Former Sumner High principal and Puyallup-area community fundraiser passes away
Marilee Hill-Anderson was stuck.
The gravel and grass in the driveway of her South Tacoma home made it nearly impossible to push her husband’s wheelchair to and from the car.
Hill-Anderson didn’t know where to turn.
After mentioning it to friends, a 90-year-old man from her Rotary Club and two others showed up with shovels and supplies to build a concrete driveway.
“Bill contributed wherever he could to make people’s lives better on the smaller scale, on a larger scale,” Hill-Anderson said.
Bill Heath, a former Sumner High School principal and local philanthropist, passed away on Jan. 17 at 97. Family said he died in his sleep of old age.
Heath was a member and former president of the Rotary Club of Sumner and former director of the Puyallup Chamber of Commerce. Last year, he was awarded one of the Rotary Club’s highest honors, the lifetime achievement award.
As part of those organizations, Heath worked to create the Sumner Food Bank and the Sumner Family Resource Center and build the Bill Health Sports Complex.
Heath spent a decade raising money, pulling together work parties and leveraging his relationships as an educator to create a sports complex that includes a baseball field, two youth baseball fields, two soccer fields, two volleyball courts, a basketball court, tennis courts, a jogging trail and a skate park.
Heath documented a list of more than 1,800 contributors. The project was completed in 2001.
Sumner Mayor Bill Pugh declined to be interviewed but provided a statement saying Heath served Sumner in many ways and will be missed.
“I had the pleasure of being able to honor Bill while he was still with us, when we renamed the sports complex in his honor,” Pugh said. “That facility wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for his steadfast determination to build a place for all ages to be active.”
His life
Heath was born May 26, 1923 in Wesleyville, Pennsylvania, near Lake Erie as the middle of three boys. Much of his childhood was spent outside playing sports, said his eldest daughter, Becky Eichler. She said that might have been his motivation to push for the sports complex.
“His philosophy was that if every kid could have that childhood, it could cure half the problems in this country,” she said.
Heath was drafted after high school to fight in World War II. He was a prison guard as a member of the military police.
On D-Day in 1944, Heath stormed Omaha Beach in the second wave of attack. He observed much of the battle from a foxhole, Eichler said.
Heath was honorably discharged as a private first class in 1945 and went to college in Ohio.
He returned home to Pennsylvania and married Jane Martin. Heath would recall how he fell in love with her while she was riding a horse 10 years prior. When he returned from college, she was working at his parents’ diner. They were married on Dec. 23, 1950, in Erie, Pennsylvania.
They moved to Washington for his master’s degree at Washington State University.
The Heaths moved around Washington as Bill Heath coached high school sports. They had three children: Becky Eichler, Sue Elzig and Bill David Heath. Bill Heath taught in Centralia, Dayton and Snohomish. His first of four principal jobs began in Fairfield in Spokane County and he continued in Colfax and Yakima.
In 1975, the family moved to Sumner where he headed the local high school.
Eichler and the younger Bill Heath described their father as a workaholic. He always came home for a 5:30 p.m. dinner, laid on the living room floor for a 10-minute nap, then went back to the school until about 9 p.m.
One of his closest friends, Jerry Vandenberg, said the two of them worked to upgrade the high school’s theater. While the school had enough money to buy the equipment, they needed to outfit the theater. Bill Heath enlisted Vandenberg and his background in architecture to help raise funds.
Bill Heath retired in 1981 when the job became less about direct involvement with the children and more systemic and legal, Eichler said.
Retirement
In retirement, he became more active in the community. Friends spokes of his genuine care.
His former Presbyterian pastor Steven Starr said Heath was a classy, mild-mannered guy.
“In Rotary Club, they say service above self, and he was epitome of that,” Starr said.
Many friends and relatives described him as selfless.
“There is a Bill Heath way of getting things done. He was gregarious, very outgoing but very humble at the same time,” Rotary Club of Sumner president Sherm Voiles said.
Vandenberg said Heath was full of character.
“I think that’s one of the things that impressed me about him. He would say, ‘Wait a minute, let’s fix the problem and not the blame the person and the complain about it for the rest of your life,’” Vanderberg said. “He was like a lighthouse for the community: find the problem and gather the resources to fix it.”
He helped his hometown in Pennsylvania create a World War II wall of fame.
“He helped them organize a fundraiser and help them go through the process to get community donations,” his son said. “He kind of advised them and helped them rebuild this memorial.”
Bill and Jane Heath moved into an assisted care facility in Cashmere, Washington to be closer to Eichler in 2019. Jane Heath died in November 2019, and Bill was on hospice a month later, Eichler said. They were married a month short of 70 years.
He passed away in his sleep 13 months after his wife.
Eichler said the hallmark of her father was his gratitude and his “extraordinary ordinary life.” He carried a list of “Five Simple Things to be Happy” in his wallet: “1) Free your heart from hatred - forgive, 2) Free your mind from worries most never happen, 3) Live Simply and appreciate what you have, 4) Give more, 5) Expect less.
“He had this innate gratitude for everything he ever had,” Eichler said of her father.
She agreed that he was like a lighthouse.
“You couldn’t not notice him, even though he didn’t try to be noticed. I think he did try to light the way to a safe harbor for people,” she said of the analogy. “He wanted everybody to have a good and safe and happy life like he did.”
