Perry Keithley was born August 7, 1906 in Castle Rock, Washington. He attended Centralia High School (Class of 1925) and Bellingham Normal School (1925-1927). After starting his career as an educator, Keithley attended summer sessions at Western Washington College of Education where he was a part of the first four year graduating class in 1933. From 1928 to 1930, he taught at Meadows School in Thurston County where he was one of two total teachers. He taught all students in grades 5-8. He then moved to Lincoln School in Gig Harbor where he served as principal and taught 7th and 8th grades from 1930 to 1931. In 1931, Keithley was hired as a teacher and superintendent of the Midland and Harvard School Districts in Pierce County. His early years working for the school district coincided with financial challenges caused by the Great Depression. During this time, Keithley served as superintendent, principal, teacher, coach, and school bus driver. He also organized summer recreational programs for students. For several years, he was the youngest superintendent in the state of Washington. He chaired the statewide legislative committee of the Washington Education Association and led an effort to consolidate the Midland, Parkland, Collins, and Central Avenue school districts into the Franklin-Pierce School District. Due to health problems, Keithley retired in 1957. He died at age 61 of pancreatic cancer in 1968. In 1960, Perry G. Keithley Junior High (later Middle School) was named in his honor.

Penelope H. Loucas was born in Roundup, Montana in 1940. She received her B.A. in English and French Literary Studies, as well as an M.A. and Fulbright Scholarship in Modern Greek Poetry and French Surrealism. She was appointed Curator of Exhibitions from 1988-1990 at the Tacoma Art Museum. She specialized in multi-cultural interdisciplinary studies and exhibitions including but not limited to: Modern and Contemporary Realism in the West, American, Asian and Canadian Contemporary ceramics, as well as Native American art. Much of her curatorial work looked at and promoted artists within the Northwest region of the United States.

From 1983-1985 she opened an art gallery in her own apartment, by the name of “The Upstairs Gallery” in Helena, Montana. She later took her curatorial experience to Tacoma where she owned and directed a similar “Penelope Loucas Gallery” apartment space from 1990-2007. Penelope was a part-time professor of Languages & Literature and Academic Writing for International Students at Pacific Lutheran University from 2003-2007. She also served as an adjunct professor at University of Washington from 2000-2003, as an Education Consultant at Clover Park Technical College in 1999 and lectured at the Evergreen State College in Summer 1991. At different points in her career she held many administrative positions, locally Director of the Tacoma Arts Commission, and a Grant Writer/Director of the Enumclaw Arts Commission.

Paul Meyers was an avid collector of railroad miscellanea, with a special focus on the Great Northern Railway. He was born in Leavenworth, Washington in 1900 and took his first railroad job at 12 years old as a water boy for a section gang. He spent 49 years working for the Great Northern Railway in a variety of different positions, and retired in Tacoma as general agent for freight and passenger service in 1966. He was also a member of the Tacoma City Planning Commission and was active in city clubs such as Tacoma Rotary, Tacoma Elks, and the Tacoma Executive Association. Paul Meyers died in Tacoma on August 11, 1985 at the age of 85.

The Orpheus Club of Tacoma was founded on May 4, 1903, at St. Luke’s Parish House. Their first appearance as a chorus fell on the evening of Wednesday February 3, 1904, at the First Presbyterian Church of Tacoma for a memorial and benefit concert in order to aid the family of William Buchanan Gibbons. (1) The first official concert as a club was the night of Monday June 20, 1904, at the Masonic Temple. Inaugural concert members included Dr. A. Draper Coale, Charles A. Hook, Ralph C. Cunningham, Thomas J. Handforth, Walter E. Liggett, Donald McPherson, Jonathan Smith, William A. Bull, Robert Davies, William W. Seymour, George A Stanley, Orrello C. Whitney, Charles S. Crowell, Herman A. Lembke, Harry R. Maybin, Louis W. Pratt, Dr. Benjamin S. Scott, Paul Shaw, Gilbert G. Chapin, W. P. Cameron, George S. Davis, William W. Dow, Samson E. Tucker, Dr. Randall Dow, Samson E. Tucker and Dr. Randall S. Williams, and Keith J. Middleton. There were 700 guests in attendace. The following day the Tacoma News stated: “In attack, volume and tone, shading, color, balance of parts and harmonious blending of voice, points which make or mar in choral singing, all these were notably good, and the result in the ensemble was complimentary in the highest degree to the musical intelligence of the club and the skill of its director.” (2)

