Lucinda McCluskey was 'ambassador' for Gehrig's disease

The ALS Association's annual fund-raising dinner and auction at the Seattle Design Center Feb. 28 raised $63,000 — thanks, in no small part, to Lucinda McCluskey.

As a volunteer, she had procured about 30 percent of the goods and services that were auctioned off that night, said Becky Moore, executive director of the association's Evergreen Chapter.

"Lucinda was fabulous," Moore said. "She was a real ambassador for ALS," amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, the progressive neuromuscular condition also known as Lou Gehrig's disease.

Funds raised at the dinner and auction hadn't been totaled before Ms. McCluskey's death. "She never knew how successful the auction was," Moore said.

Ms. McCluskey died suddenly March 7, eight days after the fund-raiser. She was 41.

After years working in Boeing's human-resources department, the South King County native had recently embarked on a new career as a paralegal. She liked to travel, golf and watch her husband and brother play baseball.

"But her work with the ALS Association was more satisfying to her than anything else," said Ms. McCluskey's husband, Dan Klawitter of Renton.

She had lost a grandmother and an uncle to the disease. Klawitter said his wife decided to volunteer a couple of years ago, after watching her uncle deteriorate and die.

The Evergreen Chapter, which serves all of Washington, was fairly new at the time. Moore said Ms. McCluskey quickly found her niche on the auction committee.

"We had people walk in the door with items for us because Lucinda sent them," Moore said. "She just drew people to the cause."

Ms. McCluskey was born in 1962 at the old Renton Hospital, where a Kmart later was built. "That was her joke — that she was born at Kmart," Klawitter said.

After graduating from Kentridge High School, Ms. McCluskey attended Highline Community College. Later she received a bachelor's degree in business administration from City University.

She met the man she was to marry while working as a receptionist at Boeing. "She was stuck at her desk," said Klawitter, who also worked for the company at the time, "so I started getting her coffee."

They were married in 1992 in the Alpine Chapel at Boehm's Candies in Issaquah.

Ms. McCluskey held several human-resources jobs at Boeing before leaving several years ago to return to school to become a paralegal. She hadn't quite finished the program at Highline at the time of her death, her husband said, but she had been working for Seattle attorney Paul Eklund since last June.

Ms. McCluskey's survivors, in addition to her husband, include her parents, Betty and Del McCluskey of Covington; and brothers Mike McCluskey of North Bend and Bill McCluskey of Enumclaw.

A memorial service will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday at Cornerstone United Methodist Church, 20730 S.E. 272nd St., Covington. Donations may be made in Ms. McCluskey's name to the ALS Association, Evergreen Chapter, 6627 S. 191st Place, Suite F-106, Kent, WA 98032.

Eric Pryne: 206-464-2231 or epryne@seattletimes.com