Scott Kingdon Sr., 51, started working for Ivar’s Acres of Clams restaurant as a 20-year-old fish fryer. He rose to become a major executive in the chain, and eventually its CEO. After the 1985 death of founder Ivar Haglund, Kingdon and other execs bought out the Haglund estate’s interest in the company, which also owns Kidd Valley Hamburgers. He and local advertising legend Terry Heckler became the keepers of Ivar’s zany “Keep Clam” image. Kingdon died from a heart attack in his office on September 11, while most of the local news media were occupied with other topics.
Harry E. Morgan Jr., 80, was a retired senior vice president at Weyerhaeuser Co. In the mid-’60s, he was one of the company’s major internal proponents of “High Yield Forestry,” a systematic formula for a forest tract’s clearcutting, planting (with specially bred seedlings), thinning, and recutting over several decades. Some environmentalists have complained over the years that the formula reduces the biodiversity of forest areas; its defenders claim it can triple the amount of usable timber from a commercial forest, so other forest lands can be set aside for preservation. Morgan died on September 21 from cancer.
Harry M. Cross, 88, was a senior professor in the UW School of Law for over 40 years; there, he was considered one of the nation’s top experts in divorce and community-property law. He was also big in intercollegiate sports, serving two terms as the NCAA’s national president and helping write its tighter eligibility rules for student athletes. But perhaps more importantly, he and his family were the official caretakers of the UW’s Husky mascot dogs since 1958. He died October 10 of complications from knee surgery.
Arts Patron magazine, the one-year-old bimonthly mailed to people who had given money to 11 major Seattle arts groups (including the Seattle Art Museum, Seattle Symphony, and Pacific Northwest Ballet), has suspended publication and apparently won’t resume any time soon. It was started by UW MBA students Jonathan P. Nicholas, Andrew Tempest, and Matthew Carr, and initially funded by a $25,000 grand prize won in a UW business-plan competition. In the words of an article in the UW alumni magazine Columns, the slick mag was intended (like the also recently deceased Metropolitan Living) to “draw advertisers coveting a Mercedes-driving, Chardonnay-sipping audience.”
While its editorial content (corralled by ex-P-I arts writer Douglas McLennan) was often topnotch, its “controlled circulation” concept meant many arts-minded Seattleites never saw it; and the post-dot-com-crash economy meant fewer luxury-advertising dollars were around to support it.