Remembering Barnett Moss, a Capitol fixture who charmed many with his silence

[TexasTowelie]

Barnett Moss, in one of his usual spots reading at the Capitol Campus. Moss died on June 29, one of 78 victims of the historic heatwave in Washington state. COURTESY OF MARY VAN VERST


By all accounts, Barnett Moss was a man of few words.

No one knew where he came from. But Moss, a lanky man with a broad smile and scraggly gray hair who spent most of his time reading books and newspapers, acquired a certain celebrity around the Washington state Capitol.

“It was always ‘yes please’, or ‘no, thank you,’” said Tammy Stampfli, a pastor at the United Churches of Olympia, where Moss slept on the porch for more than five years.

With his expressive eyes, gentle manner, and preternatural calm, Moss was known to some as the “Capitol Buddha.”

He was found dead outside the church on June 29, one of the 78 people known to have died of heat-related causes during the historic heatwave in Washington state. He was 63 years old.

Read more: https://www.thenewstribune.com/news/local/article252700153.html
(Tacoma News Tribune)