Skagit Pioneer of Year Family member Duane Berentson a key public official

In his many roles as an educator, lawmaker, state official and in private business, the late Duane Berentson was hailed as a team player.

And family man.

The well-documented devotion to service and consensus building that defined him has been a blueprint for others in the Benson/Berentson lineage. The family will be honored at the 119th annual Pioneer Picnic in La Conner Aug. 3 as the Skagit County Pioneer Association Family of the Year.

For three decades a key figure in Olympia, Duane Berentson is perhaps best known locally for having established a strong link between Anacortes and Burlington in the form of the twin-spanned bridge bearing his name on State Hwy. 20 crossing Swinomish Channel. That connection is evident 10 years after his passing.

Berentson grew up in Anacortes, where he was a record-setting high school basketball player for a program long equated with excellence.

He enrolled at the University of Washington, later transferring to Pacific Lutheran University. There he was part of a Lutes basketball team that qualified for the 1951 national championship tournament in Kansas City, Missouri under coach Marv Harshman.

Berentson's Burlington chapter came next.

After college, he was hired to teach biology and journalism and coach basketball at Burlington-Edison High School. He led the Tigers to post-season play.

His son, Dan Berentson, who ran the Skagit Argus newspaper prior to a 20-year tenure as the county director of public works, recalls that after transitioning to the investment industry his father parlayed his unique appreciation for both competition and cooperation into a long and successful career in state politics and public service.

The senior Berentson was elected in 1962 to the state legislature. Upon arriving in Olympia he met a trio of young Republicans in Slade Gorton, Dan Evans and Joel Pritchard. Gorton would eventually unseat legendary U.S. Senator Warren Magnuson. Evans became a three-term Washington governor and also served in the Senate. Pritchard, who invented pickleball, gained election to the U.S. House of Representatives.

In the summer of 1966, the Berentson family joined Gov. Evans on a three-day trip across what would become the route of the North Cascades Highway. Dan Berentson has chronicled that youthful trek.

While serving as a state lawmaker, Duane Berentson gained a reputation for championing the underdog and supporting Open Meetings Act legislation.

"The highlight of his career," Dan Berentson said in accepting the 2006 Skagit County Liberty Bell Award on behalf of his father, who was then traveling in Central America, "was serving as co-Speaker of the House in 1978."

The former basketball standout and coach was called upon to reprise his role as a team player in that position, serving alongside Democrat John Bagnariol when the state House membership split 49-49 between the two political parties.

Berentson left the legislature in 1980 to run for governor. He lost a tight primary contest with King County Executive John Spellman, who defeated incumbent Dixie Lee Ray in the general election that fall.

Dan Berentson said his dad fell just 3,500 votes short in the primary, carrying every county in the state except King, Spellman's urban home base.

Again embracing his team player approach, Duane Berentson immediately supported Spellman against Ray. Spellman, in turn, named Berentson his legislative liaison.

Shortly thereafter, despite not being a trained engineer, Berentson was appointed state secretary of transportation following a nationwide search. It was a position he held for a dozen years.

Berentson showed great foresight in bestowing increased priority to multi-modal and mass transportation.

"Most remarkable," Seattle Post-Intelligencer columnist Shelby Scates wrote of Berentson at the time, "was his switch in DOT (Department of Transportation) from roads to mass transit. Imagine turning an ARCO tanker 90 degrees with a lifeboat oar. Berentson's own change is a credit to his ability to learn and compromise; a political instinct to reach out, make contact and feel the public will – a talent lacking in his engineer predecessors."

Berentson's most impactful success may have been resolving the federal funding block keeping I-90 from completion through Eastern Washington and downtown Seattle.

"I think the most gratifying thing," Berentson said while interviewed for an oral history during his retirement, "was being able to take the 'bridges to nowhere' on I-90 and I-5 and actually get the federal funding to complete that."

Of course, the bridge bearing his name – not far from La Conner and on the main route between Anacortes and Burlington – is a living monument to Berentson's legacy of connecting with people and going the extra mile to meet the needs of the public he served.