During the clubs’ peak years of the 1930s, membership reached 72 active members. Throughout the century, the Orpheus Club performed at various notable locations including the Stadium Bowl, Camp Lewis Theater, Tacoma Theatre, Chamber of Commerce, the Veterans Hospital, the Masonic Home, Cushman Hospital and McNeil Island. (1) The club performed in the Pacific Northwest region at least twice a year since their Inauguration through the mid-1990s. (2)

Nels (Nils) Bjarke was born in 1875 in Denmark. He immigrated to the United States in 1915 and lived in Nebraska before moving and settling in Tacoma at the end of the first World War. He worked as a laborer in shipyards before becoming an engineer for the Fern Hill School. He moved to Fern Hill in 1927 with his family. Bjarke wrote about the history of the Fern Hill area including Byrd Mill Road and Naches Pass. He also compiled a history of Chief Leschi. Bjarke spearheaded the community effort to build the Fern Hill branch of the Tacoma Public Library by petitioning the library board and collecting signatures highlighting the desire for a local library. Bjarke died in 1950 at the age of 74.

The object of the National League for Woman’s Service was “to coordinate and standardize the work of women of America along lines of Constructive Patriotism, to develop the resources and to promote the efficiency of women in meeting their every-day responsibilities to Home, to State, to Nation and to Humanity; to cooperate with the Red Cross and other agencies in meeting any calamity-fire, flood, famine, economic disorder, etc. And in time of war to supplement the work of the Red Cross, the Army and navy, and to deal with questions of women’s work and women’s welfare.” [1] This league was created when the United States began to enter into World War I in early 1917, with the Tacoma Daily Ledger reporting on March 29, 1917, that “this emergency organization has been formed as the result of the bitter experience of European nation in the present terrific struggle. Germany had already carefully cataloged the industrial strength of her women and had little difficulty in making the necessary rearrangement which freed thousands of men from industry.” [2]
The Tacoma Daily Ledger reported on May 6, 1917 that 800 women had signed up for service, quoting the State Vice Chairman for the league in explaining, “this National League for Women’s Service means right now simply an opportunity for American Women to show their patriotism in tangible form.” [3]

Myron Kreidler was born in Tacoma in 1904. He attended Pacific Lutheran University and later became president of the Pacific Lutheran University Alumni Association from 1936-1937. He began his career as a 9th grade teacher at Mason Junior High. He later worked as a staff photographer at Pacific Lutheran University and owned Kreidler Photo Studio. He died in Tacoma in 1985 at the age of 81.

Michael K. Honey was born in Lansing, Michigan in 1947. His father, a WWII veteran, worked as an urban planner and professor. His mother was from a working class Detroit family. He lived in Williamston, Pontiac, and Grand Rapids, Michigan as well as Toledo, Ohio. From 1965-1969, Honey attended Oakland University in southeast Michigan. After graduation, his status as a conscientious objector to the Vietnam War was approved. He then spent time in Kentucky and in Memphis, Tennessee, where he served as the Southern Director of the National Committee Against Repressive Legislation. He received an MA from Howard University and a PhD from Northern Illinois University. His research focused on labor history and civil rights. His books include "Southern Labor and Black Civil Rights: Organizing Memphis Workers," "Going Down Jericho Road: The Memphis Strike, Martin Luther King's Last Campaign," and "To the Promised Land: Martin Luther King and the Fight for Economic Justice." In 1990, he became a founding faculty member of the University of Washington Tacoma. He held the Fred and Dorothy Haley endowed professorship and served as the Harry Bridges Chair of Labor Studies. He taught African American and Labor History and also began a Community History curriculum which engaged students in interview projects and other public history initiatives focused on Tacoma. In addition to his scholarly work, Honey is also a film maker, musician, oral historian, and activist.

