The life and legacy of late Sen. Bill Ramos

Published 3:45 pm Tuesday, August 26, 2025

It has been four months, but the letters keep coming.

Standing in her home office on a warm July day, Sarah Perry shuffles through piles of the kind messages she has received after the April death of her husband.

One of the more recent was left on Perry’s porch by her 7-year-old neighbor, Clementine.

“I’m sorry your husband died,” Clementine wrote. “He was very nice to me, and he let me pick the strawberries you grow.”

Those who knew Washington state Sen. Bill Ramos — friends, neighbors, constituents, even distant peers — all have a nice thing to say about him. They note his smile, his eagerness to provide a helping hand and his ability to truly listen when others spoke.

“Bill had an ability to make you feel seen and heard, no matter who you were,” Perry said. “He was present with you.”

Ramos, a state senator for Washington’s 5th Legislative District, died unexpectedly April 19 while on a trail run near his and Perry’s home in Issaquah. He had a widowmaker heart attack, Perry said — a severe blockage of the heart’s largest artery.

Ramos’s only companion on the trail was his dog, Sadie. Perry said Sadie ran to find help after Ramos collapsed, alerting another trail runner to follow her. The runner gave Ramos CPR and called 911.

Shortly after, Perry drove by emergency vehicles near the trailhead. She thought to herself, “Don’t be nosy. Go see Bill.”

But when she arrived home to find the house unusually dark and quiet, she knew something was wrong.

Perry went back to the trailhead, introducing herself to a member of Eastside Fire and Rescue as King County Councilmember Sarah Perry and explaining that her husband was missing. The man asked Perry if Sadie was her dog.

The emergency responders then let Perry see Ramos. As he laid among the trees that he loved so much, he was smiling, she said.

Since then, Perry says Ramos’s presence has not left her.

“I just feel him with me all the time,” she said. “I think it’s why I’ve been able to actually breathe because I just feel him with me.”

It’s important to Perry that Ramos had just come home from Olympia that day. Work had been busy, and they hadn’t seen much of each other lately, but they had a few minutes together before she went off to an event and he went off for his trail run.

“It was a gift that he came home,” Perry said. “If he had been in Olympia, I would have never been able to give him a hug and be excited to see him that evening.”

Today, Sadie the goldendoodle stays close to Perry, protecting her from every outside noise that dares to approach their home.

Inside, Perry is working her way through Ramos’s study. He left behind artwork depicting his Mexican heritage, cherished family photos, race bibs from the runs he participated in, his work badge from the State Capitol and an impressive collection of ties — one for every day of the legislative session.

It is a room full of stories. Perry wonders whether it’s even possible to sum up her husband’s life in these material things.

But in these things — and in their house and on the trail — Perry feels Ramos’s warm presence around her the most.

“Being in the hallowed ground — it’s like from this door to the trailhead, I just want to sit in that space,” she said. “Some people want to avoid where their person was. I just want to go sleep there by the rocks.”

Billy and Sarah

When asked about her introduction to Ramos in the late 1990s, Perry says “Billy was just around.”

The two met while she was a volunteer at and he was on the board of Children’s Services of Sno-Valley, now called Encompass. Ramos, an avid ballroom dancer, gave Perry an open invitation to go dancing.

Eventually, she called him up to accept the offer, and their first date was Jan. 9, 1999 — though Perry says she did not then consider it a date.

Both Ramos and Perry were married previously, and Perry had two kids, Maya and Maxwell. Perry’s first marriage had challenges, she said, and she was hesitant to bring someone new into her kids’ lives.

“My whole life was changing at that time … and he said, ‘You’re a train wreck waiting to happen,’” Perry said. “I said, ‘Well, what are you doing on the tracks?’ And he said, ‘The universe is telling me this is where I need to be.’”

Ramos and Perry quickly developed a close friendship, which then turned into love. It felt predestined, she said.

“Pretty soon he became my confidant,” she said. “And then one thing just led to another.”

In 2003, they got married on the lawn of Perry’s Issaquah home. Ramos read vows not only to Perry, but to her children as well.

Ramos and Perry lived separately — her in Issaquah and him in North Bend — for the first four years of their marriage. They split time with the kids during the week and were together every weekend.

