Ambassador Bangs -- This Seafair Envoy Considers Seattle's Yearly Event Her Family Reunion

On hydroplane Race Day during Seafair this year, a young woman probably will dash from one end of the Lake Washington pits to the other and plant a kiss on the cheek of a driver about to squeeze inside his boat capsule.

That young woman would be Tiffany Bangs.

``Not to be morbid, but it's such a risky sport,'' she says. ``Every time they get into that boat, there's that fear. There's that real fear.''

Tiffany wasn't able to talk with her father, Jerry Bangs, before he died in an accident on the course on Aug. 7, 1977. She only got to watch it on television.

``I didn't get the chance to hug him and kiss him and tell him I love him.''

Lessons on life and death and how to live are not the sorts of things one associates with Seafair, the community's annual exercise in fluff and silliness and how to party.

Yet such lessons - and the stories behind them - are known among the tight circles of families, friends and neighbors who pull together every summer to make Seafair happen.

Tiffany Bangs, for example.

Bangs, 17, has long been part of one of the most traditional of Seafair circles - the fun-loving in-crowd down at the hydro pits.

``My friends talk about Seafair, and they say they're going to do the log boom or whatever, but for me Seafair is a family reunion,'' she says. ``The drivers' kids are the kids I grew up with. The drivers and their wives are my aunts and uncles.''

Now, she has become part of one of the three-week summer festival's newest groups, that of the Seafair ambassadors.

Bangs has earned a special place in the Seafair community because of her brushes with mortality. Besides experiencing the untimely death of her father, Tiffany has fought severe aplastic anemia, a disorder that hampers the body's ability to replenish its blood. Tiffany has beaten back the sickness twice since the sixth grade. Nine times out of 10, aplastic anemia kills its victims. The disorder is now in remission, but there is no cure. No one knows exactly what causes it. It could strike again anytime.

``It's extremely strange to talk with someone so young with a fatal disease who handles it so maturely,'' says Amy Clarfeld, one of her classmates at Mercer Island High. ``She's got an older look on life, I guess.''

Unless you knew Tiffany Bangs, you might mistake her for another typical materialistic high school student. She's a well-spoken young woman with a two-page resume who has plans for law school. She wants to become a corporate lawyer and merge things (``putting together 200,000 companies in a phone call into one big one - that would be pretty cool'').

Of course, her late father was an attorney.

``I think the fact that her dad was a lawyer is a big, big factor in her interest in law,'' says Carey Tomy, another Mercer Island classmate.

Bangs is one of eight Seafair ambassadors this year, the program's third year. The others are Tina Huang, of Garfield High; Gregg Greene, Woodinville High; K.C. Thompson, Redmond High; Natasha Dunn, Garfield; Manuel Teodoro, Lindbergh High; Monte Williams, Hazen High; and Chris Kodama, Mount Rainier High.

The eight ambassadors were selected from about 300 entrants from area high schools, says Dan Doyle, a U.S. Bank vice president who was chairman of the judges this year. Competitors participate in a two-day symposium on Pacific Rim affairs at the University of Washington, then take a world-affairs exam based on that symposium. Winners are picked from 30 finalists based on interviews, a presentation and an essay on an international-politics issue, and their level of involvement in their school and community.

The program is sponsored by Seafirst Bank, the Jaycees and Continental Airlines.

Ambassadors, who win a $1,000 college scholarship, appear at a several Seafair events and do some traveling. Last month, they traveled together to Mexico City. In the coming months, half of the group will go to Japan, and half to New Zealand.

``It's tough. Those 30 finalists are really sharp kids,'' Doyle says. ``It's grueling to pick these eight. We hope these kids will be exposed to Seafair and that they'll be the future leaders of the community.''

Doyle says Bangs would have stood out in any group of her peers, even if her personal story had been unknown to all the judges. ``Does it come into play? Sure,'' Doyle says. ``Did she get it because of that? No way.''

Despite the assaults by aplastic anemia, Bangs has been busy and involved. Drill Team. Tennis. Crew. National Honor Society. Peer counseling. Anti-drug activities. Student adviser to the Mercer Island school board. Spokeswoman for Children's Hospital (where she has undergone treatment) and for the Make-a-Wish Foundation for Washington state (her mother, Anna Bangs, is executive director).

``I think she gets scared occasionally,'' says Tomy. ``But she says, `Hey, I'm gonna live my life. I'm gonna get the treatment and get on with it.' She's very determined.''

Bangs believes there is no other way to be.

There is thinking here that is unique to many people who have had serious illnesses or who otherwise have faced death. Bangs must maintain a positive frame of mind to encourage those around her to do so. If they do, she'll feel stronger, too. It's an important emotional circle. For her to break the circle would be almost a betrayal of the people she credits with helping her maintain her positive attitude - her mother and her friends.

``Having a positive attitude is both a curse and a blessing '' Bangs explains. ``Because I have to deal with this, I have to stay positive so my friends will stay positive. See?''

``I've learned not to take the bad things personally,'' she says. ``I strongly believe that a smile will overcome a frown any day. So, I just keep smiling.''

Well, not always. When asked why she returns each summer to the hydro pits, the site of her father's death, she doesn't smile. She doesn't frown, either. She's quite well-spoken and articulate, but now her deep-set eyes get lost for a moment.

``I stick around,'' she says after a minute, ``because my father was the No. 1 thing with me when he was alive, and it's very important to me . . . to live a part of him still.''