Ralph Metcalf was born in Providence, R. I., November 2, 1861; son of Alfred and Rosa C. (Meloy) Metcalf. After his preliminary education he attended Brown University and the University of Michigan, graduating in 1883. He began newspaper work and was identified with the Pioneer Press of St. Paul, Minn. for several years, afterwards purchasing and editing the Winona (Minn.) Daily Herald. He moved to Tacoma in February 1890, and became proprietor and editor of the Tacoma Morning Globe, which was absorbed by The Ledger in 1893 (1). While editor of the Globe he was also briefly a clerk of the Board of Public Works but resigned in April of 1891 having found the two positions incompatible (2). In 1902 he established the Metcalf Shingle Company which became the largest manufacturer of shingles in the state (3) . He was elected Washington State Senator from Tacoma in November of 1906 (4). He served in the Senate until his death in April of 1939. His background in the newspaper business and his passion for travel inspired his many columns in the Tacoma News Tribune (5) which ran from November 3rd 1927 to February 10 of 1939.

Marvin Dement Boland was born in 1873 in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, to parents James M. Boland and Darah E. Pennington. (1) Bolan attended Vanderbilt University from 1892-1895, then attended Fairmont State Normal School in West Virginia. Boland taught at Fairmont and later in Sterling, Colorado while attending the University of Colorado and Colorado State Teachers College. (1) He would graduate in 1912 with a BA. Boland then moved to Tacoma in 1912 to teach manual arts in various schools. (2) After teaching for a year, Boland became a commercial photographer and owned several photographic studios in downtown Tacoma from 1915-1949.(2) On December 9th, 1950, Boland died while photographing Navy ships in Bremerton. (2) He married Earle Keith Patterson from Ashland, Ky., in 1902. They had two daughters together, Katherine John Boland and Sarah Elizabeth Boland. (1)

Marjorie Jane Windus was born in 1920 to Louise and Harold Windus. Harold was a movie theatre organist in Seattle during the silent film era. Marjorie attended the University of Washington and after graduating moved to Chicago Illinois where she worked as a hostess/cashier at the Blue Note Jazz Club while pursuing a singing carrier. She returned to Washington where she received her master's degree in social work from the University of Washington. After graduating she became a social worker for the Pierce County Community Worker Unit. She developed the first community-wide resource directory in Pierce County. She also played a role in helping the Puyallup Tribe get possession of the building which would later become their community center (the former Cascadia Juvenile Diagnostic Center). She retired from the Department of Social and Health Services in 1983 and moved to San Francisco until early 2009 when she returned to Tacoma. Until her passing, she attended the Monterey Jazz Festival. She died in Tacoma after a brief illness.

Marguerite Neely Davy was born to Florence and Harry Neely in Spokane, Washington in 1895. She died in Tacoma in 1980 at age 85. After coming to Tacoma in 1919, she Married her husband, Alexander Davy in June of 1924 and started teaching 6th grade at the Tacoma Bryant School in 1925. She also taught in Washington’s Walla Walla County, Touchet, and Centralia school districts.

Throughout her life she was involved with music and theatre by directing student concerts. In 1939 she was made president of the local St. Cecelia musical group, an important sector of Tacoma’s cultural life at the time, who put on choir concerts and other musical events. Additionally, Marguerite was formally installed as director of Alpha Pi chapter, Beta Sigma Phi in 1946. Marguerite stayed involved with music and teaching later in life and was a member of the Retired Teachers Association and Tacoma Symphony Women.

Margaret Rawson Goheen Arneson (1904-1995) was a music educator who brought Tacoma’s Lincoln High School’s a cappella choir to national prominence. Born in Minnesota, her family had moved to Puyallup by the time she was a teenager (1). Her teaching career started in Sumner, then after her marriage to Melvin Goheen in 1928, her tenure at Lincoln High School began and continued through her retirement in 1955 (2).

At Lincoln, she focused on choral music and formed an elite a cappella choir. For alumni and adults in the community she founded the Tacoma Symphonic Choir in 1937. She accompanied the Lincoln a cappella choir to the Music Educators’ National Conference, making the trip by train in 1938. At stops along the way performances were held in person and on the radio. In Tacoma, the choir was in demand by civic organizations and churches. When Paul Robeson came to Tacoma in 1941, they were deemed of sufficient quality to accompany him (2). She was responsible for producing an annual spring operetta, and in 1941 a group of ambitious students wrote and produced an original musical, Of Men and Models (3).

