Rick Bragg, a man who helped start some of area's most popular annual community events, died unexpectedly on Oct. 24 just weeks after being diagnosed with stage four stomach cancer.

Bragg, a regular volunteer in the community, played an integral role in planning and organizing the White Center Jubilee Days parade and festival for the last 21 years. This year, when some of the event's regular organizers voted to cancel the event, Bragg and Larry Winkler, a member of the White Center Eagles, stepped up to revive the decades-old tradition.

"Rick didn't want to see it go," said Bragg's long-time friend Scott LaVielle, chief of the North Highline Fire District. "You just can't do anything unless you have somebody like him. It will be tough to replace him."

Bragg was in charge of selling ads for the Jubilee Days promotional booklet and developing a theme for event buttons and T-shirts. Bragg would always ask for input, but in the end, "He'd always persuade us to what he had in mind," LaVielle laughed.

His friends and family agree, connecting to community was one of Bragg's life-long passions.

"He understood the community," LaVielle said. "We will really miss him and the blueprint he left. But it will continue on because he left a good legacy."

Bragg, 69, was born in Oakdale, Neb. Aug. 30, 1938. Most of his childhood was spent in Pasco, where he graduated from Pasco High School in 1956. After high school he went to work in advertising for the Columbia Basin News in Pasco.

Bragg moved to Seattle in his 20's where he landed a job in advertising with the West Seattle Herald. His personal friend and former boss at the Herald, Warren Lawless, remembered hiring Bragg back in the mid-1960s.

"He was a very talented young man," said Lawless. "He could take an idea and run with it. You didn't have to stand around and explain things to him. He was quite creative."

Lawless was impressed with Bragg's energy and new, creative ideas to bring in advertising, many of which Bragg brought with him from his experiences in Pasco.

One of Bragg's ideas was to start an event called the Junction Sidewalk Carnival in the West Seattle Junction as a way to build up ads in the paper. The event, now called the West Seattle Junction Street Festival, is still a much anticipated summer community event.

"(The Herald staff) did all of the work on it at the time, that's how we built up the advertising," said Lawless.

Bragg's mother-in-law, Margaret Miaullis, took over the street festival around 1985 and expanded it from a two to a three-day event. She also added entertainment stages and a beer garden. The event has changed hands to the West Seattle Junction Association and continues to evolve.

In the 1980s Bragg and several other Herald staffers left the paper to start West Seattle Associates, which published local telephone directories. Bragg retired from the printing business a little more than a year ago.

Toward the end of his life, he devoted much of his time to volunteering in the White Center community, said Marilyn Bragg, his wife of 35 years.

"That was his baby, White Center," said Marilyn. "He was always trying to do good for White Center."

Marilyn met her husband while he was still selling ads for the Herald in the early 1970s. He often came to her mother's shop in the Junction, Margaret's Apparel.

LaVielle said the Bragg's clearly shared a mutual respect for one another and had a strong bond.

"They were cute together," he said. "When you saw him, you saw her."

About a month and a half ago, Marilyn noticed a change in her husband's health and took him to the hospital. The doctors diagnosed Bragg with stage four stomach cancer and told him he might have a year to live if he started chemotherapy treatments right away.

After one treatment it was found the cancer had metastized in his small intestine and he was sent home with a much grimmer prediction of one week to live. Twelve days later, Bragg died in his home.

Marilyn said he was able to spend his last days in the comfort of many friends and family.

"I'm dealing with it but it's been tough," said Marilyn, just three days after losing her husband. "It's just devastating. I put myself in that bed with him so many times, saying, 'What would I be doing.'"

LaVielle, amazed by Bragg's strength and courage, couldn't bring himself to say goodbye to his friend. Instead, he told Bragg how much he is loved and respected by friends and community members.

"No time on earth is ever long enough to say goodbye," said LaVielle. "Sometimes we don't tell people when they are still with us how much they mean to us. People need to be told that while they are still with us."

Bragg is also survived by his mother-in-law, Margaret, sons Steven, Richard and Dano, daughter, Rani, three grandchildren and four sisters.