SEATTLE, Wash. – James William Nichols, 96, an English professor at Winona State University for 32 years and also long-term department chair, died at a veterans hospital. His Shakespeare students delighted in his clipped British accent. which he picked up during graduate studies at the University of Birmingham.  He also held degrees from the University of Missouri and the University of Washington. He wrote numerous academic articles as well as the young adult novel “Boundary Waters.” Travel was central to his life. He camped on six continents and most countries in Europe, staying long enough, he said, to pay taxes in five. In world War II he was with the U.S. Army’s 398th Infantry Regiment.

1924-2021