Ed Wilburn Moye

Edward Wilburn “Ed” Moye, 73, of Eugene, Oregon died at his home with family and friends present on February 16, 2025 after a brief battle with a cancerous brain tumor. A celebration of life will be held in Eugene on May 31 at 3:00 p.m. at Amazon Community Center.

Ed was born September 13, 1951 in Norwalk, California to Wilhelmina (LeNoble) and Dean Moye and was the older of their two children. He was active in Boy Scouts for many years and spent much of his free time at the beach. After graduating high school and after a memorable cross-country motorcycle trip, Ed attended the College of the Redwoods in Eureka, California and Humboldt State University in Arcata, California. While there, he studied English Literature and Music and made lifelong friends, many of whom eventually settled in Eugene. 

Ed worked for many years as a carpenter and contractor. Seeking a more stable income, he attended nursing school at Lane Community College and graduated as an RN in 1984. After working briefly at Horizon Recovery, Ed worked as a Psychiatric Nurse for PeaceHealth (Sacred Heart) at the Lane County Psychiatric Hospital and then at the Behavioral Health Unit at Sacred Heart’s University District Hospital. He retired from PeaceHealth in 2010, but never stopped designing, remodeling, and building.

Soon after arriving in the Eugene/Springfield area in the early 1970’s, Ed became a volunteer staff member at the Oregon Country Fair, an annual music and arts festival held in the woods near Veneta, Oregon. For the first few years, he and friends worked on the Garbage (now Recycling) Crew. He later joined and became the Coordinator of the Construction Crew. He designed and built many unique structures at the Fair site including the arched proscenium which graced the top of Main Stage from 1990 – 2018.

He loved live music (especially as seen on the stages and pathways at the Oregon Country Fair) and was delighted by the spark and magic that occurs when creative, talented musicians get together. He was a talented songwriter. Ed began playing the guitar seriously as a teen and as an adult studied music theory, vocal performance, and began including ever more complicated jazz chords in his songs. He wrote his poetic songs about his passions of life, loves, mountains, and skiing with Ravens.

Ed was an avid outdoorsman and loved the Pacific Northwest, especially Oregon, because of the natural beauty of the ocean, the mountains, the rivers, and the high desert. He became a lifelong downhill & cross country skier while working three seasons in the 1970’s at Spout Springs Resort in the Blue Mountains. He taught cross country skiing and snow safety. He and his wife, Kathryn, were married slopeside at the Snow Basin Ski Resort near Ogden, Utah on a brilliant sunny day with clear blue skies above and cold powder snow below. Ed was downhill skiing at his favorite local ski resort just a week before his brain tumor was diagnosed.

During the summers, Ed hiked, backpacked, and climbed mountains. He often used his compass & maps to navigate and to explore new places. Having been raised near the ocean, Ed easily took to water sports and became an experienced kayaker, canoeist, and sailor. A self-described ‘adrenaline junkie,’ Ed rigged a sail for his canoe so he could speed across lakes. Of course this led to the purchase of the first sailboat.

He and two friends eventually owned three sailboats, including a 23-foot fractional sloop and an 18-foot catamaran. The friends spent countless hours (and money) painting and refitting the boats. In addition to Oregon lakes, they sailed the sloop in the Puget Sound, down the lower 300 miles of the Columbia River, circumnavigated Vancouver Island in British Columbia, and sailed the Inside Passage to Glacier Bay in Alaska. In 1995 Ed and the late Dennis Todd sailed the 18-foot catamaran down the entire length of the Columbia River, a 1,243 mile voyage. 

Ed described himself as a ‘passionate and inquisitive human.’ He was analytical and intensely curious about the world around him. Whether it was the natural or human-built environment, he sought to understand how things were made, how they worked, how they influenced each other, and how they changed over time.

He was a self-taught naturalist and spent decades observing animal behavior and was thrilled whenever a Raven responded to his calls. He was articulate, athletic, and had a wicked sense of humor. He also had a large presence and was not shy about voicing his opinions. He was known to be somewhat cynical at times.

Ed was a generous friend; a man of wit and integrity who believed that life should be lived to its fullest. 

Ed is profoundly missed by his wife of thirty-five years, Kathryn Madden, his stepson Ethan Kegley, of Eugene, Oregon, and by his sister, Yvonne Obrite, of Oceanside, California. He is loved and missed by numerous nieces and nephews, and by countless close friends.

Donations in his memory can be made to Friends of the Columbia Gorge or to your friendly local musician.