In the late 1990s, Ken Leghorn and his friend Sam Skaggs sat on a sailboat in a bay near Sitka, ready to turn in for the night. Then Leghorn\u2019s phone rang.<\/p>\n
At the time, Leghorn was the owner of Alaska Discovery<\/a>, a company that took people on excursions through the Alaska wilderness. On the other end of that phone call that night, someone informed Leghorn that one of the patrons on an Alaska Discovery trip was dealing with stomach problems.<\/p>\n Leghorn wasted no time.<\/p>\n \u201cHe just called a plane in to our boat,\u201d Skaggs remembers, \u201cjumped on to the plane and went to help his client. That\u2019s just the kind of guy he was.\u201d<\/p>\n Friends have been telling similar stories about Leghorn recently, as the adventurer and wilderness conservationist died April 11 at the age of 62 after a seven-month battle with pancreatic cancer.<\/p>\n As Leghorn\u2019s daughter Yana Warner described it, Leghorn\u2019s close ties with a multitude of people in the Juneau \u201caccumulated more people into our family.\u201d Leghorn\u2019s death has served as a family reunion of sorts, with people from all over the country sharing their stories about Leghorn.<\/p>\n They share their stories with Leghorn\u2019s widow Julie Coppens as well as with Warner, Leghorn\u2019s daughter from a previous marriage. Coppens refers to herself as \u201cthe richest widow in town,\u201d not in a monetary sense but in terms of how much support and care has erupted from all corners of the city and the state.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you marry someone like Ken Leghorn, part of the deal is, you have to share him,\u201d Coppens said. \u201cHe belongs to Juneau, he belongs to Alaska. He doesn\u2019t belong to me.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cCrazy\u201d stories <\/strong><\/p>\n It\u2019s hard to nail down what to refer to Leghorn as, because so many titles fit: adventurer, philanthropist, musician, organizer, volunteer.<\/p>\n He was certainly an outdoors enthusiast. After growing up near Boston and earning a biology degree from Williams College in Massachusetts, Leghorn came to Alaska for the first time in the late 1970s. He attempted to climb Denali, turning back when a friend started suffering from altitude sickness.<\/p>\n That expedition was meant to be a one-time adventure in the state, but the state quickly won him over. He did anything to stay in Alaska, working odd jobs and even living in a school bus for a time in Juneau. He joined Alaska Discovery as a guide and eventually bought it, leading people expertly through the state\u2019s harsh terrain.<\/p>\n The tales about Leghorn\u2019s various adventures throughout the state aren\u2019t surprising in the least to Warner.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re all pretty crazy stories,\u201d Warner said, \u201cbut I knew he was a pretty crazy guy.\u201d<\/p>\n Warner, who is currently a sophomore at Portland State University, accompanied him on some of those trips. She remembers one instance where she and her father visited a few of his friends in Kotzebue up north and went dogsledding when she was just 4 years old.<\/p>\n She doesn\u2019t have a ton of vivid memories from those early trips, mostly remembering how she tried to steal candy bars whenever possible. Looking back on those excursions and later ones she rook with Leghorn, she realizes that going out into the world \u2014 whether it\u2019s out dogsledding or out in a big city \u2014 is a more valuable learning experience than anything one can get in a classroom.<\/p>\n Leghorn was constantly learning, Skaggs said, and seemed to never waste a minute of his time.<\/p>\n \u201cKen packed two lives into one lifetime,\u201d Skaggs said. \u201cHe had enough energy and go and vision and he just executed on that vision all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n Shifting focus<\/strong><\/p>\n As he got older, Leghorn shifted his focus to philanthropy, finding that he not only enjoyed supporting causes, but he was good at it.<\/p>\n He\u2019s one of the founding members<\/a> of the Juneau Community Foundation and served 17 years on the Alaska Conservation Foundation board. He was the chair of the ACF board for a while, helping raise the foundation\u2019s endowment to $3 million.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not easy to raise big money, and Ken got it,\u201d Skaggs said, \u201cbecause he connected people with their own passions. That\u2019s why he was successful.\u201d<\/p>\n That ability to relate to people immediately stood out to others. Coppens met Leghorn just a few years ago at an annual event in Bend, Oregon, called Ski for Light. Here, volunteers including Coppens and Leghorn would work with blind people who were looking to learn how to ski.<\/p>\n