E.B. “Pat” Furgurson III, a longtime reporter for The Capital, died Monday at Luminis Health Anne Arundel Medical Center. The Annapolis resident was 70.

The cause of death was not immediately available.

Born in San Diego, California, he was the son of Mary Louise Stallings Furgurson, a library worker, and Ernest B. “Pat” Furgurson Jr., a former Baltimore Sun foreign correspondent.

Newspapers were a family trade for the Furgursons. Mr. Furgurson’s grandfather worked as a newspaper printer, and as a child, Mr. Furgurson lived in Moscow, Russia, for almost three years with his family while his father worked as a correspondent, said his sister, Glyn Furgurson Pogue.

After several years in Europe, the family moved back to the Washington, D.C., area. Mr. Furgurson attended Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School, where he played football and ran track. Though he did not graduate, he later earned a GED.

“It was not unusual for our parents to receive phone calls from teachers and principals about Pat’s antics. He was quite the rascal. He found that he could make the other kids laugh and he never looked back!” Ms. Pogue wrote in an email. “His sense of humor was legendary in the family.”

While a student at Davis & Elkins College in Elkins, West Virginia, Mr. Furgurson battled Hodgkin lymphoma and took a year off for treatment. He returned and wrote for the school newspaper before obtaining a bachelor’s in history in 1980.

After college, Mr. Furgurson “sort of fell into” the restaurant business, working as a chef and purchasing director through the 80s and 90s in West Virginia and Maryland, according to his wife, Becky Furgurson. The two married in 1986 after dating in high school and college. Mr. Furgurson obtained a second bachelor’s degree in interdisciplinary studies from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, in 1999.

Mr. Furgurson joined The Capital, now known as the Capital Gazette, in the late 90s as a reporter covering southern Anne Arundel County.

“I was proud of the fact that he cared enough and saw enough of what I did to want to be in the same line of work,” Mr. Furgurson’s father said. “I’m very proud of him for doing what he did, and he did what he was born to do. He may not have been the fastest or most eloquent, but no question about his commitment to it.”

Tom Marquardt, the former editor and publisher of The Capital, first met Mr. Furgurson when he was working at a restaurant on Maryland Avenue. Mr. Marquardt recalled learning that his father wrote for The Baltimore Sun and asked why Mr. Furgurson was in the kitchen, later inviting him to the newspaper’s office.

“I was taken to the guy because of his sort of folksy character and seeming ability to tell a story,” he said. “There was just something in him that struck me as being a promising reporter; even if he didn’t have writing skills, I was confident he had people skills, and that turned out to be the case.”

Mr. Furgurson’s forte was writing feature stories, and it wasn’t long before people began associating him with the farmers and watermen of South County.

“He became almost like an advocate for those people,” Mr. Marquardt said.

Mr. Furgurson had an affinity for the word “folks.”

“If he could slip the word ‘folks’ into a story, he would think his writing work was done,” said Rick Hutzell, former editor of The Capital. “It kind of symbolizes the way he communicated with people — it was one-on-one, it was ‘Hey, it’s just us here,’ and that was part of his personality.”

Mr. Furgurson enjoyed covering the Chesapeake Bay Blues Festival, a once-annual event that ended in 2022. He went every year, Mrs. Furgurson said.

Another passion was barbecue.

“He was obsessed with barbecue,” said Jesse Furgurson, his son. “He’s a real purist about barbecue, he thought North Carolina had the best barbecue. He refused to accept any other, or at least very reluctantly, would eat the other kinds of barbecue.”

In The Capital’s newsroom, Mr. Furgurson was a “great man” and “great mentor” to the younger writers, said Rachael Pacella, a former Capital reporter.

“He was a steadfast source of goodwill and humor. His connection to the community was impressive,” Ms. Pacella said in a text message. “I loved him very much and will miss him.”

Alex Mann was an intern at the Capital Gazette in 2017 and sat next to Mr. Furgurson, whose desk was always piled with newspapers and documents he needed to sort through, sometimes spilling over onto Mr. Mann’s desk.

“As an aspiring reporter, coming into his first internship in the news industry, sitting across from Pat Furgurson was a real treat because he grew to sort of embody what I pictured to be a traditional newspaper man,” said Mr. Mann, now a courts reporter for The Sun.

The two became friends, sometimes visiting Mr. Furgurson’s favorite spot, Galway Bay, for a pint of Guinness after work. Everyone there knew him and lovingly called him “boom boom,” a nickname from his days in the kitchen.

In 2018, when a gunman killed five staff members at The Capital, Mr. Furgurson became a “symbol of hope” along with other Capital reporters who worked that day, said Selene San Felice, a former Capital reporter.

Mr. Furgurson was across the street at the mall when he got the call. Joined by former Capital reporter and editor Chase Cook and photographer Josh McKerrow, the three began reporting on the shooting from the back of Mr. Furgurson’s pickup truck.

Mr. McKerrow recalled feeling distraught and unsure of what to do that day, but looked to Mr. Furgurson, who was busy making phone calls and talking to police.

“He was just doing what you’re supposed to do,” he said. “It was really inspiring to me, and I just said, ‘Okay, I’ll just do what Pat’s doing, I’ll follow Pat’s lead,’ and he really helped get me through the day.”

Though he wasn’t always in the newsroom and was sometimes difficult to keep track of, it was clear Mr. Furgurson believed in the newspaper and his fellow reporters in the wake of the shooting.

“I didn’t really realize until after the shooting like how much he really loved us, because he was always sort of doing his own thing, but he would have given anything, I think, to do whatever it took to help his coworkers,” Ms. San Felice said. “And he always put the rest of us first in that time.”

The Capital staff was awarded a special Pulitzer citation in 2019 for their coverage of the shooting. Mr. Furgurson, along with the rest of the Capital staff at the time, appeared on Time Magazine’s Person of the Year cover.

In 2020, Mr. Furgurson left The Capital, taking a buyout due to numerous health issues, Mrs. Furgurson said.

“He was devastated to do that, he was devastated to leave,” Ms. San Felice said. “It meant everything to him, I think, to be able to be there for his coworkers.”

Becoming housebound when the pandemic hit “took a huge toll” on him, Mrs. Furgurson said.

Mr. Furgurson was predeceased by his mother.

In addition to his wife of more than 35 years, his son, his father and his sister, Mr. Furgurson is survived by his stepmother Cassie T. Furgurson, of Washington, D.C.; brother-in-law Dennis J. Pogue, of Woodbridge, Virginia; an aunt; two nephews and four cousins.

Plans for a service have not been finalized.

A GoFundMe has been set up to help Mr. Furgurson’s family with medical bills and funeral expenses.

Have a news tip? Contact Natalie Jones at najones@baltsun.com, 443-679-7818 and x.com/nataliemjones.