Ralph L. Seeley, born December 6, 1948, in Spokane, WA, is survived by his wife, Judith Tuffias Seeley; his parents, Karl (Major, USAF, retired) and Peggy Seeley; his sisters, Marty Seeley and Jeanne Boone; brother-in-law Brad Boone; and nieces Kelly and Meghan. After spending six years in the US Navy on a nuclear sub and as a member of the Blue Jacket Choir, he was honorably discharged. His degree from Evergreen State College was in journalism, and he became a columnist for the Bremerton Sun and the Tacoma News Tribune. He also was a free-lance writer and Managing Editor of the Western Flyer. Ralph's passions included fly fishing with his dad, flying small planes, classical music and jazz, cooking spaghetti sauce for friends, poker, and practicing law. He met his wife, Judith, in law school at UPS, and has been associated with Neil Hoff since he was admitted to the bar in 1993. He received the American Jurisprudence Award in the field of Evidence in the Spring of 1992. Ralph was an advocate of the medical use of marijuana. He died peacefully this past Wednesday night from complications of cancer, surrounded by family and friends. Please join us to celebrate Ralph's life on Saturday (TODAY), Jan. 24, 1998 at 3:45pm at Mt. View Valley Chapel, 4100 Steilacoom Blvd. SW, Tacoma. In lieu of flowers, donations to continue Ralph's work in civil rights law may be sent to the Ralph Seeley Civil Rights Fund, #96841 c/o Rainier Pacific Credit Union, P.O. Box 11628, Tacoma, WA 98411. Arrangements by Mountain View Funeral Home, 584-0252.
Published Tacoma News Tribune on 1/24/1998
OBITUARY: Lawyer, writer, pilot, fighter: Ralph Seeley, 49
Travis Baker, for The Sun
Memorial services for the former Sun columnist are set for Saturday.
Ralph Seeley was a flamboyant 37-year-old feature writer and columnist in 1986 when doctors told him the pain in his tail bone was cancer, a rare form called chordoma.
For 12 years he fought the disease, subjecting himself to numerous spinal and lung surgeries and chemotherapy, which left him retching in agony on the floor.
Seeley lived long enough to mount, and lose, a statewide battle to legalize the one thing that relieved the intense nausea -- smoking marijuana.
Wednesday night at Tacoma General Hospital, Seeley lost the fight against cancer, too. He died at age 49 just before 11 p.m.
He had collapsed at home on Saturday following a dinner party and was in a coma until he died.
He had been a Tacoma resident for a decade by then. He left The Sun to write columns for the Tacoma News Tribune. After the paper dismissed him, he went to law school, got his law degree and went to work for the Neil Hoff law firm.
It was while he worked there he made headlines in his first case by winning for his client a $9 million judgment against Western State Hospital for its demotion of the man. Neither he nor his client ever saw the money, though. The verdict was reversed on appeal.
Seeley's next cause was the legalization of leaf marijuana for medicinal purposes. There too he won a temporary victory, winning in Superior Court but seeing the victory slip away in an 8-1 reversal by the Washington State Supreme Court.
He campaigned last year for voter approval of Initiative 685. He appeared, emaciated, in television commercials supporting the proposal, which would have legalized a number of drugs for medicinal use and made major alterations in the state's drug laws.
The voters rejected the initiative in November. A narrower version of the measure, Senate Bill 6271, was offered by Sen. Jeanne Kohl last week.
Seeley had his causes while he wrote too. He protested the use of a respiratory drug he felt masked illness in thoroughbred race horses, and argued that a Bainbridge Island day care operator convicted of child molestation had been railroaded.
He had two horses of his own, which he pastured at what he called his ""tarpaper shack"" in Mason County. He owned and flew small planes and used money fronted to him by the Hoff firm in 1995 to buy the last one, a seaplane. He got a good year out of it, he said, before ill health forced him to sell it. He also had to give up his horses.
"Ralph has a million interests," said fellow attorney Jeff Steinborn. ""If there was a subject Ralph couldn't speak about in an entertaining and knowledgeable way, I never heard of it.""
He spent his last year learning to play the cello, a gift from his mother.
"He was one of the most unorthodox people you'll ever meet," said attorney Michael Clark, who shared an office with Seeley.
He wrote a novel before beginning his newspaper career. It was a memoir of his days working near nuclear reactors aboard Navy ships. He called it ""BOHICA,"" Navy slang for ""Bend over, here it comes again,"" he said. It never was published.
Among Seeley's survivors is his wife, Judith Tuffias, a fellow lawyer he met at the University of Puget Sound Law School.
A memorial service is scheduled for 3:45 p.m. Saturday at Mountain View Cemetery at 4100 Steilacoom Blvd. SW in Tacoma. The family is also setting up a civil rights fund to continue Seeley's work.
Published in the Kitsap Sun (WA), Friday, January 23, 1998
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