She married Gus Arneson in 1955, the year of her retirement. They moved to the Philippines for his employment, and she continued her music work there. On their return in 1962, they settled in Seattle, where she died on May 10, 1995 (4).

The Tacoma Lutheran Service Center was a facility in Tacoma offering recreation, fellowship and social services to armed forces personnel. The first Lutheran Service Center in Tacoma was operational during World War II, from February 28, 1942 to August of 1946 and was located at 1003 Pacific Avenue (1).

The second Center began in 1951, when local Lutheran pastors recognized the need for continued service to the local bases. They met with a representative of the national Lutheran Service Commission and agreed to elect a permanent committee to develop a new local center (2). The Commission hired Robert P. Canis, a former U.S. Army Chaplain, to become the service pastor and director of the Center. He arranged the location and furnishing of the Center’s new quarters at 117 1/2 S. 10th Street, around the corner from its former site. He was assisted by lay women in the paid position of Hostess-Secretary. The Center was equipped with ping-pong and pool tables, record player and television set. Parties, holiday celebrations, picnics, outings to Mount Rainier and other area parks were arranged. Young women from the local Lutheran congregations volunteered as hostesses in the evenings and on weekends, socializing with the servicemen and assisting with the programs. A newsletter, Front and Center, was published (3, 4).

In 1956, Rev. Canis left to act as service pastor in the Lutheran Service Center in Keelung, Formosa (3). A series of lay women directed the center for its remaining years. Mrs. Marian I. Kirschenman was at the helm when the Center, facing declining attendance, merged with The Tacoma Seamen’s Center around 1965 (5). The national Commission phased out its support in 1967, and the local Committee endeavored to continue operations for another year, ceasing in 1968 (6).

Latinx Unidos of the South Sound (LUSS)’s mission is to facilitate the engagement of South Sound Latinos in the broader community by 1) calling attention to the expressed needs of this diverse group, 2) encouraging pride in Latino cultural heritage, and 3) promoting and expanding on existing opportunities and resources. LUSS’s vision is “to see the full inclusion of Latinos in a society where our culture is celebrated.” LUSS is a volunteer-based grassroots group that has been advocating for Pierce County's Latinx community since it was formed in 2016, during and after, two Latino Town Halls organized by Latinx community volunteers. LUSS primarily outreaches to the Pierce County Latinx community which includes people from 21 countries and territories. Since our inception, LUSS has created recommendations for actionable items, policies, and recommendations to improve the living conditions of Latinx, immigrants, and refugees in the City of Tacoma and surrounding areas. LUSS most often engages Latinx community members experiencing socio-economic disparities and barriers to access as a historically underserved community. Barriers include, but are not limited to, language access, lack of proficiency with technology, and being undocumented residents. Our core group of volunteers, promotoras, and the majority of volunteers are Latinx community members. A team of promotoras, who reflect the community, serve and engage the Latinx community in Spanish. Recent campaigns include census promotion and supporting COVID-19 outreach, prevention, testing, and vaccination promotion in partnership with the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department for the past three years. We celebrate our cultures with an annual Festival Latinx. All people are invited to join our annual free showcase of Latinx arts, culture, and heritage that is Festival Latinx.

Lorraine Hildebrand was born in Tacoma to Ethel and Ernest Barker in 1926. She attended Lincoln High School where she met her husband James A. Hildebrand. They had five children. Lorraine was a Reference Librarian Specialist at Tacoma Community College. There, she created numerous bibliographies and reference works focused on BIPOC communities. These included "Chinook Indians: A Bibliography," "A Bibliography of Black Authors in the US," and "Sinophobia: The Expulsion of the Chinese from Tacoma and Seattle, Washington Territory, 1885-1886. She also wrote "Straw Hats, Sandals, and Steel: The Chinese in Washington State." [1] Hildebrand served as a member of the Chinese Reconciliation Project Committee in 1992, and provided the historical context for what would become Chinese Reconciliation park. [2]

