A brilliant and kind man, Gillis (Gil) Edward Reavis, age 62, is finally at peace. Gil passed away on Saturday, February 2nd, 2019, after an eight-year battle with Posterior Cortical Atrophy, a rare form of Alzheimer’s disease brought on by a traumatic brain injury he suffered in a bicycle accident in 2008.
Gil was born December 21, 1956 in Terrell, Texas. He grew up in Dumas, a small town on the high plains of the Texas Panhandle. He attended Texas Tech University in Lubbock for three years, transferring to Austin to attend the University of Texas where he graduated in 1979 with a degree in history. He attended the University of Texas School of Law, graduating in 1981 with highest honors including Order of the Coif and Texas Law Review.
Gil met his future wife Sally Balcom in 1982. Together they developed a passion for adventuring in the great outdoors, spending all their free time traveling the Western US in search of backpacking trails, ski runs, climbing routes and cycling paths. When not climbing, hiking, skiing, or cycling with Sally and friends, Gil pursued a law career with equal dedication and passion.
He was a successful trial attorney in Texas, eventually starting his own firm with law school friends. He chose to practice part-time when he was offered an adjunct position with the University of Texas School of Law to teach Texas Civil Procedure and Products Liability. He deeply enjoyed teaching and was voted the most popular professor three years in a row. While teaching at UT, he coached a mock trial team to the national championships in Washington D.C. where his team won first in the competition. It was the first time the UT School of Law took home the prestigious award.
Teaching gave him summers off, and while on a month-long mountaineering course with the National Outdoor Leadership School in the Washington Cascades, Gil overcame his fear of heights when he was challenged to try rock climbing. Like everything Gil attempted, he quickly excelled and soon mountaineering became his passion. He became an instructor for NOLS and taught mountaineering for several years.
In 1987, Gil and Sally put their careers on hold for a year and traveled the world with backpacks. They explored Nepal, India, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Bali, Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia and New Zealand. Gil’s keen eye with a camera on those travels shaped Gil’s global perspective on caring for the environment.
When they returned to the states, they married in 1988 and made plans to relocate to Washington State in 1990. Gil had always been an accomplished photographer and took a break from law to pursue professional outdoor photography. His work was published in several publications including Travel & Leisure, Climbing Magazine, Rock & Ice Magazine, and Outside Magazine. But his precision photography was taking him more often into the dark room instead of the outdoors, so he returned to law.
As a Texas litigator, Gil won numerous cases defending those harmed by personal injury or corporate neglect. As a new resident of Washington State, he parlayed that compassion for justice into a successful career as an environmental litigator. In 1995 he joined the national law firm Morrison and Foerster, LLP. He then co-founded two boutique environmental law firms. He became known as one of the most collegial and yet most determined advocates in Seattle. Voted a Top Lawyer for many years by his peers, his law partners became his close friends as did many of his opposing counsel. After winning the SEATAC Third Runway class action lawsuit before the Washington State Supreme Court for the Seattle Port Authority, a career highlight, Gil joined Foster Pepper LLP. While his legal accomplishments were heralded by many, Gil was most proud of his successful litigation protecting the Olympic National Park Wilderness Area as a pro-bono project.
In 1997 Gil and Sally celebrated the birth of their son Henry (Hank) Reavis.
Gil was profoundly grateful to be Hank’s dad. Gil and Sally shared their love for the outdoors with their son, teaching him outdoor skills and environmental respect along with a deep love for music.
While Gil worked hard, he also played hard. Music was an important part of Gil’s life. He played acoustic guitar beautifully and loved accompanying Sally when she sang. He was a patient, skilled and trusted mountaineer. He summited mountains in Alaska, British Columbia, California, Colorado, Utah, Oregon, Mexico, Montana, New Zealand, Washington, Wyoming. Friends often asked him to lead them on climbs of Mt. Rainier and Mt. Baker (his favorite.) He did that a combined total of 22 times.
He loved rock climbing and it was a joy to watch his strong, lithe body gracefully dance vertically on granite. He loved cycling too, riding long routes with Sally through the Texas Hill Country, and over back-country roads and urban bike paths across the Pacific Northwest. It was on a commute to work in August of 2008 that he crashed his bicycle in an un-witnessed accident causing a traumatic brain injury. Gil recovered initially from the accident, and was able to return to a limited level of work and activity for which his family and friends were grateful. However, the brain injury sapped his energy and the trauma took its toll on his health, bringing on a rare form of early onset Alzheimer’s disease, called Posterior Cortical Atrophy. His long decline was brutal because the brain injury masked the onset of the disease and was not diagnosed until he was in end stages.
A friend to so many, he was the quiet guy in the room who often had the last word – whether wickedly funny or humbly brilliant.
A memorial service will be held at a future date. Gil’s family encourages donations made in Gil’s memory to the Brain Injury Alliance of Washington, Puget Sound Guitar Workshop, the Alzheimer’s Association, Olympic Park Associates or the National Outdoor Leadership School.