12 Facts About Booth Gardner

William Booth Gardner was an American politician who served as the 19th governor of Washington from 1985 to 1993.

Booth Gardner's service was notable for advancing standards-based education and environmental protection.

Booth Gardner's parents divorced when he was very young; through his mother's remarriage he became an heir to the Weyerhaeuser fortune.

Booth Gardner was a graduate of the University of Washington and Harvard Business School.

Booth Gardner's stepfather was Norton Clapp, one of the original owners of the Seattle Space Needle.

Booth Gardner co-owned the Tacoma Tides, who played for one year in the American Soccer League in 1976.

Booth Gardner was a part-time soccer coach for various teams, including the Tacoma Cozars.

Booth Gardner helped develop land-use and growth-management policies that made Washington an early environmental leader, steered hundreds of millions of dollars of increased spending toward state universities, increased standardized testing in public education, and improved legal protections for gay people.

On March 21,1992, Booth Gardner signed a measure that outlawed selling "obscene" music to minors in the state of Washington.

Booth Gardner said that he supported going even further than the current Washington and Oregon laws, to eventually permit lethal prescriptions for people whose suffering is unbearable without the requirement that the sufferer have a terminal condition.

Booth Gardner supported eliminating Washington's WASL test, a standardized test that was required to graduate high school.

Booth Gardner died of Parkinson's disease at age 76 at his Tacoma home on March 15,2013.