Adele Ferguson - Alaska plane crash brings memories of Joe Murphy

THEY FORGOT someone in the news stories that listed prominent persons who died in plane crashes in Alaska following the loss of former Sen. Ted Stevens Aug. 9.

Remember Joe Murphy?

Joe, state Democratic party chair from 1978 to 1981, was aboard a float plane that disappeared Sept. 20, 2004, in Alaska, with five people on board, including Joe, who was from Bremerton, and his twin brother, Jim, from Sequim. No sign of the plane was ever found and having flown over Alaska I am aware of the vast stretches of dense forest and many bodies of water into which it might have vanished.

He was ousted from the state chairmanship by a Jim McDermott-led coup that put control in the hands of Karen Marchioro and King County. After years of being managed by 78 state committeemen and women, two from each county, the rules were changed to add two more from each legislative district to the state committee. King County has the most legislative districts so that that took care of that.

Joe was a journeyman wire man for Puget Power when I met him, a burly, barrel-chested man with a handlebar moustache that was eight inches from side to side. He was a disorganized state chair who hardly ever returned telephone calls but he was one of the most totally honest people I every knew, except when forced by political expedience to tell the usual political lies and then that moustache of his quivered like a tuning fork.

In 1980, I asked him how Gov. Dixy Lee Ray was doing in her bid for re-election. “Super!” he said. “She can beat Bagnariol and Spellman.” What are John Rosellini’s chances for attorney general? “Super!” he said. “He’s a good Democrat.” Will Secretary of State Bruce Chapman run for governor?” “No, he’s flaky but not stupid.” Joe also had lined up Walla Walla prison warden Bobby Rhay to run against Senate GOP leader Jeannette Hayner. Rhay’s chances were, what else,”super,” said Joe.

THE WAY HIS MOUSTACHE was quivering, I knew he didn’t believe a word of what he was saying. Rhay didn’t run. After tricky Dixy got him to resign the warden post to be superintendent of two new prisons authorized in the budget, she vetoed the money for the prisons. Chapman ran for governor and lost. Rosellini was wiped out by publicity about his dealings as a lawyer. Bagnariol was Gamscammed so McDermott became Dixy’s primary opponent.

Murphy, of course, had to support Dixy against McDermott so McDermott put together the Karen Marchioro slate and did Murphy in. It was not an amiable takeover. The Marchioro crowd changed the lock on the office front door before Murphy’s staff could get their stuff out but they found another way in.

Murphy became a union business representative, which required some spiffying up. He called on me one day wearing a robin’s egg blue leisure suit, instead of his usual power lineman’s pants and shirt. His hair was a mass of curls and his once fat moustache with waxed ends drooped over his lip, surrounded by a beard. Is it you, Joe? I cried. It was. His wife curled his hair and encouraged that change in moustache, the old one being less kissable than the new, he said.

THE LAST TIME I saw him, he was a vice president of the state labor council, but he was the old wild and woolly Joe. No leisure suit. No curls.

I was sure of one thing. That when he was called before the Pearly Gates, he was warmly greeted with “Look who’s here! Joe Murphy, and Jim too. Come on in. We’ve been expecting you.”

(Adele Ferguson can be reached at P.O. Box 69, Hansville WA 98340.)