Ralph Munro, who worked to improve the lives of people with disabilities, hone Washington’s electoral system, stopped the capture of Orcas in Puget Sound, and served as Secretary of State from 1980 to 2000, died Thursday, and has long been a much-loved politician. He was 81 years old.
His death was announced by the Secretary of State’s office.
Munro is the grandson of Stonemason, of Scotland, who helped shape the sandstone blocks that built the Capitol in Olympia, where he serves five terms, leading the earthquake change to make voting easier for Washington residents. But his legacy is probably defined as many as the campaigns he created outside of his elected office.
As Governor Dan Evans’ aide, he spent part of the day in a wheelchair and made him understand what it was like. He helped expand state laws to protect people with disabilities from discrimination and helped pass the state’s “all education” law in 1971.
“Ralph was the one who taught me how to take care of me,” Evans, who passed away last year, said when Munro retired as Secretary of State.
Evidence of Munro’s advocacy can be seen on many street corners. He lobbyed for a bill that required curbs to have lamps to accommodate wheelchairs. In 1973, the Federal Americans with Disabilities Act passed almost 20 years before the law.
“The fact that in this community we cut out the sidewalks in the corner so that wheelchairs can move up and down the street is merely an expanded shadow of Ralph Munroe,” said Jim Drover, a former Supreme Court judge of the state Supreme Court who passed away in 2004.
People with disabilities were largely shunned by a society stuck at state institutions when a chance encounter with Evans led Munro to work in the governor’s office.
Munroe has become friends with Terry Sullivan, a seven-year-old boy with developmental disorder who was abandoned as a toddler. He began volunteering at Fircest School in Shoreline, where Terry lived. Evans arrived at the school on March 21, 1968 to dedicate the new building. Munro introduced him to Terry. He made an impression.
A few months later, Evans appointed Munro at the age of 24 and headed a committee studying volunteer work. Two years later, he became the state’s first volunteer coordinator.
Munro eventually became Terry’s legal guardian.
He served Evans as an aide to Education and Social Affairs, helping President Richard Nixon coordinate the volunteer program and establishing action, a short-lived government agency that oversees Vista and the Peace Corps.
“Ralph Munroe was a dedicated servant of the people,” Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs said in a statement prepared Thursday, “using his compassion and his commitment to improving the lives of people across Washington and the world.”
In 1975, as many Vietnamese refugees arrived in the United States, California Governor Jerry Brown said he didn’t want to resettle in California. Enraged, Evans sends Munro to a military base in California. California temporarily housed refugees with instructions to invite them to settle in Washington.
“He said, ‘If you see Jerry Brown’s son, it just reminds him that it’s saying to the Freedom Statue Base,” Munro recalled.
Washington, where there was virtually no Vietnamese community at the time, now has the third largest Vietnamese population in the country.
Munro was Evans’ aide. In 1976, he took place in an Orca hunt when he sailed at Bad Inlet near Olympia. Whales are chased by aircraft, speedboats and firecrackers.
“That just didn’t seem right,” Munro recalled in 2018. “I went down the street and saw someone kicking a dog.”
He called Evans and then-chairman General Slade Gorton, and the three worked through federal court to ban the capture of the Washington Orca.
“He was a catalyst,” said Gorton, who passed away in 2020.
In the fight and others, Munro said he had learned to listen to protesters. “You might think their ideas are a bit off-center,” he said in 2018.
In 1980, at age 37, Munro began a campaign for Secretary of State, running as a moderate Republican. He won by just 2% points and embarked on a push to make voting easier and more convenient.
Munroe established mail-in voting in state elections, published the first Braille voter information pamphlet, and created the “Athletic Voters” Act, which allows residents to register for the ballot as soon as they apply for their driver’s license.
He also traveled with trade and cultural duties abroad, including the Soviet Union in 1990, and became an informal ambassador to the world of Washington.
He was re-elected four times and his opponent never came within his 15 points.
He probably won his sixth term, but Manroe I’ve moved on When he was 57, when he told a Seattle Times reporter in 2000, he “watched too many old men hanging around the building for a long time.”
More than 800 Democrats and Republicans have appeared in his retirement party. Then gov. Gary Locke and five former former living governors of Washington were there to celebrate Munro, who preached bipartisan cooperation in the Capitol hall.
“People send us here to get something done,” Munro said in his retirement. “Whether you’re a Republican or a Democrat, they don’t care.”
Ralph Davis Munro was born in Seattle on June 25, 1943, but grew up on Bainbridge Island. His father, George, was an electrician who worked at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard throughout both world wars and his mother, Elizabeth, taught kindergarten and first grade.
He graduated from Bainbridge High School and West Washington State University (now West Washington University), where he studied education and political science.
He graduated from university and began his career in the state government while working as a supply clerk in the basement of the Capitol.
He also worked as an industrial engineer at Boeing, Renton.
Munro married his first wife, Karen Hanson in 1973, and had one son, George, born in 1977. They divorced in 2012, and Munro married Nancy Van in 2013.
In addition to his politics known for his sense of humor in cornballs, Munroe often defeated the bagpipes, wearing quilts to start legislative sessions.
He contributed to multiple wildlife conservation efforts; Advocate for the facility Bald eagle in the sanctuary of the Skajit River.
After his election career, he funded the Education Center at Lime Kiln Point State Park on San Juan Island.
He continued to volunteer, ringing bells every Christmas season for the Salvation Army, helping out at an elementary school near Olympia, serving at least 12 boards and committees.
“Today, people are looking to find fulfillment in all these troublesome places,” Munro said in 2000.
