Janet Harris: A Mighty-Might
A Mighty Might
Janet Harris was only five feet tall, but if she walked into a room, you knew she was there.
Her husband, George, called her a “mighty might.”
I think she would have liked that.
George first met Janet in a gym. All the boys were lifting heavy weights, and Janet was right there with them. She took plenty of flack from the guys, but she was strong—strong enough that George told her she should have competed. At the time, there simply weren’t many opportunities for girls and women to do that.
Janet grew up before Title IX, the 1972 federal law that helped open up school sports and other educational opportunities to girls and women. She never forgot what it meant to be told, directly or indirectly, that something wasn’t for you.
“Don’t put any limitations on what women can do,” George told me she believed.
Who Janet Was
Janet played sports her whole life—baseball, rugby, skiing—and even played rugby in Europe for a time. She was always pushing at whatever boundary was in front of her.
She also loved to dance. As she got older, she still went dancing every Saturday night. George usually stayed home.
“Janet would dance anything,” he told me. “She would dance by herself, even. She preferred to dance by herself.”
She loved being around water. She and George had a cabin on Hood Canal in Oregon, where they spent time with their dog, Orgee, and a collection of adopted cats. She loved animals. She was especially good with children, which George joked may have had something to do with being small herself. She worked as a dental assistant for most of her career and had a way of making people feel comfortable.
She also had a wicked sense of humor.
At a fancy Christmas party early in their relationship, everyone was trying to figure out who this mystery woman was. Eventually, Janet looked at another woman and announced across the table, “Yes, we are sleeping together.”
George laughed telling me the story.
“Right then, I told myself, this is going to be a different ride here,” he said.
It sure was.
Courtesy of George Harris
To Care and to Share
Janet loved to cook; she loved feeding people. The first year they were married, she decided to make Christmas cookies. George went to bed; when he woke up, there were 30 dozen cookies.
She was also famous for her salmon and a sauce George says he’ll never taste quite the same again.
Food, like so much else with Janet, was really about caring and sharing.
She supported single mothers, was deeply involved in her church, and was always looking for a way to help someone else.
She encouraged others, saying, “Come on kids, let's go! What the hell! “so what we broke the boundaries a little bit, let's go.”
She hated the word “smug.” To Janet, it meant having what you needed and being comfortable with the fact that someone else didn’t. If she had something, she shared it.
George told me about a conversation they had early in their marriage about charity and generosity. He was, by his own telling, becoming a little too comfortable with what they had. Janet finally looked at him and said: “Really George? Really?”
That gentle admonishment became a voice he carried with him for the rest of their lives together. When he found himself in a situation where he could give or share or do a little more, he would hear Janet asking again: Really, George? We can do better than that.
Even now with her gone, he still hears it. That spirit is what inspired him and Janet’s family to launch the Janet’s Planet New Explorer Scholarships with The Seabirds – to keep her legacy of care and love flowing on this planet.
Courtesy of George Harris
The Janet’s Planet New Explorer Scholarship
This October, we’re looking for a young woman in the Pacific Northwest who is adventurous, bright, and may have faced obstacles that have made it harder to access opportunities to achieve and thrive. She’ll come with us to the Silver Bank in the Dominican Republic, to join a humpback whale expedition in March 2027. All expenses will be paid, thanks to the generosity and love of Janet’s family.
There’s another connection that feels especially fitting.
Janet’s father, James Bemis, believed deeply in education and opportunity. He came from very little, earned a PhD in education, worked in financial aid at the University of Washington, and eventually became director of accreditation for colleges across the Pacific Northwest (PNW). He was particularly passionate about junior colleges because he believed there were talented people who simply needed someone to open the door.
As George put it: “You never know until you open the door.”
That idea was very Janet and her father. To honor them both, we’re especially inviting young women at PNW junior colleges to apply.
Janet died at just 71. She had plenty more living to do. But she left behind a husband who says she made him a better person, a family who adored her, and a whole lot of people who learned from her that life is more fun when you say yes, boundaries are occasionally worth pushing, and if you have something to give, you probably should.
So, this October, we’re going looking for Janet’s Planet scholar: a young woman with some of that same spark. Someone who might just need a door open.
And then, hopefully, we’ll get to say: Come on, kid. Let’s go.
