Brian Willoughby, a former Columbian social-issues reporter who went on to champion compassionate causes such as children’s mental health, housing for the homeless, diversity and civil rights, died in a house fire on Tuesday evening. He was 56 years old and is survived by two children, Clara and Jay.
Willoughby frequently described his latest job as the best gig anybody could have: granting dollars to human-service projects as director of community benefit at Legacy Health. In recent weeks, he saw to it that $150,000 went to Boys & Girls Clubs of Southwest Washington for part-time mental health therapists at three of its clubhouses. Earlier this year, he helped launch Portland’s Unity Center for Behavioral Health, a dedicated mental health “emergency room” that’s an innovative partnership project among Legacy and other major local health care players.
“We are in a state of shock,” said Matthew Butte, development director for Children’s Center, a homegrown Vancouver nonprofit agency that provides mental health treatment for uninsured children and their families. Willoughby was on the board of directors and a passionate advocate for that cause.
“He was a constant source of perceptive advice and support,” said Children’s Center Executive Director Pat Beckett. “One of Brian’s many gifts was his incredible joy for life. In keeping with Brian’s spirit, we ask that everyone do an unexpected and unsolicited act of kindness for someone in need, in his name.”
Fellow activist Kathy Deschner, who works for the Battle Ground Prevention Alliance, wrote on Facebook that Willoughby was “the reporter who wrote the heart of the story brilliantly, and faced tough topics head on … the incredible and devoted dad through the best and most difficult times; the admired community leader who had a hard time saying no when anyone needed help; the courageous advocate for those who needed a voice; the loving friend we were so blessed to have; the living breathing example of compassion.”
“We are deeply saddened by the news. Brian Willoughby was well known for his contagious laugh and smile, his community spirit and his desire to help in any way he knew how,” said a statement from Bryce Helgerson, president of Legacy Salmon Creek Medical Center.
True home
Willoughby was a native of Woodland, Calif., and a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley. He worked at several newspapers before landing a job at The Columbian and coming to Vancouver with his wife, Deborah, who worked on the newspaper’s copy desk.
Willoughby worked at The Columbian from 1990 to 2002, and made a name for himself as a voice of compassion and personal insight in many articles about social issues — he even traveled to Albania in 1999 with local relief volunteers to cover the refugee crisis there — and columns about family life.
Readers found out what friends already knew: Willoughby was insightful, witty and huge-hearted. He had a wicked sense of humor and could summon toughness and skepticism as reporters must, but his big belly laugh bespoke nothing but kindness and joy.
With friends and loved ones, he was a specific-yet-expansive compliment-payer: “One of Brian Willoughby’s most endearing traits was that he would remind me over the years of ways he appreciated me or my family,” Debbie Nelson wrote on Facebook. “Thank you for teaching me, Brian, how very kind and heartfelt it is to appreciate out loud.”
Vancouver was Willoughby’s true home, he came to realize over the years. He followed other paths several times — once to accept a highly prized Knight Fellowship program in journalism, spending a year at Stanford University, and again when he moved to Montgomery, Ala., to work for the anti-racist Southern Poverty Law Center and its publication for educators, “Teaching Tolerance.”
But both times, Willoughby returned to Vancouver with Deborah and their children — telling friends that he’d realized this town was where he belonged. He spent three years as communications director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon and one year as outreach director for U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., before going to work for Legacy.
“As a wanderer,” he once wrote in a Columbian column, “I hadn’t yet learned this rule of life: You don’t really know how deep your roots are until you begin to pull them up. Turns out in 10 years here my roots have grown deeper than I ever expected or ever knew.”
‘Extraordinary’
People close to him knew that Willoughby’s life had serious ups and downs. Passionate about erasing stigma from people with mental illness, he didn’t mind talking about his own struggles with depression.
In recent years, Willoughby and his wife divorced, and he came out as gay and enjoyed a whirlwind romance with Alexander Wendeheart. Willoughby and Wendeheart got engaged and planned to be married this summer.
Willoughby’s Facebook page — where he frequently posted positive or poignant thoughts about everything from life and community to the cheery flowers in his garden — is now awash in tributes from friends, co-workers and even admirers who never met the man but say they remember his wonderful writing from years earlier.
“I guess I’m more of a fan than a friend, but I’ve known and followed him for years. I loved his writing and treasure the Christmas morning cinnamon roll recipe he shared in The Columbian — probably 20 years ago,” Janet Jackson Charles wrote. “I admired his honesty about his struggle with depression. I watched his coming out with awe … and thrilled at the love and joy he found with (Alexander). We have lost a beautiful and brave human being.”
“Brian Willoughby had a knack for making others feel not only special but extraordinary,” wrote Dave Magnuson, a copy editor at The Columbian. “His wit, pleasantness and zest for life — even when life encountered its challenges — will be missed but never forgotten.”
One of his last messages to Facebook friends was classic Willoughby: an appreciation of fragile beauty in a tough world. On March 27, he paused to photograph vibrant flowers that were growing up through sidewalk cracks.
He wrote: “The promise of spring, even on a gray day.”
