Annual Pioneer Picnic was family affair

For much of Thursday, the skies above La Conner were filled with Navy jets and drizzle.

But below the cloud cover, goodwill filled Pioneer Park.

A true pioneer spirit – one marked by food and fellowship and alluded to in the invocation and benediction offered by Rev. Marcella Baker of La Conner United Methodist Church – shone through well before the sun finally appeared in early afternoon.

Fittingly, one of the main highlights of the 114th annual Pioneer Picnic in La Conner was presentation of the Pioneer Spirit award to retired championship high school football coach Glenn Rickert.

Rickert was honored for his remarkable won-loss record, but even more so for having positively impacted Burlington-Edison High students over the course of 33 years at the school.

Among those was Colleen Leach Knutzen, herself now a teacher, and one of three main speakers for the Babarovich family of Anacortes, selected as the Pioneer Family of the Year.

“I just want to start out,” said Knutzen, “by thanking coach Rickert. He was my typing and accounting teacher and I want to thank him for the skills he taught me.”

Another of the Babarovich family speakers, attorney Paul Luvera, a member of the American Trial Lawyers Hall of Fame, can Trial Lawyers Hall of Fame, also lauded Rickert.

“Congratulations, coach,” Luvera said to Rickert. “You were such an inspiration to the students in Burlington.

The only mistake you made,” Luvera quipped, “is you didn’t coach in Anacortes.”

Rickert’s son, Jon, said it was his mom, Gloria, who was most instrumental in the coach leaving Mead High in Spokane for Burlington-Edison in 1956.

“He loved Mead and loved Spokane,” Jon said of his dad, a Puyallup native who initially went east of the mountains to attend Washington State University, where he played football. “He loved Spokane and probably wouldn’t have left.”

But Gloria Rickert had family in Bellingham and let it be known to the coach she would love for him to take the Burlington job.

“Once he got here,” Jon said, “He didn’t want to leave. It was the perfect place. He had plenty of opportunities to leave and didn’t.”

Glenn Rickert and Burlington-Edison proved a perfect match.

“There are people here today from Burlington,” said Marc Neff, one of that number, “because of coach Rickert. He influenced a lot of people.”

The Babarovich family was likewise saluted for its lasting influence in Skagit County, dating to the 19th century arrival here of John Babarovich, who developed the area’s first power purse seiner and inspired two waves of Croatian fishing families to relocate halfway across the world to Anacortes.

Anita Luvera Mayer offered an engaging account of her grandmother, Marija Babarovich, that was heartfelt and humorous in equal measure.

She shared several engaging vignettes, closing with the memory of how her grandmother coped with leaving behind relatives in the old country, knowing it unlikely she would ever see them again.

“She said,” Mayer related, “that she and my grandfather wanted a better life for their family.”

Mayer spoke of the reverence and admiration she felt for her grandmother. It was a theme other speakers employed when speaking of Babarovich forebears.

Knutzen spoke fondly of her grandfather, John Babarovich, son of Peter and Marija Barbarovich, and a nephew of the first John Babarovich.

Luvera paid tribute to his mom, Mary Thelma Babarovich Luvera, whom he praised for possessing a wide range of talents.

Most important, though, was her role as a loving parent, he said.

“She was somebody who stood by me,” said Luvera, “both as a child and adult.”

Luvera noted how he was proud to say he was from a family of immigrants – his mom’s family having arrived from Croatia (then part of the Austrian-Hungarian empire) and his dad, the late state lawmaker and renowned totem pole carver Paul Luvera, Sr., being from Italy.

Mary Lou Babarovich Leach, daughter of the second John Babarovich, accepted the Pioneer Family of the Year plaque from Skagit County Pioneer Association President Karen Summers.

She did so on behalf of a large contingent of Babarovich family members representing several generations, all of whom gathered for a group photo at the close of the Pioneer Association’s general meeting.

It was a picture-perfect end to the day.

In related notes:

• The Good Girls: sisters Ginger, Kim and Patsy Good, prepared the salmon for Thursday’s luncheon, which was served by members of the La Conner Civic Garden Club.

• The La Conner Sunrise Food Bank provided beverages on a donation basis, with proceeds going to the local pantry.

• Faye Whitney returned to lead the Pioneer Picnic sing-a-longs after having missed last year’s due to illness.

• Pioneer Association Imme-diate Past President Kim Good-Rubenstein presented the Presi-dent’s Award to Summers, who had earlier introduced the afternoon’s guest speakers. Summers, curator at the Skagit County Historical Museum in La Conner, also compiled much of the biographical information on this year’s honorees.

• Bill Meador, 94, was recognized as the oldest man in attendance for a second straight year, edging 93-year-old Jim Neff of Burlington.

• Joyce Johnson, who recently celebrated her 100th birthday, was the oldest woman in attendance. She put in a full shift at the ticket sales table.

• Director Jo Wolfe reported on events planned to celebrate this year’s 50th anniversary of the Historical Museum.

• Incoming Pioneer Association President Dan Royal said sales were strong for the first volume of the new Skagit River Journal, a collection of the area’s history and folklore.

• Royal led a moment of silence for departed Pioneers.

• Music was provided through-out by the Leif & Sunnie Accordion Duo.