Famous Folks From Our Town

When we first approached this project, there were a million ideas running through our brains about what to include in the book. We were all over the map. But ultimately the photographs steered the project, regardless of all our grand plans. One of our first ideas was to include some famous residents. But then who do you include, who do you leave out, how do you define “famous”? Eventually we decided that wasn’t a road we wanted to travel, and we needed the space for other things anyway. But, once again, blog to the rescue! This is a place we can profile some of those famous folks, no problem.

This week, in honor of winter and ski season, we would like to talk about Craig Kelly. Don’t know Kelly? Then you probably aren’t a snowboarder. In the late 1970s, Fulton’s Schwinn Cyclery in Mount Vernon attempted to sell snowboards. They did not sell. Eventually they were turned into rentals. They were not rented. Finally the owner’s son, Jeff Fulton, commandeered the four boards and headed to Mount Baker with three other friends. Fulton, Dan Donnelly, Eric Swanson and Craig Kelly, all from Mount Vernon, were the first to snowboard at Mount Baker Ski Area. They were on the forefront of an amazing new sport.

Kelly was a natural talent on a snowboard. He was already an accomplished BMX racer and a chemical engineering student at the University of Washington before becoming a world champion snowboarder. He was one of the first sponsored, professional snowboarders. During his fifteen-year professional career he won four world championships and three U.S. championships. He also won the Mount Baker Banked Slalom three times. As the sport became more popular he was featured in several commercials and appeared in seven Warren Miller films.

Eventually he retired from his professional career to devote himself to backcountry riding and guiding. He also continued to work with his old sponsor, Burton Snowboards, on design and development. According to owner Jake Burton, “When I started listening to Craig that was when my company became successful and really took off.… when the rest of the industry listened to Craig, that was when the sport really took off.” In 2011 Burton dedicated its prototype facility in Kelly’s name.

Kelly died on January 20, 2003 in an avalanche near Revelstoke, British Columbia, Canada while guiding two groups of backcountry adventurers who were heli-skiing on a glacier.

If you want to learn more about this boarding legend, or just see a little video, check out this preview to “Let It Ride: The Craig Kelly Story”.

Scenes

Recently we have been revisiting our scanned photographs. There are so many fabulous images! While the images in the book hold a special place in our hearts, there are so many others we didn’t include—it is enough to make us want to write another book! Sadly, lack of information was often a cause of an image not making the book. Of course if we had had unlimited information, choosing what to include and what to leave out would have been a Herculean task! Perhaps we should be grateful…

Here is a gem we know nothing about:

We scanned this from John Kamb Jr.'s collection. We simply adore the composition; the “slice of life” vibe from people who don’t know they are in the camera’s eye. Sadly, we didn’t know much about it so it was left behind.

And in this so-far-snowless winter (for us anyway), Big Snow pictures are catching our eye. There was a massive snowstorm that hit Mount Vernon back in 1916, and the book has a few photographs from then (can you image ice-skating on Skagit River?!?); this one didn’t make it.

It is still great, but we had to make an executive decision.

Never fear photos, we love you all! 

The Taft Connection

Mount Vernon has a small connection with our Nation’s 27th President. In October of 1911, William Howard Taft paid a visit to the town. On page 52 of the book you will see a photograph of him giving a speech near the train station. In addition to that, downtown’s largest hotel (at a whopping five stories tall!) was renamed The President in honor of the fact that Taft stayed there during his visit.

We also mention the rumor, which was repeated to us by several sources, that Taft got stuck in a bathtub while at, what was then, the Windsor.

Imagine our surprise when we came across this article today! Apparently the bathtub rumor was a national urban legend. It is not surprising, after the passage of about a hundred years, that this legend was given a little home town spin. We would venture that many places across the country thought that rumor was all about them.

And Taft seems to be everywhere these days (we’re such trendsetters!). Just the other night ESPN was reporting about Taft being the newest President to join the National’s Presidents’ Race. Interestingly, he does have some ties to baseball. In 1910 he threw out the first-ever ceremonial first pitch. And he is often credited with starting the seventh inning stretch. It seems like a good choice for the Nationals, but we feel kind of bad for the person that will have to run around in that extra-giant head…

Celebrate!

