Ansel Arthur Hemenway, 87, was a former Arizona Symphony violinist, rodeo stunt rider, college polo player, and mining-camp worker. He came to Seattle in the late 1930s as a Boeing engineer. For a while he was a part-time instructor at the University of Washington, and also obtained a master's degree in English lit there. He was an avid sailboat racer, a lifetime member of the Queen City Yacht Club, and a freelance writer-photographer for Yachting magazine. Upon his retirement from Boeing in the '70s, he became an aficionado of dancing. He formed a Greek folkdance troupe that danced at the Folklife Festival and at private parties, and taught tango lessons on his Lake Union houseboat. In his mid-60s he even worked as a Dance-O-Gram messenger. He was married four times, and spent his final years with one of his tango students, Elaine Ryssel, who described him as "the greatest love of her life" and as "one who loved as if he'd never been hurt." Hemenway died on October 24 from unspecified causes.
Warren Featherstone "Feather" Reid, 73, was a member of the inner circle of Washington politics for over four decades. The Wenatchee-born Reid served as a senior aide to several of the state's most prominent politicians, including U.S. Senator Warren Magnuson, Governors Booth Gardner and Mike Lowry, and U.S. Rep. Jim McDermott. He helped conceive and promote countless legislative agenda items, but was particularly concerned about health-care policy. Under Lowry he chaired the Washington State Board of Health, and was one of the prime shapers of the state's Basic Health plan. He also served as chairman of the UW School of Nursing. When he retired from public service, the state legislature created an annual award in his name to honor people and institutions promoting "Excellence in Health Care." Reid died on October 20 from heart failure