A former Key West administrator and AIDS Help director drowned Sunday while trying to rescue his girlfriend from a rip current at Crescent Beach near St. Augustine.

Ron Herron, 60, was seen swimming in shallow water and heard giving Ruthie Adams instructions on how to escape the water's pull, according to the St. Augustine Record. Adams made it safely to shore, but then could not find Herron.

Surfers found his body floating about 500 feet north of where he last had been seen, the newspaper reported.

A surfer brought Herron to shore and performed CPR before he was pronounced dead at Flagler Hospital at 2:30 Sunday afternoon, the newspaper reported.

Herron was a Crescent City resident, the newspaper reported. An October 2005 item in The Citizen said he recently had moved out of the Keys. His Varela Street home sold in March, Monroe County property records show.

In Key West, Herron had worked as assistant city manager and interim city manager in the early 1990s.

After helping to establish the Key West AIDS Memorial at White Street Pier in 1997, Herron became executive director of AIDS Help in the latter half of that decade. He left work at AIDS Help to run for state representative in 2000 against incumbent Ken Sorensen, said Robert Walker, his AIDS Help successor, who knew him for more than 30 years.

"He was a wonderful administrator in this town," said Walker, who said he was further shocked by the news because Herron was an avid swimmer and fitness buff. "He liked to do good things for this community."

More recently, Herron served on the Citizen's Advisory Task Force, which was tasked with rehabilitating housing throughout Monroe County using money from certain government grants.

"He was just one of the good guys," Walker said.

No information was immediately available about memorial services.

mbolen@keysnews.com