Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, January 3, 1994 TAG: 9401030125
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: SEATTLE LENGTH: Medium
Ray had suffered from a severe bronchial condition for several months, said KIRO-TV commentator Lou Guzzo, a longtime friend.
Ray showed her mettle early. At 12, she became the youngest girl to climb Mount Rainier, Washington's highest peak.
Fifty years later, at 62, she was sworn in as the state's first woman governor - the only one so far.
An outspoken supporter of the nuclear industry, she was head of the Atomic Energy Commission from 1973 until 1975. She was governor from 1977 to 1981.
She issued her latest no-nonsense commentary on nuclear issues Thursday, when she dismissed media reports about past federal radiation experiments as alarmist.
"Everybody is exposed to radiation. . . . A little bit more or a little bit less is of no consequence," Ray said.
She also had no patience for environmentalists she considered too strident. She and Guzzo, her policy adviser while governor, co-wrote two books on the subject, Ray "Trashing the Planet" and "Environmental Overkill."
When then-President Nixon appointed her to the AEC in 1972, she startled observers in Washington, D.C., by living in a motor home and taking her dogs to work.
When the AEC was phased out, she was named assistant secretary of state.
Ray returned to Washington state in 1975, complaining that Secretary of State Henry Kissinger had given her the cold shoulder.
Her straightforward political style frequently ruffled feathers. When she succeeded Gov. Dan Evans and dismissed virtually his entire administration, she also dismissed the outcry that followed.
"No one owns a job," Ray said. "From know on, we'll send them a Kleenex at the time they're fired if they're going to be a crybaby."
A Boeing Co. lobbyist called her "the best friend business ever had."
by CNB