After a lifetime of accomplishments, the Inland Northwest’s Dr. Linda Pall has died at 73
Dr. Linda Pall, a former Idaho politician, attorney and professor at Washington State University, has died at the age of 73 after battling varied illnesses, according to a statement by her family.
A public memorial is scheduled for June 3, at the Historic 1912 Building, 412 E. 3rd Street, in Moscow, from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.
Pall was born in Virginia in 1945 and moved to Oregon as a child. She played for the Portland Symphony, graduated with an undergraduate degree from Reed College and a master’s degree from the University of London. She taught at Portland State University, where she met her husband Dr. Martin L. Pall. The couple moved to Moscow, Idaho in 1972.
In 1979 she earned a master’s degree in political science from Washington State University, and gained her Ph.D. in the subject seven years later. She graduated from the University of Idaho Law School and passed the bar exam in 1985.
Pall would later go on to found the Moscow Day School, having seen a need for such an institution in her community.
“When Linda saw a need, she acted,” the family statement reads. “She championed human rights, democracy, the arts, downtown revitalization, Moscow farmers market, sound land-use policies, trees, parks, livable communities and preservation of historic buildings in Moscow, including city hall, the 1912 Center and Carnegie Library. Her work earned her a variety of awards from civic, human rights, legal and political organizations locally, regionally and nationally.”
She served on the Moscow City Council from 1977 to 1983. She also made an unsuccessful bid for Mayor of Moscow in 2017.
Pall practiced law in Moscow till the end of her life. She worked in family law, civil rights and employment rights. She helped found the Family Law Section and Diversity Section of the Idaho State Bar Association, and taught business law and communications law at Washington State University until retiring in 2013.
After being diagnosed with Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension in 2003, Pall founded the Inland Northwest Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension Support Group. She raised funds for research and supported the establishment of a Center of Excellence at the Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine at WSU.
The Spokesman-Review featured Pall in a 2014 story about her garden, describing how she coped with her illnesses with her green thumb. In 2003, Pall wrote a guest column titled, “Though I lost the disease lottery, I’m not giving up on life.”