[Vision2020] Moscow loses one of its 'best pilots'

[Moscow Cares]

Courtesy of today’s (August 14, 2018) Moscow-Pullman Daily News.

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Moscow loses one of its 'best pilots'
Mayor Gary Scott, force behind the city's highway bypasses, Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival, has died

Gary Scott, former Moscow mayor and naval aviator who served four tours in Vietnam, died Monday at the age of 84.

Born in Syracuse, N.Y., in March 1934, Scott knew he wanted to be a pilot from a young age, his daughter, Pamela, said.

"He fell in love with airplanes when his older sister was dating a pilot during World War II," Pamela said.

Scott would go on to serve in Vietnam, working as a test pilot between tours.

"He was tier one, best of the best pilots," his son, Douglas, said. "He didn't go through Top Gun because it didn't exist, but that's the level he was teaching at the Test Pilot School at Patuxent River, (Md.) - he then returned as Deputy Director."

For his last overseas tour, Scott's children said he was weapons officer aboard the USS Oriskany decades before it was sunk off the coast of Pensacola, Fla., to become a reef in 2006.

After serving aboard the Oriskany, Scott transferred to the University of Idaho to teach aeronautical sciences and to become the second in command of the school's naval ROTC program.

"We fell in love with Moscow, and he decided to retire there rather than to be transferred," Pamela said.

While living in Moscow, Scott practiced realty and served on the planning and zoning commission where, Douglas said, Scott agitated for cleaning up the city's downtown.

He won the mayorship in 1985 and, during his four-year term, oversaw some of Moscow's most formative moments, including dedicating the UI's school of music and jazz festival to Lionel Hampton.

"My dad gave Lionel Hampton the key to the city," Douglas said. "In fact, we had Lionel Hampton, Dizzy Gillespie, Larry Brown Trio, Ella Fitzgerald, Dianne Reeves - all in our house at dinner."

Douglas said his father also oversaw the revitalization of Moscow's downtown corridor, including the installation of the freeway bypasses that are still in place today. After his stint as mayor, Scott ran for state senate in the spring of 1990 but had to drop out of the race after breaking his hip running in Bloomsday in Spokane, Douglas said.

As the years added up, Scott and his wife decided to move east to be closer to family, eventually settling in Harrisonburg, Va., close to where Douglas lived with his family.

"They lived an hour away from us, just over the Shenandoah Valley, and we would go visit back and forth," Douglas said. "There was nothing that wasn't resolved, no conversations were untouched, there was no secrets no baggage or anything and he died a happy man ready to go meet his Savior and passed just peacefully."

Scott's children said arrangements have been made to have his remains interred at Arlington National Cemetery with his son, Andrew Gordon Scott, who died in 1972 at age 11.

The family said a memorial will be held at a date that is yet to be determined. Those who wish to offer condolences may send them to garygael at gmail.com.

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Rest well, Mayor Scott.

Seeya 'round town, Moscow, because . . .

"Moscow Cares" 
http://www.MoscowCares.com
  
Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho
  
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