Life of late Newport Beach activist Allan Beek to be remembered at public reception

Friends and relatives of local activist, engineer and former Daily Pilot columnist Allan Beek asked members of the Newport Beach community he loved to join them in celebrating his life during a memorial service next Friday.

Beek was born in 1927 and spent most of his life in Newport Beach. He died in the company of loved ones at Riverside Community Hospital in January, 12 days before his 97th birthday.

The son of Balboa Island Ferry founder Joseph Beek, Allan Beek watched Newport Beach develop practically from the ground up in his youth. As an adult, he made it his mission to remedy the environmental damage wrought on local waterways and communities as a consequence of the city’s growth.

Beek was a former member of the Newport Beach Planning Commission. He was also a treasurer and longtime board member for the nonprofit currently known as Still Protecting our Newport Beach, which championed the cleanup of upper Newport Bay in the 1970s and a 1985 settlement agreement with John Wayne Airport limiting noise pollution to preserve the quality of life of nearby residents.

Beek graduated from Caltech and became an engineer in the aerospace industry. He made a living designing guidance systems for Lockheed, North American Rockwell and Boeing until his retirement in 1990.

Relatives of local activist Allan Beek invited members of the Newport Beach community to commemorate his life at a public reception on Friday, Sept. 6.

(Courtesy of Beth Beek Blackford)

He was “generous with his intellect and his time,” weighing in on contentious matters as a recurring columnist for the Daily Pilot in the ’80s, relatives said in a statement. He was also a member of the board at KPFK public radio and an outspoken supporter of universal single-payer healthcare in California.

“He had this dichotomy,” Beek’s daughter, Beth Beek Blackford, said during an interview Tuesday. “He was a physicist and a mathematician. But he also had this immense capacity for emotion and would frequently break into tears over the issues he cared about.”

Beek was recognizable around town behind the wheel of his canary yellow 1961 Volkswagen Beetle, which had racked up well over 500,000 miles during the course of his ownership. The vehicle is up for sale.

“Honestly, it’s a death trap,” Blackford said of the Volkswagen. “But we hope it will make some collector out there very happy.

The Bug will feature prominently along with a life-sized cutout of the local activist and adult beverages at a memorial and reception scheduled Friday, Sept. 6, from 4 to 6:30 p.m. at the Peter & Mary Muth Interperetive Center in the Upper Newport Bay Nature Preserve.