After many iterations of reading, rereading, correcting and approving, today Senior Production Editor Ryan Easterling wrote to us:

...I have completed all my final checks regarding the book and have prepared it for the printer. You can consider this your official “you are done” email. Congratulations!...

YEAH!!! It is a huge relief to finally be in the printing stage. It seemed like this day wound never come. And now, here it is! We almost don’t know what to do with ourselves. Now what?

Hopefully, since all our deadlines were met, the book should be released on the originally planned date of March 18th. It is going to feel phenomenal to hold the finished product in our hands.

Do You Know Legson Kayira?

We did not. We were introduced to the saga of this amazing man by a librarian at Skagit Valley College. His story is remarkable and, unfortunately, not part of our book. To begin with, we did not have a photograph, but we didn’t put much effort into finding one because there is no way in the world we could have done justice to his story in a mere caption.

A quick Google search will lead to the article “Legson Kayira, the first Malawian novelist, has died”, he recently passed away at the age of 70. But being a famous novelist isn’t the best part of his story. No the best part was his struggle to reach the United States. He worked and walked his way 2500 miles across Africa, from his native village of Mpale in Nyasaland (now Mawali).

In October of 1958, Kayira set out on foot with only the clothes on his back, a few handfuls of flour, a Bible and a copy of “Pilgrim’s Progress”. By January 1960, he had reached Kampala, Uganda. There he learned about an “American free library” (the United States Information Service). He went there almost daily and one day discovered a directory of American colleges and universities. Opening the book at random, the first name that caught his eye was Skagit Valley College. He airmailed a letter of application to the junior college, hoping for the best. “I had no idea where the state of Washington was,” he said, “but I said to myself, ‘If this college does not answer, I shall try another.’” Two weeks later he got a response. Not only was he admitted, but he was also eligible for a scholarship and the college would help find him a job.

Unfortunately there was still the matter of getting to the United States. He would also have to secures a passport and visas—a difficult task for a boy who did not have any official papers. Luckily he was aided by a former mission teacher and obtained a Nyasaland passport before continuing his journey on September 1, 1960. On September 26, 1960, he walked into the U.S. embassy in Khartoum, Sudan and applied for a visa. The U.S. Vice-Counsel, Emmett M. Coxson explained that U.S. law required foreign students to have either financial means or sponsors. He wrote to Skagit Valley College:

“Mr. Kayira is walking and hitchhiking from his home to the college—approximately halfway around the world. So far he has traveled about 2500 miles, and he appears undaunted by the prospect that his journey has barely begun. My first reaction was that I should tell him to go back home. After seeing what he has done, however, my conscience will not allow me to drop the affair without first satisfying myself that there is indeed no hope.”

The community of Mount Vernon rallied. Students and townspeople raised funds (eventually $1700) to bring Kayira to the United States. William and Martha Atwood of Mount Vernon airmailed an invitation for Kayira to live in their home as long as he studied at Skagit. On December 20, 1960, he arrived at the Skagit Valley College campus.

Initially he majored in physics, but switched to political science, earning his associates degree from Skagit Valley College in 1963. From there he went on to get a B.A. in political science from the University of Washington in 1965. Then he went to England on a two-year scholarship for graduate studies at St. Catherine’s College of Cambridge University. Kayira wrote several novels, but one of his best-selling works was his 1965 autobiography, “I Will Try”.

Tricksy History

Here is another photograph we simply love:

But, luckily as it turns out, it is not in the book. We excluded it based on a hunch. Once we had some free time on our hands we researched the matter further and breathed a heavy sigh of relief that we listened to our nagging feeling of doubt…

What you will find in the book are mentions of Mount Vernon’s Pioneer Flag. Again, it is a story that couldn’t be explained fully in the confines of captions, but we manage to cover the most important points about this amazing piece of history. If you haven’t seen it, take a trip to the courthouse. After walking in the front door and through security, take a sharp left and you will see a huge display case on the left wall holding this treasure. The display box covers most of the wall. And the flag is so massive that you can only see a small section of it—the rest is folded behind what is visable.

