1,000-plus bid farewell to Lay

More than a thousand of Ken Lay's friends and associates and local dignitaries attended Ken Lay's second memorial service yesterday at First Methodist Church downtown, remembering the human side of the former Enron chief.

Among the speakers at the service was the Rev. Bill Lawson, who officiated at Lay's first memorial Sunday in Aspen, Colo. On Monday, Lawson compared Lay with John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr. and Jesus; yesterday, he paralleled Lay and James Byrd Jr., the black man dragged to death in Jasper in 1998. "Ken Lay was neither black nor poor as James Byrd was, but I'm angry because he was the victim of a lynching," Lawson said. Oh. (Lawson defended his comments to the crowd, saying, "Those who did not like [Lay] have had their say, and I'd like to have mine, and I don't care what you think.")

Other speakers included Lay's stepson David Herrold, his brother-in-law Ray Phillips and Mick Seidl, a longtime friend, who called Lay a visionary businessman "who didn't have a criminal bone in his body." Among those in the audience were George and Barbara Bush, ex-Secretary of State James Baker and ex-Secretary of Commerce Rob Mosbacher, socialite Carolyn Farb, developer Ed Wulfe and surgeon Denton Cooley.

Lay's ashes will be buried in Aspen.