America’s first openly transgender mayor and lifelong Silverton resident Stewart “Stu” Rasmussen died Nov. 17 after battling prostate cancer for more than a year. He was 73.
His 2008 election garnered international media attention from outlets such as “Good Morning America” and People magazine. His run prompted a musical called “Stu for Silverton,” which was performed in Seattle and Minneapolis.
Those closest to him say Rasmussen stood on the shoulders of transgender leaders who came before him and he was proud to have played a role in influencing others to be fully themselves, according to an obituary.
Rasmussen was born Sept. 9, 1948, in Silverton and was the only child of Albert and Nan Rasmussen. He attended Silverton High School and Salem Tech, now Chemeketa Community College, before launching into a career in engineering and technology. Rasmussen co-owned the Palace Theatre in Silverton with Roger Paulson from 1974 until 2020. But most remember Rasmussen from his 2008 mayoral election in Silverton.
His partner, Victoria Sage, said she has already received many letters from people who said Rasmussen touched their lives.
”Each is different, all are beautiful and heartwarming,” Sage wrote in an email to the Statesman Journal.
Sage and Rasmussen began dating in 1974 after meeting at the Fifth Avenue Cinema in Portland. She was selling popcorn and he was there to fix the projectors. The couple married in 2014.
Rasmussen was not concerned about pronoun usage, accepting either he/him or she/her, Sage said. A 2008 article in The Oregonian said Rasmussen cut “a distinct figure among his flannel-clad neighbors” with his wavy long red hair. ”This is a place that takes you for who you are,” Rasmussen told the reporter.
His 2008 election inspired a movement for transgender awareness and a protest from the Westboro Baptist Church that picketed in Silverton three weeks later. They were met by a large crowd of demonstrating Silverton residents — many of them wearing dresses — supporting Rasmussen and demanding congregation members leave town.
Current Silverton Mayor Kyle Palmer, who was often Rasmussen’s political opponent in city elections, said Rasmussen was a brilliant and tireless community- and self-promoter.
Rasmussen served two terms for mayor starting in 1988, and served intermittently as city councilor and Silver Falls Library Board member.
”It was a pretty unique moment,” Palmer said of the protest. “Our citizens who dressed up in dresses. Many of them made signs saying ‘not in our town,’ ‘leave,’ ‘Stu is our mayor.’ I know it was extremely moving for him.”
Stu shared his story as a guest speaker with Gonzaga University, Reed College, Queens College in New York and Harvard University, and was featured in publications including The Advocate and Transgender Tapestry.
Despite Rasmussen’s progressive social values, his values for the Silverton community and the city’s fiscal policy lay on the opposite side of the political spectrum. That conservative approach to life in Silverton occasionally put him at odds with the council.
“There had been a lot of residential growth and he ran on a platform of scaling growth back, not turning Silverton into the town of the future, but maintaining its historical charm,” Palmer said. “He used the phrase, ‘Keep Silverton Silverton.’ "
Rasmussen remained in office until he was unseated by Rick Lewis in 2014.
In an interview with the Statesman Journal in 2015, Rasmussen spoke of what he accomplished during his 10 years as part of the council, particularly as mayor. The early warning system at the Silver Creek Dam, a new senior center and a city skate park were hallmarks of the era, he said.
But Palmer said his biggest accomplishment was his ability to seamlessly connect with the community.
”I could talk all day about him because I don’t think many people knew him deeply. But everybody would say they knew him,” Palmer said. “He had some way of connecting to people that made everybody feel like they knew him.”
Rasmussen was an indefatigable engineer and self-described nerd, his obituary states. Early in his career, he worked in video engineering and production at Tektronix in Beaverton. From the 1990s until his death, he was a contractor for a variety of Oregon manufacturers including Garmin, Intel and Sonic Blue. He was also an independent supplier of electronic research and development services to entrepreneurs, according to his obituary.
He brought cable television to Silverton and Mt. Angel in the 1970s, constructing a 35-mile coaxial television plant to provide entertainment services, before selling his business to a larger cable television provider, according to the obituary. Other inventions included the KissMeter and Relationship Analyzer, a shoebox-sized machine that measured the duration and intensity of a smooch, and Bogus Trivia, a tavern game where players competed answering trivia questions.