The Lindstrom family live in Tacoma in the early to mid 20th century. Emil Lindstrom was born in Sweden in 1861 and immigrated to the United States in 1889 [1], starting a job in Tacoma as a shipping clerk for the St. Paul & Tacoma Lumber Company [2]. He worked there for about 10 years, becoming the superintendent of St. Paul & Tacoma Lumber Company and the treasurer of Tacoma Electric Company [3]. He moved to a house on N Yakima Avenue in Tacoma, where he would live the rest of his life. By 1910 he was married to Henrietta Lindstrom, a U.S citizen from Michigan, and they lived with her daughter Henrietta Tousley. He started and became the president of the Lindstrom-Hanforth Lumber Company, and local historian Michael Sullivan explains that, “by 1917 the Lindstrom-Hanforth Mill in Rainier was cutting 18 million board feet a year, was operating its own railroad and had burnt to the ground twice only to be rebuilt bigger in the aftermath each time” [4]. After retiring in 1946, Emil Lindstrom passed away in Tacoma in 1950 at the age of 88 [5].

Lewis Law, born to Viva Berg and Lewis Law Sr., was a graduate of Stadium High School and served as a US Army reservist. As a lifelong Tacoman Lewis' career at Tacoma City Public Works Department spanned 42 years. There he worked as a sidewalk inspector, principal engineer aid, and in the city's traffic signs department. An accomplished photographer, he was a division chairman and later vice president of the Tacoma Photographic Society. In these roles, he presented on photographic composition and shooting color film, among other photographic techniques. Lewis was also an avid traveler who photographed many of his trips throughout his life. He retired from the city in 1995 and passed away on January 23rd, 1998.

Lee Merrill was born in Peabody, Massachusetts on May 25, 1906. (1) He worked as a commercial photographer and was involved in several associations of photographers, including the Washington State and Pierce County Photographers Associations. He was the official photographer for the Western Washington State Fair for over 30 years. (2) Merrill died on November 16, 1987, at the age of 81. (1)

As the 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote was passed by Congress in 1919, the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) reorganized to form the National League of Women Voters. Women in the Tacoma area had been active in statewide and national efforts to secure voting rights for women. Emma Smith DeVoe, of Parkland, served as President of the National Council of Women Voters which provided assistance and support to new voters in states where suffrage for women had been secured. In March 1919, DeVoe attended the NAWSA convention in St. Louis where President Carrie Chapman Catt began the National League of Women Voters. In January 1920, DeVoe and other local members of the National Council of Women Voters joined this national effort and converted to the state League of Women Voters in Tacoma. The Tacoma League began the Woman Voter newspaper in 1922 and took an active role in local politics. While the League became involved in work around restructuring city government as early as 1946, it wasn’t until the 1950s that membership expanded as a result of increased attention to local politics and restructuring efforts. By the end of the 1950s, there were 200 members of the Tacoma league. As more women joined from other areas of Pierce County, the League began to expand their focus to cover local issues outside of the City of Tacoma. In 1962, the group officially became the League of Women Voters of Tacoma-Pierce County to reflect their broader membership and scope. In 1974, the League dropped their requirement that members be women to join, allowing anyone with an interest in local political engagement to become involved. The group continues to produce and distribute The Voter newsletter. They also produce studies on a range of local and regional political topics and TRY (They Represent You) directories of elected officials in Pierce County.

Larry Norman grew up in Hilltop on South Ainsworth Avenue. After graduating high school, he joined the Air Force. He returned to Tacoma in 1989 where he encountered an increase in drugs, gun violence, and incarceration. From 1993 to 2003, Norman said he attended 23 funerals for people he knew from the neighborhood who died due to the violence. Their ages ranged from between 11 and 24. While working as a Seattle firefighter, he started Happenings on Hilltop (originally titled Tidbits from Ten), a community newsletter devoted to documenting the neighborhood and sharing information with the community. Norman led the effort to construct an "All Lives Are Precious" memorial in 1993 which was dedicated to victims of violence in Hilltop. He relocated to Colorado in 2003 and returned to Tacoma in 2015.

