City mourns one of its leaders

WASILLA — A city councilman and longtime business owner was crushed by his own piece of heavy equipment and died of his injuries Sunday evening.

Councilman Steve Lovell was 56 when he died.

“He was making a jump for a little dirt bike and he had the blade up on a little Cat, and when (he) drove off of the little jump it catapulted him out of the Cat and the Cat ran over him before he could recover,” said Wasilla Police Chief Gene Belden, who described the incident as “just a bad accident.”

Lovell was elected in October 2012 to serve on the Wasilla City Council when he ran a successful campaign against an incumbent. He also owned a boat repair business, Valley Diesel Marine on Check Street.

Wasilla Mayor Verne Rupright said he’d been friends with Lovell for 20 years and said he wasn’t sure how they’d met.

“I think it was over a boat repair,” Rupright said, later adding that Lovell was a stand-up businessman. “Steve was the kind of guy that if you brought the boat back on a re-repair he’d do it for free.”

He said his friend was the son of Ronald Reagan’s budget director from the former president’s term as governor of California.

“Steve had spent a couple of nights in the Lincoln Bedroom as a kid,” Rupright said. “Steve came from a pretty notable California family, but he was his own guy and a pretty blue-collar kind of guy.”

He said Lovell’s house was added on to over the years and grew to be a beautiful home as it expanded.

“He did all the work himself,” Rupright sad.

At the time of his death, Rupright said, Lovell was raising his two grandchildren, one 13 and the other an infant.

The mayor said he received the call about Lovell’s accident Sunday evening and left his own birthday party to be there with Lovell and his family.

“The (police) chief stayed there with me and we made sure that everything was well taken care of for the family,” the mayor said.

Rupright described his friend as an Army veteran and a motorcycle rider, an avid hunter and a lover of boats. He said Lovell was generous and honest, a man who took responsibility for himself and was well liked.

“I never heard anybody ever say a bad word about Stevie,” he said.

Lovell’s colleagues on the council certainly had nothing but good things to say about him.

“He and I probably looked at governing from different points of view, but one of the things I found with Steve is he really would follow a civil discourse,” said councilwoman Colleen Sullivan-Leonard. “We would look at each other and just smile and would disagree, but not be disagreeable. I truly know he served for all the right reasons and really, truly cared about the city and its residents.”

“He was trying really hard to do a good job for all the right reasons,” said councilwoman Dianne Woodruff. “I think we’re all going to go home and hug our families a little tighter tonight.”

Wasilla City Clerk Kristie Smithers said that Monday was a somber day at city hall.

“It’s just so sudden, and it’s just a really tough day for us here,” she said.

It’s been a tragic summer for his family. At the end of May, the body of Lovell’s son, Shanon Lovell, was found in a Palmer-area lake. The younger Lovell had been missing since October 2012.

It was Shanon Lovell’s children that Steve Lovell was raising. In fact, Rupright said, this coming weekend was to be a celebration of life for Shanon Lovell. Steve Lovell’s mother and brother were on their way north to attend.

“It has not been a good year in that family,” Rupright said.

Assistant Managing Editor Greg Johnson contributed to this report.

Contact Andrew Wellner at 352-2270 or andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com.