Luis Clay-Mendez had already cheated death once.

Accused of planting an explosive device in a movie theater, the Cuban military attempted to coax a confession out of Clay by intimidating him with a firing squad packing blanks.

“He thought he was done for,” Clay’s wife, Penny, said of an incident that occurred more than four decades ago.

Clay escaped and left Cuba soon thereafter. After staring death in the face, friends and family said Clay perceived life as a gift. That enthusiasm permeated his teachings and nearly every facet of his life.

Clay died Friday of a heart ailment at Sarah Bush Lincoln Health Center. He was 60.

“Luis had an indomitable spirit and unflinching courage,” said Faculty Senate Chair David Carpenter, who has known Clay for 16 years.

Recently, Clay took a stance on the Board of Trustees’ decision to offer interim President Lou Hencken a two-year contract extension. He defended the faculty’s request to mandate Eastern’s next president have a doctoral or terminal degree.

When Clay died, he was typing a letter praising student BOT representative Bill Davidson and an editorial written by The Daily Eastern News for showing the “integrity required to stand alone on the side of propriety, fair play and the tenet that the best decisions come as a result of consultation and inclusion.”

“There was nothing lukewarm about Luis,” Carpenter said. “He would champion causes and principles unlike anyone I have ever known.”

Survivors include his wife, Penny; one son, Edward Clay, of Springfield, Mo.; one brother, Jose Clay, of Miami; and two grandchildren.

Penny said extensive physicals in April revealed no heart ailments when Clay underwent hip surgery.

“We were completely surprised,” she said.

His deep beliefs in individual freedom resulted from a childhood in Communist Cuba. Clay was born May 26, 1943, in Havana, Cuba, the son of Joseph and Ofelia (Mendez) Clay.

He fled Cuba for America at 16 where he earned a bachelor’s degree in Spanish and mathematics at Southwest Missouri State University in Springfield, Mo. He earned his master’s and doctoral degrees in romance languages and literature at Washington University in St. Louis, Mo.

It was at Washington University Clay met his future wife, who was a graduate student in one of his classes.

“I was impressed from the first moment because he was such a good teacher,” Penny said. “All the new graduate students must observe for six weeks … once the six weeks were up, I asked him if I could stay in the class because I liked watching him teach so much.

“And that got him.”

Clay and Penny married Nov. 26, 1970, Thanksgiving Day, in Perry, Okla.

“His knowledge was wonderful as was his experience, but his enthusiasm,” Penny says, “you could not go to sleep in his class because he was so enthusiastic in what he was doing, you had to get interested in it.”

Clay came to Eastern as an associate foreign languages professor in 1980 and has been here ever since.

Friends said Clay lived life to its fullest, and his actions back that statement.

At Eastern, he was the Faculty Senate recorder, a member on the Presidential Search Committee and a foreign languages professor. Elsewhere, he served as a member of the Knight of Columbus, a captain of the Coast Guard Auxiliary and as a faculty sponsor of Sigma Delta Pi.

“He was absolutely a unique person,” Karen Taylor, an associate Spanish professor, said. “He had so much energy and so much love for everybody. He had so many friends, and not just professors, but administrators, secretaries, maintenance people. I think he knew everyone at the university.”

Carpenter said his friend had a “selfless dedication to humanity.”

In his free time, Carpenter said Clay served as Spanish interpreter in the court system for those who could not speak English. He also served as an interpreter for Cuban refugees in an Indiana penitentiary.

“He was enthusiastic about everything he did, that is my only consolation,” Penny said. “He didn’t waste a minute. He enjoyed everything he did, so nobody said, ‘Gosh, it’s too bad he didn’t do something because he did what he wanted to do.’

“He enjoyed everything so thoroughly.”