Collecting clippings: local resident preserves glimpses of history, pop culture

In recent years, scrapbooking has become a popular hobby. But for a La Conner area resident it has long been more than that.

Anne Waldron has over time filled several of her old-school hardcover photo albums – the ones reinforced by clear protective overlay pages – with an eclectic collection of local and national news articles, favorite cartoon strips, advertisements bearing images of celebrities and treasured family memorabilia.

They are assembled in no particular order. Even so, none seem out of place.

With a lifelong appreciation of history and journalism, Waldron has fondly been referred to by friends variously as a pack rat and preservationist.

She wears both labels with pride.

"I choose things that just sort of jump out at me, things that resonate with m e," Waldron explained. "I'm especially interested in La Conner-related news. I've always liked to keep up with the news."

Her scrapbooks bear Weekly News clippings dating to shortly after the paper's founding more than 15 years ago. Turning the pages, one finds news photographs taken by Don Coyote and Amylynn Richards. Also saved is a 2013 Weekly News basketball feature on Katie McKnight, shown posing with her grandfather, La Conner High School sports legend Gail Thulen.

Waldron also clipped a Richards story and photo on a trio of La Conner students – Cody Cayou, Travis Tom and Nick Clark – who made an environmental documentary film on the U.S. Grant Administration's decision to open to white settlement land that appeared to have been within Swinomish Reservation boundaries established by the Point Elliot Treaty of 1855.

Her pages likewise contain an account by then-Weekly News reporter Maria Matson on creation of a salmon nursery on Fir Island; coverage of student and community stage play productions, town parades and the 2007 hiring of Shelter Bay's Garry Cline as director of the La Conner Quilt and Textile Museum.

She has saved Skagit Valley Herald features on the history of the Dunlap Towing Company, Washington state's partnership with the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community to co-manage a public park on Kiket Island, La Conner dairy owner Alan Mesman's embrace of organic farming and construction on Swinomish Reservation of the landmark Coast Salish cedar hat pavilions prior to the 2011 Paddle to Swinomish.

And much, much more.

"I've always loved history," Waldron said on Thursday. "I like to keep a record of things."

In that vein, she is on record lamenting the decline of local journalism around the country. Fewer people elsewhere in America now can do as she does – clip items of interest from an independent community newspaper.

"People," she stressed, "need to have local news."

Waldron, who doesn't own a computer, is a devotee of print.

"I would much rather have a news story that I can hold in my hands," said Waldron. And the same is true when it comes to interpersonal communication. Digital has its place, she conceded, but nothing in her view compares to reading correspondence on paper from a prior century.

"I have my great-grandmother's letters," said Waldron, "that I can hold in my hands and see up close what was written."

Similarly, Waldron likes handwriting and mailing letters and postcards.

And, through the scrapbooks, she has put her stamp on topics of historical and cultural significance as well.