Sad end to snowy rescue effort

Published 10:40 pm Wednesday, January 2, 2008

EVERETT — William “Bill” Morgan, 67, spent his life helping others.

When he died Monday afternoon, strangers flocked to help him.

Morgan, a former Everett High School science teacher, was putting a chain saw away in a shed outside his cabin in Mazama, a small town at the east edge of the North Cascades, when the shed collapsed under the weight of deep snow.

Morgan’s significant other, Cathy Hefner, 55 — who considers herself married to Morgan after 13 years of being together — couldn’t help Morgan alone when she realized he was trapped beneath the heavy snow and rubble.

However, more than a dozen people in the small cabin community rushed to her aid, digging through the deep, powdery snow with their hands and shovels until they found Morgan’s body.

One teenage boy wearing shorts helped until his legs had turned purple in the cold. A young boy who appeared to be 8 or 9 years old rubbed Hefner’s back and comforted her with his words, she said.

“It was just unbelievable how hard they worked, and they never stopped,” Hefner said.

“They were just miracles,” she said.

A military funeral for Morgan is planned for 1 p.m. Monday at Evergreen Cemetery in Everett. The public is welcome to attend.

Morgan, who served in the Air Force as a flight navigator aboard B-52 bombers, fell in love with teaching after leaving the military. He joined the Everett High School staff in the mid-1990s and taught physics and astronomy until about three years ago.

For many years, Morgan entered his physics students in a national Physics Bowl competition. For at least six years, his students posted the highest average in the state on the physics exam. At least twice during that stretch, his students also brought home the highest scores in the Pacific Northwest.

Physics Bowl proved a far-reaching competition. Concepts could include topics such as acceleration rates of cars, electric and magnetic fields, relativity and nuclear physics.

Before moving to Everett, his students at Timberline High School in Lacey won two state and national championships.

Typically, Morgan was more pleased by how well his students did overall than how well they placed. In 1996, for instance, 24 of 27 students in his physics class scored at or above the national average on the test.

Recently, Morgan worked as a tutor at Everett Community College after spending a year teaching there.

“He looked like he was a serious, stern person, but he had a heart of gold,” said Deborah Engel, who lives next door to Morgan and Hefner and is a teacher in the Everett School District. “He will be missed.”

Hefner, who used to live in Atlanta, met Morgan over the Internet. They first met in person in 1993, and then she moved to Everett to be with him, she said.

He’s helped raise Hefner’s daughter, Rayanne Hefner, 25.

“He was always good to us,” Rayanne said. “He taught me to be organized, and how to always have fun with everything.”

Morgan was an avid outdoorsman. He enjoyed skiing and camping, and he once hiked the entire John Muir Trail — a 211-mile path through the Sierra Nevada mountains in California.

He loved life, Cathy Hefner said.

“He was a really nice, kind-hearted person,” she said. “He was totally into nature, and he was just ecstatic about that cabin.”

Reporter Scott Pesznecker: 425-339-3436 or spesznecker@heraldnet.com.