Slade Gorton was an esteemed intellectual, an accomplished attorney, a shrewd political opponent, an Air Force colonel, a baseball nut…and one of the greatest public servants Washington State has ever known. After 92 years of working on behalf of others, the nonagenarian solon died last month, on August 19th. If you've never heard of Slade Gorton, you'll get a great idea of who the man was by reading his obituary from the Washington Post. No one knew Slade better than his wife, his children, his closest friends…and perhaps his biographer, Chief Historian for the Washington Secretary of State's Office, John Hughes. In 2011, Hughes published a 384-page book titled "Slade Gorton: A Half Century in Politics," on behalf of the Washington State Heritage Center's Legacy Project - now known as Legacy Washington. It is probably the most historically accurate, exquisitely detailed, and anecdotally entertaining work about the man known as a scion, a patrician, and one of the most intellectually astute politicians this state has ever seen.