Kenneth G. Ollar was born in Tacoma on April 29, 1912. He attended Stadium High School, University of Puget Sound, and Washington State University before beginning a career as a photographer. He served in the Signal Corps as Combat Photo Unit Commander for General Patton during World War II and continued to serve in the Army Reserve for 21 years. Between 1940 and 1977, Ollar was a staff photographer for Tacoma General Hospital where he started the Newborn Baby Picture Program. During his time at the hospital, he took over 80,000 photographs of newborns. He also worked as a Mount Rainier National Park Photographer and freelance photographer.

KAYE 1450 AM is a Puyallup-based radio station that was started in 1951 and which is currently known as KSUH-Hankook. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, it was involved in a national debate with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) about free speech, as the station heavily featured right-wing political topics. Many of the conflicts of the 1960s were discussed on KAYE, such as civil rights, welfare programs, urban renewal, patriotism, socialism, and the antiwar movement. Since these topics were not discussed in a manner that showcased multiple perspectives and leaned heavily to the political right, KAYE was accused of violating the Fairness Doctrine as outlined by the FCC. Thus began a long legal dispute over KAYE's possible suspension and its petition for renewal. In November 1973, after reaching a settlement, Jim Nicholls, the owner of KAYE at the time, agreed to leave the station after which ownership of the station passed to Henry Perozzo. Under Perozzo's ownership, KAYE became KUPY. The station formerly known as KAYE is now KSUH-Hankook. Jean Suh has transformed it into the first Korean-language radio station in Washington. The station now features a range of Korean music, Korean-language news, legal advice, and promotion for local businesses.

Joseph "Joe" Seto was born in Tacoma, Washington in 1925 to Toraichi and Kiyo Seto. In 1942, Joe and his family were forced by the US Government to report to an incarceration camp in central California. They were then transferred to the Tule Lake War Relocation Camp in northern California. As part of a wartime labor program, Joe was temporarily released from Tule Lake to harvest sugar beets in Montana. He then joined his brother Matthew in Minneapolis, Minnesota. There he worked a variety of jobs before enrolling at Augsburg College. He completed a BS degree at the University of Minnesota. He then completed a Masters and PhD in Bacteriology at the University of Wisconsin. In 1957, he completed his postgraduate doctoral studies at UCLA where he studied the Influenza virus under Professor Fred Rasmussen. He became a member of the West Los Angeles United Methodist Church where he met Grace Keiko Nakano. Joe and Grace married in August 1959. They then moved to San Francisco where Joe began teaching at California State University San Francisco. The following year, Joe joined the Department of Microbiology at California State University Los Angeles. He taught, conducted grant funded research, served as Department Chair, and managed the Public Health Program. He took four sabbaticals in Germany where he conducted research at the Institute of Virology at the University of Giessen. The Seto family, including his children Susan and Steven, joined him in Germany. He continued collaborating with his colleagues in Germany after retirement, traveling there annually until the 2010s. In 1998, he retired as Professor Emeritus. Seto died in 2021 at age 96.

Joseph S. Ibbotson was born in Richfield Springs, New York, on June 17, 1907, to Joseph D. Ibbotson and Hedwig Tappe. [1] His father was a Presbyterian minister, librarian, and professor at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York. [2] He had two older brothers and one older sister. Joseph's German mother was a pianist who passed away when he was six. [2] Joseph spent part of his childhood with his mother's family in Wernigerode Am Harz, Germany. He attended Phillips Andover Academy in Brookline, MA, Hamilton College, Columbia University, and the University of Chicago. [2]

Ibbotson first worked as a New York Public Library reference librarian. He then served as an assistant professor and librarian at Colby College in Waterville, ME. Later he was an associate professor at the National College of Education while pursuing post-graduate studies at the University of Chicago. [2] Joseph served as the Library Director for the Rosenberg Library in Galveston, Texas, from 1936-1949, Fort Worth Library from 1949-1953, and Tacoma Public Library from 1953 until his retirement in 1971. The Tacoma Library Board named him Librarian Emeritus. [2] Joseph was the founder and first president of the Texas Library Association and he was a rotary member in both Texas and Washington. During his retirement, he became a WSU master gardener. [2]

Joseph married his first wife, Anna Mills, in 1930 and they remained married until her passing in 1980. He married Jaroslava Vojtech in 1988. He had two children. Ibbotson died on May 12, 1990. [3]