R. Moke McGowan, 74, a Columbia resident who served as senior marketing director and director of the state tourism department during Governors David Beasley and James Hodges administrations, died peacefully on April 10, 2024, after a battle with lung cancer.

He is survived by his wife Pamela Lynne McGowan; brother, Frederick M. McGowan (Rosie) of Las Vegas, NV; nephew, Patrick McGowan; niece, Renee McGowan; as well as many other great nieces, nephews, and extended family.

With a strong background in both parks and destination tourism marketing, McGowan was recruited to the South Carolina Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism (SCPRT) in 1997 from the west coast where he was doing contract work for the Oregon Parks and Tourism Commission. Prior to that, he worked for the San Francisco Convention and Visitors Bureau and Pier 39 in San Francisco. In his capacity as State Tourism Director, McGowan was charged with authoring a Tourism Memorandum of Understanding between South Carolina and the state of Queensland, Australia. The relationship with Queensland ultimately resulted in the Riverbanks Zoo acquiring two koalas.
In 2004 McGowan was recruited to the Long Island Convention and Visitors Bureau as President and CEO. He took over a beleaguered organization whose previous president had been convicted of misuse of public funds and whose future funding was in doubt. He was credited with re-establishing the organization's integrity and credibility and secured increased and long-term funding.

An avid golfer who had played extensively in Scotland and England, McGowan retired in October 2014 and returned to South Carolina. A year later, his college sweetheart, Pamela Lynne Rainforth, whom he hadn't seen in 45 years, reconnected with him on Facebook from Coeur D'Alene, Idaho. Within a year Pamela relocated to Columbia and the couple married in October 2016.

The couple became volunteers together in the Lexington Medical Center's Cardio/Rehab Department. Pam distributed the voluminous cardio educational materials among the various cardio departments and floors throughout the hospital. As an open-heart patient himself at LMC in 2015, McGowan, became one of five "Visiting Hearts" in a new volunteer program at the hospital. It entailed meeting with patients and their families either before they had open heart surgery or immediately after in the Cardio Intensive Care Units. As a Visiting Heart McGowan worked to assuage the anxieties patients and their families might have regarding the procedure and the positive impacts it would have on their quality of life after the procedure. McGowan's easy-going but straight forward manner earned a fair amount of respect from the professional nursing staff he worked with.

A Celebration of Life event for Moke's friends will be held in the coming months. Shives Funeral Home, Trenholm Road Chapel, is assisting the family and will announce further plans.

In lieu of flowers, friends are encouraged to donate to a cancer organization of their choice.