A guiding force for civic involvement and community spirit, Larry Lee Haller, 83, died Sunday.

Haller, a city councilor for more than 20 years, touched lives as a member of the Seaside Kids, Jaycees, Rotary, Miss Oregon Pageant, Masonic Lodge, Providence Seaside Hospital board, Seaside Civic and Convention Center board and the Seaside Chamber of Commerce.

“He was a fun-loving, wonderful man to be around,” City Manager Mark Winstanley said. “Every time he was asked to step up to the plate and do something, he just gave it his all. I’m not sure there’s anybody that cared more about Seaside than Larry did.”

“Larry was, to me, he was Mr. Seaside just because of his enthusiasm for life and his love of this community, and his willingness to always step up to the plate and to help, whatever he was asked of,” City Councilor Dana Phillips, a longtime friend, said. “If he was given a job he gave it 110 percent.”

Phillips, retired executive director of the Miss Oregon pageant, said Haller was “instrumental in keeping the Miss Oregon pageant going in the community.”

He worked on the pageant for more than 40 years, she said, serving as judge’s chairman on the executive board judges’ panel.

“When Larry was soliciting ads for the pageant’s journal, no one dared say ‘no’ out of respect for the man — and they knew he would come back until they did,” Phillips recalled.

Haller was born in Sweet Home to Alma and Joseph Haller.

He graduated from Milwaukie High School. He received a bachelor of science degree from Oregon State University and a master’s degree in administration from the University of Oregon.

He married Joyce Cumberland in 1956. In 1960, he moved with his family to Seaside, where he taught and coached at Seaside High School until he retired in 1989.

“He moved here in 1960 and he hit the floor running with being involved in the community,” his daughter Kristi Haller-Shaffer said. “There’s a lot of years in with Miss Oregon, Seaside Kids, City Council, Jaycees and all that.”

Winstanley was one of Haller’s students at Seaside High School. “I’ve known Larry for darn near 50 years, because he had me as a freshman in high school,” Winstanley said. “He was a very good teacher. He cared very much about his students.”

Stubby Lyons, a former Seaside High School teacher and coach and later a member of the City Council, called Haller “one of the brightest men I’ve ever known. He always had the right thing to say and the right thing to do.”

“I knew Larry clear back when I was in high school,” former City Councilor Don Johnson said. “He was the teacher, I was the student.”

Winstanley said Haller served as councilor during two separate periods, from 1981-92 and from 2001-10.

Haller was instrumental in the formation of the city’s first Trail’s End and Greater Seaside urban renewal districts, which brought improvements to the Broadway area from Holladay to the Prom. “I thought meetings were a magic place where daddys went when I was a little kid,” Haller-Shaffer said. “It really gave me a big sense of community.”

“We got a lot of bridges done,” Lyons said. “We got a lot of service done in the infrastructure around town. We started this business of getting it done — and I’m really happy about that.”

At his retirement in June 2010, Mayor Don Larson said Haller was instrumental in developing the Seaside Civic and Convention Center.

Without the convention center, we would be a small, hardly used community,” Larson said in 2010. “Larry was a prime mover behind that.”

“He was a doer and a get ’er doner,” Johnson said Monday. “He was part of the ‘secret seven’ of the instigation of the convention center — he, my dad, and a handful of other citizens formed a committee and figured out we needed a convention center. Didn’t seem to hurt us any I don’t think.”

When Johnson joined the City Council, Haller served as Johnson’s mentor and teacher on the council.

Haller played a similar role for Phillips. “Larry’s the reason why I’m on the council,” Phillips said. “After the brain tumor, he knew it was time to step aside. He called me, and said, ‘Dana would you consider thinking about running?’”

In 2010, Haller had this advice for would-be councilors: “You are here to help the public,” he said. “Don’t come with a specific agenda. Be a team player and be prepared to work closely with the city manager and the City Council. That’s what I think is most important.”

Haller is survived by his wife, Joyce; daughter, Kristi; son-in-law, Todd Shaffer; son, Scott; daughter-in-law, Cheryl Harrison; a brother, Bill; and several nieces and nephews. “My brother and I were raised to give back to the community in which we live, and he lived that,” Haller-Shaffer said.

A celebration of life is planned for later this year.