Spc. Brittany Gordon, 24, of St. Petersburg, Fla., and from Joint Base Lewis-McChord, was killed by an improvised explosive device Oct. 13 in Kandahar province, Afghanistan. She was assigned to a military intelligence company.

Sgt. Robert Billings, 30, of Clarksville, Va., was killed by an IED Oct. 13 in Spin Boldak, Kandahar province, while serving with the 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, from Joint Base Lewis-McChord.

Sgt. Thomas R. Macpherson, 26, of Long Beach, Calif., was killed Oct. 12 in Andar District, Afghanistan, by small-arms fire while on patrol. He was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, at Joint Base Lewis-McChord.

Herbert Ellison, 83, a historian who taught at the University of Washington for 34 years, retiring in 2002, and who was described by his colleagues as one of the world's leading figures in Soviet and post-Soviet studies, died Oct. 9 after a long illness.

Jim King, 89, a retired Seattle Times executive editor and senior vice president, remembered as a formidable journalist and a gentle human being, died Wednesday, a few days after a stroke. He had moved eight years ago to Vancouver, Wash.

Sid Snyder, 86, the former state Senate majority leader who was remembered fondly by Republicans and Democrats as a role model for effective leadership while getting along with everyone (he was a Democrat), died last Sunday at home in Long Beach, Pacific County.

Otto R. Skopil Jr., 93, a federal judge for more than 40 years who served on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, died Thursday at his home in Portland.

Arlen Specter, 82, a pugnacious and prominent former U.S. senator who spent much of his career warning of the dangers of political intolerance, died last Sunday in Philadelphia of non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

Archbishop Torkom Manoogian, 93, the longtime leader of the Armenian orthodox church in the U.S. and a savvy communicator who used his pulpit in New York to broaden public awareness of the Armenian genocide, died Oct. 12 in Jerusalem. He had been hospitalized since January.

Norodom Sihanouk, 89, the Cambodian monarch whose intermittent rule was marked by shifting alliances, decades of strife and the near-destruction of his country, died Monday in a Beijing hospital after a heart attack.

Kyle Bennett, 33, a three-time world champion bicycle motocross racer who represented the United States in the inaugural appearance of BMX racing in the Olympics in Beijing in 2008, died in a one-car accident last Sunday in Conroe, Texas.

R. Lorraine Wojahn, 92, who served 32 years in the state House and Senate and helped create the state Health Department and the University of Washington's Tacoma campus, died Oct. 13 in Tacoma.