(5 of 10)
Visitors commonly marvel at the outgoing friendliness of Northwesterners. "People are simply more civil, more pleasant out here," says William Ruckelshaus, the former U.S. Deputy Assistant Attorney General, a native of Indianapolis who moved to Bellevue when he became a senior vice president of Weyerhaeuser, the timber giant. Perhaps one reason for the affability is that it is so easy to have a good time: just head outdoors. A resident of Spokane can be hunting birds after a short drive, and an hour can put him on the trail of bear, elk or moose.
Washington has half a million sports fishermen, and Seattle, which is 80% surrounded by water, leads the nation in boats per capita. There are more than 200,000 craft of all kinds and shapes in Puget Sound near the city, and on a summer weekend it looks like half of Seattle's population is afloat. Non-sailors are likely to be backpacking, fishing or climbing in the Cascades. The Mountaineers, a club with more than 9,000 members, gives expertly taught courses in such arts as rock climbing and traversing a glacier. To Easterners who are inured to driving for three to eight hours and then finding a rock-strewn trail, the skiing seems unbelievably accessible: half a dozen excellent runs lie within 90 minutes of Seattle. A cab driver's happy report to his customers this season: "Forty-two inches at Crystal. It's going to be a great year!"
In some ways Washington's Governor fits the pattern of the North westerner, but in many ways she does not, right down to the choosing of her name. The second oldest of five daughters of a Tacoma printer, Ray so hated her given first name that she rejected it completely. Her sisters know what it was, but won't say. The family started calling the mischievous child "the little Dickens," which evolved into Dixy. To that she added Lee (she is distantly related to Robert E. Lee) and legally changed her name at 16.
During the Depression, when land was cheap, Dixy's family bought 65 acres on Fox Island, 15 miles from Tacoma. It was there that Dixy began developing her interest in marine biology, studying what she calls "unpleasant, creepy, crawly things." She won a scholarship to California's Mills College and helped pay her way by working as a janitor. Ray, who has never married, earned her doctorate in 1945 from Stanford, and settled down to teach zoology at the University of Washington. She was an instant success —an enthusiast so genuine that students brought friends to hear her lecture. In the mid-'50s she took part in federal ocean-study programs, and later ran the Pacific Science Center, a museum that successfully reached out to the community.
When President Nixon named Ray to the Atomic Energy Commission in 1972, she buckled down with typical zeal to master the new discipline. "If you have to start learning a new field," she jokes, "it sure helps to begin at the top." She got along well with AEC Chairman James Schlesinger, another outspoken maverick, who admired her candor and persuaded Nixon to appoint her his successor. Ray insisted upon being called chairman, not chairperson. She has never been a feminist crusader—"I'm not a joiner type" —although, of course, she had been practicing women's lib all her adult life.