Chuck Morgan, Eastside Journal publisher known as 'Mr. Kirkland,' dies at 98

Greg Morgan grew up hearing his mother tell the story of how fast his father, Chuck, fell in love with Kirkland.

Chuck and Florence Morgan had lived in Kirkland for just one month, back in the late 1940s, when he came home from his newspaper job and proclaimed, "I'm going to spend the rest of my life in Kirkland. I love this place."

And he did, aside from the last several months when he lived in Wenatchee to be near family.

Mr. Morgan, who died Friday at the age of 98, was known as "Mr. Kirkland" for the role he played as a journalist and community activist in building the city.

Besides being an editor, then publisher, of the Eastside Journal for almost three decades, he co-founded the Kirkland Performance Center and was active in the Kirkland Rotary Club and Chamber of Commerce.

He helped locate the site of the 520 bridge and Interstate 405, and campaigned for Bellevue Community College, Cascadia Community College and Evergreen Hospital Medical Center.

Mr. Morgan was also an avid Democrat.

"One time he made a speech to a senior center, then called me and said, 'You know, honey, I realize I'm different from other people. I get more liberal as I get older,' " recalled his longtime friend G.G. Getz. "He knew I was involved with the Obama campaign locally, and he said, 'You've got to get me an Obama sign for my window, because my neighbors just got a McCain/Palin sign.' "

Mr. Morgan grew up in Michigan and graduated from the University of Michigan. He left a job as a cub reporter in Bad Axe, Mich., to go on a canoeing expedition in Alaska.

The expedition never happened, but Mr. Morgan stayed in Alaska working for The Associated Press and the local post office, his son Greg said.

His future wife, a Seattleite who had moved to Alaska for adventure, was impressed by dispatches he wrote as a reporter embedded on a dogsled trip with the U.S. Army. They met in Alaska, married and had a son, who died when he was 2 years old.

Mr. Morgan served in the Army's signal corps in Alaska during World War II, then moved to California for two years before settling in Kirkland, where he and his wife raised two sons.

"He loved the people for their friendliness and openness," Greg Morgan said. "Having come from the cold of Michigan and the cold of Alaska and the remote standoffishness of people in California, he thought the people in Kirkland were much more welcoming."

Mr. Morgan also liked the city's size, which was about 3,500 when he moved there. "He was sold on helping towns grow," Greg Morgan said.

He pushed for Kirkland to have clean water, paved streets and a city-manager form of government. In the 1960s, he advocated for the merger of the adjoining town of Houghton with Kirkland, which had a combined population of 13,500.

Mr. Morgan sold the Eastside Journal in 1976 to a new owner who merged it with the Bellevue American to form the Journal American, Greg Morgan said. He continued for a few more years as an advising editor.

But he and his wife spent much of their retirement traveling the world, visiting every continent except Antarctica.

After his wife died in 2004, Morgan stayed more active than most people in their 90s who have had a quadruple heart bypass.

For his 95th birthday party, he tangoed on stage at the Kirkland Performance Center.

He also appeared in productions there, parasailed and traveled with a local ballet company to Russia.

Morgan is survived by son Doug and daughter-in-law Joyce of Wenatchee, son Greg and daughter-in-law Elena Love of San Jose, Calif.; grandsons Brian and Kevin; and five great-grandchildren.

Melissa Allison: 206-464-3312 or mallison@seattletimes.com