While unorthodox, it worked for them, Perry said. Their relationship was too solid for it to matter.

“He was God’s gift for the rest of my life,” she said. “I was pledged to him. He was pledged to me. We just knew that we belonged.”

Perry’s journey into politics began a few years after Ramos’s. Together, they made a home that was open to the community; a battleground for the cause and a gathering place for those who joined it.

“Sometimes there are people here that I don’t know,” Perry said. “They’re just here doing a phone bank because somebody asked me sometime and I said yes and it’s just a free for all. And we want that. We always wanted our house to be used in that way for the greater good.”

Perry and Ramos were an accomplished couple, but she politely rejects the term “power couple” to describe them.

“I think calling somebody a power couple creates that other side that denies the power that we each and all have,” she said. “We’re just two people doing our thing and walking the walk, and we want everyone to join us.”

A tenacious public servant

Ramos’s life-long dedication to community-building was a trait instilled in him in childhood, Perry said.

Ramos grew up in East Oakland, California, where his childhood was “enriched by his Mexican and Spanish heritage,” according to the program at his celebration of life. Spending his early years in his mother’s beauty salon and at their local church “instilled in him a deep sense of community and service.”

Ramos went on to have several experiences with the federal government before becoming a politician. He first had a 30-year career with the U.S. Forest Service, 16 years of which he spent in the Mount Baker–Snoqualmie National Forest.

He then spent eight years with the Federal Transit Administration and was a liaison to tribes across the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, working to uphold federal treaty rights.

Ramos’s love for the forest and commitment to transportation access remained apparent in his time as an elected official. He started his political career in 2016 when he was elected to Issaquah City Council. In 2019, he joined the Washington State House of Representatives, and he joined the Washington State Senate this year.

Ramos truly cared about the issues, said Washington State Sen. Victoria Hunt, who served the 5th Legislative District with Ramos. He did not chase flashy bills, but rather tried to provide constituents with basic needs.

“He worked on bills solving problems and giving access to services to constituents, not necessarily the things that get recognized in the news,” Hunt said. “He also had a lot of tenacity. So he would identify a problem and he would see it through, even if it took a lot of sessions and a lot of work.”

In the last legislative session, Hunt said she worked with Ramos on a bill to modernize the state’s “Know Before You Dig” laws, preventing damage to underground utilities. Hunt said this bill is an example of something that, while not flashy, can have great impact on constituents if it’s not up to date.

“He was a real public servant in that way,” she said. “He identified problems. He had the tenacity to build the coalition, to get it solved and to really understand the issues.”

Washington State Rep. Lisa Callan, who served the 5th Legislative District with Ramos, said he was a “filler of the human spirit” whose dedication inspired her.

“After you get done connecting with him, you just get this rekindled sense of honor,” she said, “but also of joy in the work of serving the people.”

A legacy of ‘I got you’

About 900 people submitted an RSVP for Ramos’s celebration of life held May 18 at the Issaquah Community Center.

Those who knew Ramos deeply to hardly at all shared in tears and laughter. His sister told stories of their adventures together. Perry spoke of their true love. Callan read the Maya Angelou poem “When Great Trees Fall.”

“They existed. We can be. Be and be better. For they existed,” the poem ends.

Everyone who spoke of Ramos spoke of how he made them better — through his joy, his care or his unwavering support.

Erika Boyd was Ramos’s legislative assistant from 2019-2022. She remembers him as a mentor who “clearly loved” what he did. He was more family than a boss, she said.

She hopes to honor his legacy by showing up, asking tough questions and standing up for marginalized communities, all while finding joy in the work.

“Not denying the tough stuff, problems that we have to tackle or like the issues that are in the community that people bring to legislators, but just also the joy in community and the people that you serve,” she said. “I hope I can carry that with me for wherever I end up and wherever I go.”

All those who spoke with the Snoqualmie Valley Record noted Ramos’s signature phrase: “I got you.” He was known for saying this often, Perry said, ensuring those around him that they could count on his support, regardless of what for.

Callan said she still hears Ramos in her head — “I got you.”

“He really championed and was a cheerleader for others, and through that, his support and spirit of ‘I’ve got you’ continues,” Hunt said. “That will be part of his lasting legacy.”