Local history revisited at annual Skagit City School summer picnic

Class was in session on a sunny summer Sunday at Skagit City School, and history was the main course of study.

That was just fine with the "students," several of them descendants of school alumni and justifiably proud of the restored schoolhouse and exhibits displayed inside the landmark Fir Island building on Moore Road.

The annual picnic, hosted by the Skagit County Historical Museum, coincided with hot weather, warm memories of days gone by and music by Conway vocalist and guitarist Marcia Kester.

For members of the La Conner Rotary Club, the day was literally a picnic. Rotarians prepared the event's lunch menu, selling items at cost.

"For us, this is a community service project," Audrey Gravely, the club president, told the Weekly News. "It's not a fundraiser. We just come and do the work and serve the people who are here. It's a way for us to help the historical society."

La Conner resident Chip Hall pitched in, too, providing fresh cherries for the picnic.

Peter Goldfarb, former owner of the White Swan Bed & Breakfast on Moore Road and chief spokesman for the La Conner Chamber of Commerce in the 1980s, was among the attendees. Now a Mount Vernon resident, Goldfarb still felt very much at home in his old neighborhood.

"This is a beautiful part of the valley," he said. "I miss it out here."

Don Wick, a Skagit Valley legend from his careers with KBRC radio and the Economic Development Alliance of Skagit County, enjoyed reconnecting with Mount Vernon attorney John Kamb Jr. and others, while listening to Kester perform hits from the '50s, '60s and '70s.

Kester said it was her first time playing the Skagit City School Picnic, but she settled in quickly.

During a break in the music, Skagit County Historical Museum Director Jo Wolfe offered some positive notes of her own – the discovery of professional period photographic negatives from the collection of her predecessor, late artist and civic leader Mark Iverson.

"When he passed away, his nephew found boxes of negatives that Mark had been gifted by a commercial photographer," Wolfe said of Iverson

Those have since been donated to the museum, which Wolfe said is in the process of identifying subjects in the photographs.

She said the museum plans to have a booth at the Skagit County Fair in August where the public will be invited to help with the identifications.

Wolfe said the museum is also launching a "Drive to 500" campaign to increase membership in the county historical society.

"There are 120,000 people in Skagit County, and there are 200 to 300 members of the historical society," Wolfe said. "We want to get more people involved in the preservation of history in Skagit County. We want to increase our membership to 500."

Skagit City School, which dates to the turn of the 20th century, closed in 1940 when many rural schools consolidated with larger districts. Three years later, the late Ronnie Holttum, a La Conner High School graduate who owned a service station in Cedardale, bought the school at auction and organized a club to maintain it.

Holttum taught Sunday school classes there for two decades.

The historical museum bought the building in 2014. Its eventual rehabilitation was made possible by grant awards administered by the Washington State Historical Society.