Mike Miller remembers the first time he met Paul Morford.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was 1977 and I walked up to his construction office as a young banker on his muddy walkway,\u201d said Miller, now president of Valley Bank in Kent.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had on my wingtips and my three-piece suit.\u201d<\/p>\n
Miller quipped wryly, \u201cHe always told people I loaned him money when I shouldn\u2019t have.\u201d<\/p>\n
With a directness that could be bracing – but a \u201cheart of gold,\u201d as Miller recalled, Morford was an indelible part of the Kent business community for many years. But he was a lot more than that. With his earnest support of everything from Boy Scouts to Habitat for Humanity – and the occasional explosive moment at City Hall – Morford left an even larger fingerprint in terms of civic-mindedness and a passionate desire to do things right.<\/p>\n
Kent is going to seem a lot quieter without Morford.<\/p>\n
The retired businessman and tireless community supporter died Sunday at 77 after a short battle with liver cancer. He died with his family members at his side, including wife Carol, to whom he had been married for 52 years.<\/p>\n
Morford leaves behind a legacy of civic involvement: from the Italian-made carousel in Town Square that he and Carol purchased for the city, to the local operations of the Boy Scouts, to the various city committees on which he served.<\/p>\n
Morford\u2019s fingerprint on Kent and the surrounding areas can be seen in other ways, too: in terms of the many construction projects his company DMS Construction completed, including residences and apartment complexes. That\u2019s in addition to the homes he helped get built for Habitat for Humanity, and for the the construction program he so earnestly supported at Green River Community College, with donations of land, building materials, and know how.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was just really driven,\u201d recalled Morford\u2019s son Ron. \u201cHe got up every morning at 4 a.m.; he tried to do many different things.\u201d<\/p>\n
One of those that touched Ron directly was Morford\u2019s passion for scouting. Ron and his two other brothers Gary and Dale all became Eagle Scouts, in large part because of their dad\u2019s determination that they achieve scouting\u2019s highest rank.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was a lot of pushing by Mom and Dad for all three of us,\u201d Ron said. \u201cMy dad when he was in scouts, always regretted not getting his Eagle Scout badge.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ron noted that when it appeared there wasn\u2019t going to be a \u201cden mother\u201d to lead the neighborhood scout troop (at that time women usually took the job) his father stepped up, leading Ron\u2019s troop.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was pretty unheard of for a male to be a den mother, but none of the moms would volunteer, so my dad volunteered,\u201d Ron said. \u201cI don\u2019t know if he was one of the first, but he was one of the few.\u201d<\/p>\n
Morford\u2019s interest in scouting culminated in leadership positions at the regional level, as well as helping chair the first Friends of Scouting luncheon two years ago at the ShoWare Center.<\/p>\n
Miller recalled Morford\u2019s intense interest in city government, which included serving on different city committees, as well as the occasional flare up that would occur when he believed the city was doing things the wrong way.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe would be over at city hall, and he would get so upset with people,\u201d Miller said, noting the passion came from a good place.\u201d He would come over here and debrief, and I\u2019d recommend maybe he go out on his boat and relax a couple of days.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think one of his goals in life was to make government more efficient,\u201d Miller added. \u201cTo his dying day, I think he was trying to accomplish that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ron, too, remembered hearing of some of his dad\u2019s classic moments at City Hall.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe had lots of battles with lots of mayors,\u201d Ron said. \u201cHe\u2019s probably legendary for going down there. But with good intentions.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mike Miller remembers the first time he met Paul Morford.
\n\u201cIt was 1977 and I walked up to his construction office as a young banker on his muddy walkway,\u201d said Miller, now president of Valley Bank in Kent.
\n\u201cI had on my wingtips and my three-piece suit.\u201d
\nMiller quipped wryly, \u201cHe always told people I loaned him money when I shouldn\u2019t have.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":217,"featured_media":3502,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-3501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3501"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/217"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3501"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3501\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3501"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=3501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}