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Noel V. Bourasaw, editor 810 Central Ave., Sedro-Woolley, Washington, 98284 Home of the Tarheel Stomp Mortimer Cook slept here & named the town Bug
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Skagit county movers and shakers
all were 1915 UW graduates
Frank Evans, Herman Anderson, Art Ward, Sid McIntyre
Under Construction, August 2011

From left to right: Frank Evans, Sid McIntyre, Art Ward, Herman Anderson

Skagit Valley Herald, June 10, 1965

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Four Skagit county men will drop out of the orbit of their daily lives tomorrow and Land in an era they know 50 years ago.
It will be a 50th anniversary for the University of Washington class of 1915, and on hand to remember the old days will be Skagit County Superior Court Judge A.H. Ward, Sid McIntyre Sr. of Skagit Corporation (whose proper name was Sydney), Herman Anderson of Mount Vernon and publisher Frank Evans of Sedro-Woolley.
There will be more than 150 alumni in Seattle to celebrate the anniversary of the class. Judge Ward, presently serving a tour with the State Supreme Court in Olympia, told his family he exp4cts to get away from his legal duties long enough for the Golden "W" Reunion.
Herman Anderson, who left a name that will always be remembered in University sports, went to Seattle today to have a pre-reunion with three other members of the football team that he captained in 1913. Anderson played right tackle in the days when an athlete could play varsity ball even as a freshman. He won his letter for four years and in 1914 was presented the Flaherty medal when the squad voted him the team's most inspirational player.
Thinking back to that team, Anderson said this morning that three of its players, Wayne Sutton, Charlie Smith and Tony Savage, will be on hand. A fourth player, Mike Hunt, he said is living in the east and will not be attending the reunion.
Searching through the yearbook that Anderson supplied, three other Skagit county members of the class were spotted, but their present whereabouts could not be determined. They were Raoul A. Brinck, a liberal arts major from Anacortes; Rupert O. Edmonds, also liberal arts, from Mount Vernon; and Hazel Emma Parlin, liberal arts, from Concrete. Whether or not the three will join in tomorrow's milestone event is not known.

Journal research By Noel V. Bourasaw Herman Anderson wound up playing a very important role in Skagit County history in the 1958-59 period when he was a key member in the group that organized the Skagit County Historical Society. In 1958 William Schumaker was the President of the Skagit County Pioneer Association and he appointed a temporary committee to plan such an organization. Incoming president George Dunlap completed the committee, which first met on Aug. 7, 1958. The new Historical Society was officially organized February 3, 1959, at the first quarterly meeting. Herman Anderson was elected President, Mrs. Ann .Harrison Vice President, Mrs. Margery Anderson Secretary, Mrs. Floyd Faller Treasurer. The Society then set up the first museum in Lewis Hall at Skagit Valley Junior College, which the college president, Norwood Cole, offered rent-free.
You can read about Sid McIntyre Sr.'s accomplishments in the special Journal section on Skagit Steel & Iron Works. We will profile Art Ward in a future issue. Suffice it to say, he had reached a very high level of accomplishment in his field by the time of this 50th reunion, considering his seat on the State Supreme Court in Olympia.

Frank Evans We will also profile Frank Evans in a special history of county newspapers in an upcoming issue, but we will briefly review his career. Shortly after graduation from the University, he began work at the Everett Herald, which then had an active staff of two reporters. On Nov. 5, 1916, in his first week there, the massacre of the IWW demonstrators occurred at the Everett docks. Within just the next two years, the ambitious young reporter began looking afield for a weekly newspaper opportunity.
Evans bought the Skagit County Courier in Sedro-Woolley in January 1918 when he was just 24 years old, born on March 26, 1893. I had the pleasure of working as an apprentice for Evans back in 1957 when I was 13. He was also a close friend of my father's. He often told the story of how he arrived in town on Jan. 26, 1916, to take over the newspaper and was preparing to write his introductory editorial when he heard a thunderous crash: the wreck of the Great Northern and Northern Pacific trains that occurred just north of the depot on Eastern Avenue. The story of the deaths of six passengers, including County Commissioner Henry Thompson was the lead story in the first issue he published. In 1919 he bought the former Munro Shoe Store in the 800 block of Metcalf street, which was the location of the Courier-Times for 50 years until the office was moved to south Mount Vernon after the paper merged with the Skagit Valley Herald.
Two years later, after the death of Skagit County Times publisher John B. Stowers, on Jan. 11, 1920, Evans made an offer to Stowers' widow to buy the Times, and he spent the next four months lining up advertising pledges from Sedro-Woolley retailers and advertisers for a merged new newspaper. They eagerly signed up for the concept, which would eliminate or lessen the redundant ads, and by May he had enough to convince him that the purchase and merger could be profitable. The first issue of the merged Courier-Times appeared on May 20, 1920, with the lead story of the suicide of Lyman businessman Garfield Minkler. That was the beginning of his nearly six decades at the helm of the paper.
In a 1999 interview with his son and successor as publisher, Garry Evans, Garry recalled that his father at one time or another owned newspaper in: Concrete, Burlington, Stanwood, Clear Lake, Buckley, S. Tacoma and Orcas Island. The Concrete Herald was a unique example, in that it was just about to disappear in 1929 after a succession of editors struggled to keep it afloat. In the Fiftieth Anniversary Edition of the Herald on June 21, 1951, Publisher Charles M. Dwelley recalled:

In the fifty years of publication, the path of the Herald has not been always without briars. There were good years, but more of the lean years. Nobody ever got rich. Editor Bratlie probably did better than most owners by selling the paper several times to unsuccessful publishers. Mr. Bratlie wrote for the Herald many years before he finally drifted into other work and made way for a succession of transient editors who published the Herald for him. Then came several buyers, first Ralph Benjamin, then J.A. Collins, who later died in a Hotel fire here, Jim Webster and G.L. Leonard. The latter two were operating as partners when a foreclosure in 1929 brought the paper under the control of Frank Evans, editor of the Sedro-Woolley Courier-Times.
Editor Evans had at that time in his printing office a young man recently transferred from the Anacortes Mercury-Citizen. He happened to be the one man in the shop who could operate all machines necessary to print a paper and also had a bit of writing ability, so Chuck Dwelley was sent to Concrete to take over the Herald.
In the years that followed, the Depression struck and Editor Dwelley, then youngest editor in the state, managed to keep the Herald operating and was finally able to pay off the last Bratlie mortgage and buy out the interest of Mr. Evans. Except for a two-year leave for service in the U.S. Navy during World War II, your present editor has continued to publish the Herald each week and is now closing his 21st year as publisher. In that time the Herald has become well known in the state as a lively little paper, has won national recognition for editorial content and has shown a bit more than nuisance value in the upper valley.

In the early 1960s, Frank and his wife, Grace, a very active partner in the newspaper, began their transition to retirement and Garry Evans took over the helm. Ed Wise bought the paper in 1975.

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Story posted August 12, 2011
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Skagit county movers and shakers all were 1915 UW graduates Frank Evans, Herman Anderson, Art Ward, Sid McIntyre Under Construction, August 2011

Skagit county movers and shakers
all were 1915 UW graduates
Frank Evans, Herman Anderson, Art Ward, Sid McIntyre
Under Construction, August 2011