A former Kennewick Man of the Year, longtime Tri-Cities volunteer dies

A longtime Tri-Cities volunteer, 2002 Kennewick Man of the Year and an all-around well-loved man has died.

Long-established banker Ed Allen died Dec. 30. He was 72.

Allen served on the Tri-City Regional Chamber of Commerce board for many years. He was the board chairman in 2008 — the same year the chamber formed a partnership with the Tri-City Development Council and Visit Tri-Cites to build the combined Tri-Cities Business & Visitor Center.

And he was a founding board member of the Kennewick Public Facilities District.

“Ed’s larger than life personality and business acumen made for an exceptional community leader — he will be greatly missed,” said a post on the Chamber’s Facebook page.

Allen’s friendly association with a group calling itself the Columbia Center Rotary Mountaineers led to multiple climbs and tight-knit friendships.

But more than anyone, Allen’s wife of 16 years, Celeste, will be grieving for him a second time.

Forty years before the pair married, they met and fell in love as teenagers while on a United Nations internship trip to Niagara Falls. They even had a mock wedding during an outing to the popular honeymoon spot.

They kept in touch and saw each other until Celeste heard the bad news that Ed had died from an overdose — although he hadn’t.

The Wyoming girl and California boy moved on with their lives, with Ed not knowing that she believed he was dead. They both married, had children and each divorced decades later.

They happened to reconnect years later when Ed searched on Classmates.com and Celeste was shocked to learn he was alive. A visit from her Arizona home to Tri-Cities proved that love knew no bounds.

Their love story was even recorded by the NPR program StoryCorps and also featured in a Valentine’s Day edition of Redbook.

Einan’s at Sunset in Richland is handling his arrangements.

This story was originally published January 5, 2021 at 12:58 PM.