James A. Munoz, 39, was a staffer for Mayor Paul Schell, former City Council Member Martha Choe, and former Senator Slade Gorton. He was also a member of many Seattle gay organizations, and an AIDS survivor for nearly 20 years.
Jay Moriarity, 22, was one of surfing's leading stars (he'd made the cover of Surfer magazine at age 17). While visiting the Maldives for a tournament, he blacked out after diving too deep on an early-morning solo jaunt. In his honor, hundreds of fellow surfers gathered in the ocean off Santa Cruz, California, for a board-borne tribute.
Herb Rosen, 79, started luggage-manufacturing and music-distribution companies, but made his big fortune founding Skipper's Seafood 'n' Chowder Houses in 1969. At its peak, the Bellevue-based fast-food chain had over 200 outlets.
Ileen's Sports Bar on Broadway, formerly Ernie Steele's Checkerboard Restaurant, held its closing fixtures auction last week. One of Capitol Hill's oldest eating/drinking joints, it was beloved by generations of barflies for its honest American food, its stiff drinks, its smoke-stained walls, and its old-style bartenders quick to 86 problem drinkers.
James T. Ellis, 45, was a computer programmer who in 1979 helped create Usenet. One of the first popular Internet applications, it enabled users to write and read messages organized into topic-specific "newsgroups" with names like "rec.arts.startrek.tech" and "alt.sex.fetish.diapers."
The Annex Theatre closed its Belltown performance space, due to be razed for a hotel-office tower. The former Fred Astaire dance studio had hosted hundreds of plays, revues, skit-comedy shows, and less-classifiable events since 1988.
Mortimer Adler, 98, was a philosopher and educator who helped create the Great Books, a "program of learning" consisting of a 54-volume set of classical works and study guides listing the 102 "great ideas" found therein. It was a hit in the '50s among suburbanites who found Adler's handsomely bound "six-foot shelf of books" a great way to publicly display their eruditeness to the neighbors.
Chet Atkins, 77, recorded 75 albums of electric-guitar country pop since 1952, played on and/or produced hundreds of discs by others (including Elvis Presley and Hank Williams Sr.), and ran RCA Records' Nashville branch for 20 years.
Modjadji V, 64, was the only female tribal leader in modern-day southern Africa. She was the last of a line of "rain queens," traditionally believed to have held power over the weather.