On the opposite wall are two framed write-ups about the flag. One in particular has some great historical details:

Almost half a century ago the one hundredth anniversary celebration of our National Birthday was approaching. The settlers, about seventy-five in number, who lived in and near Mount Vernon, the pioneer village on the banks of the Skagit River, were planning a celebration. John Lorenzy said to Ed English that it would be the first Fourth of July he had ever celebrated without a flag. They decided there must be a flag but there was none to buy. So the Clothier-English store ordered the bunting at a cost of about seventy-five dollars, for a large flag that was to be 24x36 feet with stripes 18 inches wides. Charles Towne cut out the stars, and for several days all the ladies of the neighborhood gathered in the parlors of the Hotel, the old Ruby House. Mrs. McNamara and Mrs. Papin served the lunches to the following who sewed: Mrs. Minerva Kimble, Mrs. Clarinda Gates, Mrs. Dennis Storrs, Mrs. George A. Hartson, Mrs. J. F. Dwelley and Mrs. Schott. They used the first sewing machine in the community to do the stitching. To celebrate the completion of the making of the flag, they and their friends held a picnic in the spruce grove on the Kimball farm just south of Mount Vernon.

According to local historian Dick Fallis, “One problem with this account is that the Ruby House did not come into existence until 1879, concurrent with the gold excitement at Ruby Creek, some distance up the Skagit River beyond the jam that had not yet been cleared away by the earlier date.” (from Bridgeside: Selected Stories of Dick Fallis Skagit County Historian, available at the Skagit County Historical Museum.)

Now, the flag in the photograph above clearly has the 48-star pattern that did not exist until July 4, 1912. A flag made in 1876 would have had a 37 or 38-star pattern. Since the flag was not put away until 1914, it is possible that they might have updated the stars. Did people do that? Good question. That put the first seed of doubt in our minds. The other thing is that big flags were a big deal back then—it seems like every community had one. Therefore this could have easily been some other community’s flag. Even though we were told this was Mount Vernon's Pioneer Flag, we decided to err on the side of caution and omit the picture.

Interestingly, the document quoted above isn’t referenced, but seems to have been written shortly after the flag was placed in its permanent display case (Armistice Day, November 11, 1924). But it does state that “The last star sewed on the flag represents the admission of Colorado as a state.” Clearly that would eliminate the flag shown above, but there is still a mystery...

Once Colorado was admitted, the U.S. flag had a 38-star pattern, like this:

Looking at the flag in the courthouse, it is possible to see only the lower two rows of stars. There are seven in each row and they are offset from one another (pardon the lack of a photo, but the glass case and dark hallway aren’t conducive to good photography). That would indicate a 43-star pattern like the one seen here:

And that would make since—add the star for your home state! So perhaps the stars were updated. But that does contradict the document posted across the hall from the flag. Even the most seemingly cut and dried history can turn up some mysteries! Now what we wouldn’t give to see a good photo of the flag before it was put on display...

Crunch!

That would be a time crunch! But first off, welcome back! It has been far too long since we’ve posted. We apologize, but it was a lethal combination of busy lives and not much action on the book-front. Once everything was shipped off and we started getting distracted by other things, the blog suffered.

Then why now? Because on Wednesday we got our book proofs from Arcadia!

Wow! How fantastic to see everything put together and laid out in one book-like package. It truly was mind-blowing. It was also a very proud moment. We created this!

But quickly we had to snap back to reality and get to work. We only have seven days to correct and return the proofs. There was some frantic research and lots of reading and rereading and discussing. It was also nice to read through the entire manuscript after not working on it for such a long time. We had been able to put everything behind us at the end of September. It was good to read and think about how we would make improvements and what little words or phrases we simply didn’t like. It was refreshing and we feel like the book is now even better. Yes, it has been a hectic week with lots of unexpected work (we didn’t know when we were getting our proofs, they simply appeared one day), but we are excited to get everything returned and see the final approval set in the near future.

We are also going to get better about blogging. Promise. We have to do something to help vent our excitement about our upcoming book release!