Pat Good: Longtime smiling face of the Pioneer Picnic

For years he was the face of the Pioneer Picnic, one that always bore a smile.

Pat Good (1928-2008), whose forebears settled on Fir Island a century and a half ago, was a longtime mainstay at the annual picnic in La Conner’s Pioneer Park, where he prepared salmon as the main course of a luncheon that often drew more than 300 people.

He did so gladly.

Good was immensely proud of his Skagit heritage, part of which – a large part, in fact – was based on volunteerism and public service.

“Nobody was more giving of himself,” says his sister, Lou Good Lovelace, now of Bellevue. “He was just that kind of person. He would get up in the middle of the night to help someone with car trouble.”

An avid outdoorsman who loved fishing and regularly ventured into Canada for moose hunts, Good was equally skilled as a cook. It was only natural that he would answer the call to barbecue salmon at the Skagit County Pioneer Association Picnic and General Meeting the first Thursday each August.

“I can’t remember a time when my father was not at a Pioneer Picnic,” said Kim Good Rubenstein, one of his three daughters and a past president of the Skagit County Pioneer Association. “The collection of (Pioneer Picnic) ribbons we have discovered since his and his brother’s passing was telling of his love and appreciation for the pioneers who settled this area.”

Good, of course, came from pioneer stock. He was a descendant of those who had arrived at Fir Island before the turn of the 20th century and reclaimed it, as the saying went, from “forest and flood” to farm some of the richest soil in America.

Most of his life – save for a four-year stint in the U.S. Navy – was centered around Skagit agriculture.

“He was a farmer through and through, was a steward of the land and contributed to his community in many ways,” Rubenstein says.

In addition to his work on behalf of the Pioneer Association that included a stint as president, Good also gave of his time and energy – the latter of which was near legendary – to the American Legion, March of Dimes, Ducks Unlimited, Junior Chamber of Commerce (Jaycees) the Skagit County Historical Museum, Fir-Conway Lutheran Church and the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks , among others.

That commitment to public service and civic engagement has been embraced by his daughters.

Rubenstein and one of her sisters, Virginia Good-Vlahovich, have each filled key leadership roles with the Pioneer Association.

Good-Vlahovich also serves on the board of directors of the Helping Hands Food Bank and in that role was formally recognized for her service earlier this year by retired U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.

Patsy Good, the third of the fondly dubbed “Good Girls,” is a La Conner Rotarian who long managed its Smelt Derby, also a family passion, has volunteered as a Sea Scouts adult leader and helped coordinate the historical museum’s 2021 writing contest.

And, together, the “Good Girls” have assumed their dad’s duties managing the Pioneer Picnic salmon preparation. They were obviously well taught.

“Dad always made sure he had alder wood to cook the salmon on,” Good-Vlahovich recalls. “I’m not sure how he got asked to barbecue the salmon (at the Pioneer Picnic) but he started with his brother-in-law, Ben Tjersland, and his brother, Mike Good, also helped. I think they all worked together for about 12 years, then I took over for Uncle Ben.”

When Pat Good passed away, Good-Vlahovich asked the Pioneer Association board if she could continue with her dad’s work.

“They all said ‘yes,’” she says, “and then I asked my sisters, Kim and Patsy, if they we wanted to help and we’ve been working as a team every year.”

Members of the Good family have been fixtures at the Pioneer Picnic for more than seven decades.

“Going way back,” Good-Vlahovich says, “dad’s grandparents – Elma Mae and W.D. Good – would attend the Pioneer Picnic. We’ve found some old ribbons from the Picnic dating back to the 1940s.”

Shortly after each Pioneer Picnic, once the school year started, Pat Good regularly attended sports events on the La Conner campus, where his wife, Janet, was a faculty member. For several years he was part of the sideline chain gang at La Conner High football games.

Appreciative of history, he was also inventive in real time.

“Dad loved to moose hunt,” explains Good-Vlahovich, “and went up into the Northwest Territory for seven years until they changed the permitting (rules) for U.S. citizens to hunt up there. So, he designed a ‘Moose Mobile’ that would go in the water as well as on land. A local boat company in La Conner made it for him and up to Canada he went. Things, of course, didn’t quite work as planned and he changed the steering and tracks so he could turn on a dime.”

Nor was he done tinkering.

“Then,” Good-Vlahovich says, “came a bigger engine!”

That larger motor matched the drive he had for the Pioneer Picnic, which proved a Good turn of events on so many levels.