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’s phone rang.
At the time, Leghorn was the owner of Alaska Discovery, 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.
Leghorn wasted no time.
“He just called a plane in to our boat,” Skaggs remembers, “jumped on to the plane and went to help his client. That’s just the kind of guy he was.”
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.
As Leghorn’s daughter Yana Warner described it, Leghorn’s close ties with a multitude of people in the Juneau “accumulated more people into our family.” Leghorn’s death has served as a family reunion of sorts, with people from all over the country sharing their stories about Leghorn.
They share their stories with Leghorn’s widow Julie Coppens as well as with Warner, Leghorn’s daughter from a previous marriage. Coppens refers to herself as “the richest widow in town,” 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.
“When you marry someone like Ken Leghorn, part of the deal is, you have to share him,” Coppens said. “He belongs to Juneau, he belongs to Alaska. He doesn’t belong to me.”
“Crazy” stories
It’s hard to nail down what to refer to Leghorn as, because so many titles fit: adventurer, philanthropist, musician, organizer, volunteer.
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.
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’s harsh terrain.
The tales about Leghorn’s various adventures throughout the state aren’t surprising in the least to Warner.
“They’re all pretty crazy stories,” Warner said, “but I knew he was a pretty crazy guy.”
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.
She doesn’t 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 — whether it’s out dogsledding or out in a big city — is a more valuable learning experience than anything one can get in a classroom.
Leghorn was constantly learning, Skaggs said, and seemed to never waste a minute of his time.
“Ken packed two lives into one lifetime,” Skaggs said. “He had enough energy and go and vision and he just executed on that vision all the time.”
Shifting focus
As he got older, Leghorn shifted his focus to philanthropy, finding that he not only enjoyed supporting causes, but he was good at it.
He’s one of the founding members 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’s endowment to $3 million.
“It’s not easy to raise big money, and Ken got it,” Skaggs said, “because he connected people with their own passions. That’s why he was successful.”
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.
[Skiing into the unknown: Juneau cross-country skiers volunteer with blind, visually impaired]
Coppens was having a particularly difficult time with a man named Chris whom she was working with, but Leghorn came over and began a conversation with Chris where he made him feel more comfortable. Leghorn didn’t say much, just asking Chris a few questions, but Coppens could see that Chris was beginning to relax.
“He never got frustrated,” Coppens said. “He never got cynical. He just kept plugging away trying to do new things. That’s a lesson for me. I get discouraged and I do tend to jump to judgment. … I’m still learning from him.”
Coppens’ son Seth expressed a similar sentiment, saying that hearing stories from old friends of Leghorn’s has left an impression. Leghorn, an avid violinist, worked with Seth quite a bit over the past couple years with the instrument.
Leghorn’s exploits with the violin were known all over the state. He took the instrument with him on some trips, serenading coves and forests throughout the state as he launched into song from his kayak.
“He had such an affection for joyful things,” Coppens said, “and music was definitely a big part of that.”
One of Leghorn’s final projects was to raise funds for a performing arts center in Juneau. Even just a couple weeks before his death, Leghorn was still making trips and helping set up fundraisers for the center.
He remained as active as he could in his final months, whether it was assisting with a shipment of fish from Sitka to Washington, D.C., for a fundraising dinner there or going to a show at Folk Fest. When he had to stay in the house, he set up his bed in his living room to gaze out the large window there to watch birds.
Leghorn had previously served on the board at Audubon Alaska, a conservation nonprofit based in Anchorage, and Audubon planned an event in May where Leghorn would blog about the birds he was watching from home.
Now that Leghorn is gone, Audubon is inviting others to record the birds they see, in honor of Leghorn.
The fact that he was so active and involved in his final months wasn’t lost on Warner. The past few months weren’t easy, but she made sure to visit a few times and call her father often. She ensured him that the lessons he taught her, such as being sure to treat others with kindness and understanding, had stuck with her.
Seeing Leghorn’s legacy continue through his vast collection of friends has also stuck with Warner.
“You’ll always have those connections and you’ll always have those people who can be there with you or for you,” Warner said.
Those people have come out in droves in recent weeks, many of them telling stories akin to Skaggs’ anecdote from that sailboat two decades ago. Those connections, more like family than friends, were happy to be part of his adventures, and now they feel fortunate to be able to share memories of him.
• Contact reporter Alex McCarthy at alex.mccarthy@juneauempire.com or 523-2271.
