Editor’s Note: This story is part of a project recognizing LGBTQ+ people who have shaped Washington ahead of the 50th anniversary of Seattle Pride. To read more, click here . Cheryl Chow, a longtime Seattle educator and civic leader, made a momentous decision just months before her death from cancer at age 66: She would, in an interview with KING 5’s Lori Matsukawa , publicly come out.
In that interview in 2012, Chow said, “If I can save one child from feeling bad or even committing suicide because they felt terrible because they were gay, then I would have succeeded in my last crusade.” “It was her last public service,” said Chow’s widow Sarah Morningstar, in an interview last month. “She did it for the kids.
” Chow was startled by the attention her coming out received. “She was humble in that way, and super overwhelmed,” Morningstar said. “I said, ‘It matters, every voice matters.
Maybe you were the tipping point for someone; maybe that was the last time somebody needed to hear it before they decided it was OK.’ ..
. Every time one person stands up for something, you never know when that one person will become the critical mass.” Chow, a born-and-raised Seattleite, had spent her lifetime as an advocate for kids and families: as principal of Garfield and Franklin high schools, as a Seattle City Council member and president of the Seattle School Board, as a longtime coach of girls basketball and the Seattle Chinese Community Girls Drill Team.
“Sh.
