Vashon’s new water taxi, set to hit the water in 2015, will be named the Sally Fox, after a late islander who advocated for Vashon’s passenger-only ferry service.

The name was chosen by voters in a contest put on by the King County Ferry District earlier this summer. It garnered more than one-third of the votes.

Sally Fox was an activist who fought tirelessly to maintain and expand passenger-only ferry service from Vashon to downtown Seattle and rallied islanders when cuts to the service were threatened.

Fox’s career included working for the Office of Civil Rights in the federal Department of Health, Education and Welfare, where she enforced civil-rights legislation in public schools. Later she was the city of Seattle’s employee-benefits manager and helped craft the city’s first benefits program for domestic partners of employees. According to The Seattle Times, she became a national authority on domestic-partner employee benefits

Fox died in 2007, at age 62, after a three-year battle with esophageal cancer.

More than 2,000 people voted in the county’s contest to name the two new water taxis that will carry passengers from Vashon and West Seattle to downtown. Options for the Vashon ferry, all nominated by the public, also included Betty MacDonald, Lisabeula, Barbara Durham and Lucy Gerand.

The West Seattle water taxi will be named the Doc Maynard. According to a press release, Cobain Watertrain was also a popular vote, but the county determined there was “too much licensing risk involved.”