With key to city, Bartlett unlocks door to future

As a teen, Craig Bartlett helped preserve La Conner’s past with his detailed drawings of local landmarks.

Now, four decades and countless critical and commercial successes later, the famed animator is helping champion the town’s future.

Bartlett, one of the enter-tainment industry’s most creative minds, returned home Saturday to present a film festival benefit for the new La Conner Braves sfter-school program.

With a string of hit TV shows and feature films to his credit, and a still ascending international career, Bartlett was clearly in his element meeting and greeting children and their parents at the La Conner Middle School Gymnasium.

At one point, he brought out a guitar and playfully sang the theme from “Dinosaur Train,” one of his signature projects.

“That’s what we’re working on now,” Bartlett said of “Dinosaur Train.” “We’re looking at 11 new episodes for PBS Kids.”

For Bartlett, working isn’t so much working as it is fun.

“Craig is just a big kid himself at heart and that’s what makes him so special,” said his sister, Connie Funk, of the La Conner Braves Club staff, who MC’d the afternoon festival, an event highlighted by clips from “Dinosaur Train” and other Bartlett favorites such as “Hey, Arnold!,” “Ready, Jet, Go!” and “Mystery Lodge.”

“I was standing next to him while the cartoons were going,” Funk added, “and he laughed along with them like he was seeing them for the first time.”

In fact, Bartlett not only designed and created the universally recognized characters endeared by millions, but has also written award-winning scripts and song lyrics that deftly speak to kids and adults alike.

His weekend public appearance here, at an event hosted by La Conner Kiwanis and Soroptimists, was a big hit as well.

La Conner Mayor Ramon Hayes presented Bartlett with the key to the city and bolstered proceeds from silent and live auctions by announcing a $5,000 commitment on the Town’s part to support the La Conner Braves Club.

“The Town,” said Funk, noting endorsements of the program voiced by Hayes and Town Council members, “hopes to do that annually.”

Funk’s and Bartlett’s parents, the late Glen and Kay Bartlett, were long-time advocates of early childhood development and envisioned the vital role after-school enrichment opportunities would fill in La Conner.

The La Conner Braves Club, under director Marlene Brenton, has 100 members and serves 60-80 youth daily.

“It’s something so valuable,” Funk stressed, “since kids are not home alone or downtown alone and unsupervised.”

Investing in children, she added, has always proved to return future dividends.

It’s a cause so embraced by the family that Bartlett flew in for the festival at his own expense, fitting the fundraiser into an already busy schedule.

Bartlett made himself available throughout for photos and autographs. Among his fans was La Conner Schools Superintendent Dr. Whitney Meissner and her young nephew, William James McCann.

Funk said her brother’s ability to relate to children everywhere is natural.

“Craig grew up with the Flintstones and Jetsons,” she explained. “And now he goes all around the world doing some really, really amazing things.”

He was doing amazing things again on Saturday, this time back where it all began.

“We had a home here,” said Funk, “so La Conner has always been in Craig’s heart.”