Richard Ewing Jr; AIDS Outreach Group Co-Founder

Richard (Rick) Ewing Jr., the last surviving member of the three founders of Being Alive, an AIDS-support organization devoted to helping those stricken with the illness, has died in a Los Angeles hospice.

Jeff Knox, a spokesman for the group that tried to keep its members focused on celebrating life rather than contemplating death, said he died of AIDS complications Oct. 12. Ewing was 37.

Ron Rose and Scott Barry, the other two founders, died of the illness in April and May, respectively.

Ewing, an advertising agency copywriter, came to Los Angeles in 1983 from Texas, where he had been involved in a Houston mayoral campaign.

He was diagnosed in March, 1986, as having acquired immune deficiency syndrome, and with Rose and Barry that year started a loosely knit association that successfully reached out to AIDS victims who found themselves isolated from friends, family and jobs.

The three men taught activism rather than acceptance. As Barry said early in the organization’s formative months, “although our lives may be shorter, they can still be quality lives and productive.”

They held monthly meetings, published a newsletter and set up a speakers bureau. Candlelight walks and vigils were held to help the public understand the frustrations and needs of AIDS sufferers while campaigns were launched to lower the prices of the drugs that were keeping AIDS patients alive.

At his death, Ewing had been working for the AIDS Hospice Foundation.

In July, 1987, Ewing received the Kenneth Schnorr Memorial Award from the AID for AIDS organization, another support group. Schnorr had been an earlier victim.

Ewing’s survivors include his parents, a sister and brother.