutenant in 1951 and served until 1953. In 1959, he married Nancy Bell. The couple had three sons.

“They were a great team,” Dan Evans Jr. said in an interview Saturday. “And I think my brothers and I all know how much he accomplished. He couldn’t have accomplished any of it without them and without the hundreds of staff members who supported him throughout his years in office. You can’t accomplish much without a great team.”

Before entering politics, he was a civil engineer and worked as a structural engineer for the City of Seattle and in private practice.

His term began in 1956 when he was elected to the state House of Representatives for Seattle’s 43rd District. During that term, he was named the most outstanding freshman in the House and was re-elected to the House three times.

Some say Evans’ background as an engineer contributed to his belief that even difficult problems can be analyzed and solved if the right steps are taken.

His “Plan for Progress,” drafted in 1964, helped him become the youngest governor in state history at age 39, defeating Democrat Albert D. Rosellini, who had already served two terms previously.

Evans was considered one of his party’s rising stars and was chosen to deliver the keynote address at the 1968 Republican National Convention in Miami.

“A leadership burdened by the past must yield its place to the party whose hope lies in the future,” he said at the party convention that was to lay the foundation for Richard M. Nixon’s successful candidacy for the White House.

It is said that Nixon would have offered Evans the vice-presidency if he had supported him, but Evans preferred Nelson Rockefeller.

Evans was re-elected governor in 1968 and 1972 – the latter year in a rematch against former governor Rosellini.

Education and the environment were central priorities during Evans’ long tenure. He led a major expansion of the state’s community college system and helped strengthen the state’s four-year colleges.

He helped create the North Cascades National Park and the Alpine Lakes Wilderness Area. In 1970, he called a special session of Congress to promote environmental protection, which led to the creation of the Department of Ecology.

His welcoming of Vietnamese refugees after the fall of Saigon in 1975 – despite opposition from then-California Governor Jerry Brown – became one of his lasting legacies.

“Here were people who were displaced from their homeland, had no place to go, and we tried to turn them away?” Evans recalled in an interview with the Seattle Times in 2015“It didn’t make sense.”

Evans sent one of his key advisers, Ralph Munro, who would later become Secretary of State, to a California camp to tell the new arrivals that they were welcome in Washington state. Evans ordered all government agencies to help with the resettlement. He asked churches and nonprofit organizations to contribute. He recruited families who would take in refugees.

Not all of Evans’ efforts were successful. For example, he was rebuffed when he advocated for a state income tax, an issue that brought the centrist governor into conflict with the increasingly conservative leaders of his own party.

His name became a trademark: a candidate for office described as a “Dan Evans Republican” combined social commitment and environmental ethics with a strong sense of financial responsibility.

In a 1982 newsletter of the National Governors Association, he was celebrated as one of the ten most outstanding governors of the 20th century.

After leaving the governorship, he served for six years as president of The Evergreen State College in Olympia and accepted a challenge that involved rappelling down the campus clock tower.

In 1983, following the unexpected death of long-time Democratic Senator Henry M. Jackson, Evans was appointed by his party colleague, Governor John Spellman, to temporarily fill the Senate seat.

Democrats complained that Spellman should have chosen someone from Jackson’s own party to succeed him, but Evans was a strong choice and won the seat in a special election a few months after his appointment.

One measure of the bipartisan admiration for Evans is that ten years after that race, the man he soundly defeated, Mike Lowry, became governor and appointed Evans to the board of trustees of the University of Washington.

In 2000, the University of Washington Graduate School of Public Affairs was renamed the Evans School of Public Affairs and in 2015 the Daniel J. Evans School of Public Policy and Governance.

Evans’ wife, a former music teacher and librarian in the Shoreline school district, died of breast cancer in January at age 90. The UW’s Nancy Bell Evans Center on Nonprofits and Philanthropy was named after her in 2004.

The former governor was a huge fan of Husky football and planned to attend the game against Northwestern on Saturday.

Evans Jr. remembers his father as someone who was always trying new things. He made Christmas stockings for all nine grandchildren. In his later years, Evans also enjoyed making jam and jelly.

“I always feel like he’s done a lot, and ‘stuff’ is a pretty low-key word, but professionally and personally, it’s pretty impressive for one person,” Evans Jr. said.

His father was an avid hiker and skier who loved to travel.

“We all have precious childhood memories of hiking, skiing and traveling with Dad, which in hindsight is remarkable given the demands of his time,” his sons said Saturday. “His loving partnership with Mom was truly special and we know her loss has been hard on him. We are deeply grateful to all the friends and family who have taken the time to contact Dad in the months since her passing.”