La Conner Kiwanis 1982 toy drive at bank triggered excitement

Sponsors of La Conner's giving tree projects are always thrilled with the level of participation in the popular holiday season campaigns.

But nothing can – or likely will – compare to the excitement generated by the La Conner Kiwanis Club's Christmas Food & Toy Drive 40 years ago.

That's when a loaded handgun was discovered in the main Kiwanis donation box at the then Rainier Bank branch –today's The Fork at Skagit Bay Restaurant on First Street.

The late beloved Rev. Jon Skiffington and his friend, barber Dick Holt, both Kiwanians, helped coordinate the 1982 holiday drive.

But just before Christmas, as volunteers from the Kiwanis Club and Skiffington's Assembly of God Church gathered to collect last minute gift donations, they were stunned to discover someone had ditched a loaded .38 Smith & Wesson in the box.

In those days, La Conner had its own police force. Larry Yonally, the long-serving chief, quickly ruled out the possibility that some well-meaning donor meant the gun to be a Christmas present.

Yonally had other theories.

One was that the downtown bank may have been targeted for a robbery during the holiday shopping season. The would-be robber, Yonally speculated, may have gotten cold feet entering the lobby and instead deposited the gun in the Food & Toy Drive box a few feet from a teller's window.

Yonally traced the gun back to a Granite Falls man, though some evidence suggested it had been stolen, perhaps used in the commission of crimes elsewhere and then gotten rid of in La Conner.

The late Channel Town Press editor-publisher Alan Pentz, covered the story and much admired Skiffington. He had his own theory of the case. It repeatedly drew chuckles from Skiffington in his re-telling.

"Maybe it just fell out of the Rev. Skiffington's shoulder holster," Pentz suggested, "while he was wrestling the big box of food and toys out of the bank and loading it in his car."

As cold cases go, it's one that confirms the universal adage that crime never takes a holiday.