By Charles E. Brown
Seattle Times staff reporter

Friends and colleagues gathered yesterday at the home of former Seattle City Councilman Jim Street to celebrate the life of Frank Kirk, who served as Street's legislative aide at City Hall for more than a decade.

Mr. Kirk died in Seattle on Feb. 27 after a 10-year battle with prostate cancer. He was 77.

Street was not only Mr. Kirk's boss but also one of his closest friends, which made the setting for the informal memorial even more special, said Mr. Kirk's daughter, Rachel Kirk of Seattle.

Born in Buffalo, N.Y., and the son of blue-collar parents, Mr. Kirk spent most of his childhood in Washington, D.C. After earning bachelor's and master's degrees in urban and regional planning from the University of Chicago in 1956, he took a job as the urban-renewal planner for the Community Conservation Board of Chicago.

"He was always very bright in school, a valedictorian at his high school," his daughter said.

During the 1960s, he taught at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, Ill., then helped established the Model Cities program in Illinois. He later was elected to the Carbondale City Council.

During much of the 1970s, Mr. Kirk was director of local-government affairs under Illinois Gov. Dan Walker, but he lost the job when the governor lost the election in 1977.

With no job in mind, Mr. Kirk moved his family - a wife and two teenagers - west to Bainbridge Island, and later to Seattle.

"He moved here for its beauty, and because of the 30-pound salmon he had caught during an earlier visit to the Northwest," said his former wife, Sally Kirk of Seattle. They were married for 30 years before divorcing 20 years ago.

He later married his current wife, who survives him.

A lifetime Democrat and a Navy veteran, Mr. Kirk spent a couple of years commuting from coast to coast as a consultant to the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs during the Carter administration. Street said he met Mr. Kirk during Street's first campaign for City Council in 1983. Street hired Mr. Kirk as his legislative aide, and they worked together for a dozen years.

"I've never known another human being who was as committed as Frank to making this world a better place," Street said.

Mr. Kirk was active in nuclear-weapons issues and served as vice chairman of the Nuclear Awareness Group, an organization of Group Health Cooperative members against nuclear-weapons production.

His daughter said she considered her father a true Renaissance man.

"He had so many different interests," she said, "and for his time, he was very much on the cutting edge. He was a feminist. He was liberal, and he was a huge humanitarian."

Mr. Kirk also served as a board member, treasurer and vice president of Seattle's Friends of P-Patch, often making weekly vegetable deliveries to local food banks. He gardened his own space at the Interbay P-Patch.

He also was an avid photographer, known for his photos of flowers.

For the past decade, Mr. Kirk had been an advocate for cancer issues, both in leadership and volunteer roles, his daughter said. He served on a National Cancer Institute advisory committee and was a founder and Vice Chair of the Washington State Prostate Cancer Coalition. He had made four trips to Washington, D.C., to lobby Congress for cancer-research funds.

Other survivors include his son, Christian of Brier; three grandchildren; a brother, Richard Kirk of Aspen, Colo.; and a sister, Rosemary Chamberlain of Gaston, Ore.

Memorials may be made to Friends of P-Patch, P.O. Box 19748, Seattle, WA 98109.

Charles E. Brown: 206 464-2206 or cbrown@seattletimes.com