Articles written by Rick Thompson

Rick Thompson|Feb 18, 2015

The Rotary Club’s Smelt Derby, which will be held Feb. 28 this year, has become the stuff of legends. Someone with first-hand knowledge of the most famous Smelt Derby of them all is setting the record straight. I enjoyed last week’s article by Lee Carlson concerning the annual Smelt Derby Festival. I have a feeling that most people today have no idea how big a deal the Smelt Derby used to be. By the time I arrived in La Conner in 1974, the derby had become the winter event in Northwest Washington. It regularly attracted more than 1,000 par...