The year Jerry Leppell graduated from good old Forks High School the Quillayute Valley Scholarship Auction was still a fairly young event. A newspaper article in the Forks Forum, pre-auction, called the event the KVAC Scholarship Auction, and for good reason, as it was KVAC owner Gordon Otos that sort of started the modern day auction by selling his co-workers’ birthday gifts on the air one day. Those funds were donated to the Quillayute Valley Scholarship committee and the rest is 55 years of history raising money for scholarships for Forks High grads.
The radio auction, during Jerry’s graduation year, had Wes Chilson live on the air running two days on a weekend in April. The article urged citizens to make a search of their homes for items they no longer needed or to perhaps bake up something good and bring it down to the radio station so it could be auctioned off on the air.
The article boasts that the previous year a couple of loaves of bread had gone for $125. If you couldn’t get your item to the radio station then Miriam Kennedy, the auction chairman that year and for many years, would be happy to come to pick up the donation.
The following weeks’ Forks Forum gives the exciting details that $3,635 was raised for the two-day radio auction and it could go as high as $4,000 as a ‘pie in the face dare’ had taken off and more money was pouring in to bid to hit someone in the face with a pie!
Gary Vitcovich had put up $10 to get out of getting hit with a pie but he was offering another $10 to see Cindy Pederson hit her husband Bob in the face with a pie. Auction Chairman Kennedy had someone bid $25 to hit her with a pie and Kennedy said, “If there’s enough money bid, we can arrange it!”
Others with a price on their face were; Chilson, Dave Robinson, Kenny Knor, Glen Price Sr., Harold Kennedy, and potential pie-thrower Cindy Pederson.
Kennedy went on to say the auction had seen the best support ever in its 15-year history, “It was our biggest year ever.”
That year a Copenhagen hat went for $60, a pint of berries for $35 and a quilt for $15.
Over the years that record auction take of $4,000 has been surpassed over and over!!
For the 2019 auction, Jerry Leppell will once again be volunteering his time as Chairman. He thinks this is about his 10th year as the chairman, but he is not sure. Last year under Jerry’s chairmanship another record amount of bids were received for a total of $144,500!
There is still time to donate an item. Drop donations by the High School office or at Jerry’s or bring it with you when you attend one or both days of the auction this weekend Saturday, March 16 and Sunday, March 17 at the Forks High School Commons, starting at 9 a.m. Saturday and 10 a.m. on Sunday.
Sadly I looked but didn’t find any follow up photos in the paper of the pie in the face activities … maybe somebody has some? See you at the auction!
Inquiring minds want to know …
I was asked about our recent cold spell and had it set any records, so I consulted Forks Forum’s weather guy Jerry King and Jerry said, “As far as I can see this is the longest cold spell on record, we have had 40 days in a row of 32° or below, from Feb. 3, 2019, thru March 11, 2019, Brrr!!!
It is raining today!
Christi Baron, Editor
