Smith: Friends, family remember former Press Democrat editor Art Volkerts

At Wednesday’s memorial service for late PD editor Art Volkerts, who died Saturday at 96, Larry Wagner rose to speak with a paper bag in his hand.

Larry, a son-like nephew of Art and Tess Volkerts, told the crowd at Community Church of Sebastopol he’d brought along some memorabilia from the full life that Art lived from start to end in the west county. Inviting everyone to try to identify the first item, he pulled out something round and leather.

It was the helmet Art wore when he played football, very well, for Analy High School in the late 1930s. Larry produced also his uncle’s Analy Tigers shoulder pads and an antique fly-fishing reel, a relic from Art’s favorite pastime.

If Larry had a bigger bag he also might have lugged in an abalone shell from one of Art’s many Sonoma Coast dives, a handful of green beans like those he harvested with help from his six grandchildren and 16 great-grandchildren, and perhaps a prized old copy of the newspaper he imbued with his high standards and love of a good story.

One of the great-grandkids, Kasaundra Howard, brought this to the celebration of Art’s life: “If he wasn’t teaching you something, you were learning something anyway.”

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THE NUCLEAR AGE in California will go dark with the shutting of the Diablo Canyon plant, which won’t happen soon enough for the activists who’ll gather in Bodega Bay on Saturday to celebrate, reminisce and pledge to resist a comeback.

The reunion of anti-nuke warriors will recall also the historic battle to halt the construction by PG&E of an Atomic Park in the late 1950s and early ’60s on Bodega Head.

It will be a day of conversation and sharing of protest posters, T-shirts and such from the pioneer days of resistance to nuclear power. Space allows only about 150 to attend.

If you care to check to see if a seat might be free, shoot a message to diablobodegareunion@gmail.com.

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GOT HISTORY? If you own old photos, postcards, maps, brochures or other documents that may be pertinent to Santa Rosa history and you’d like to preserve them digitally, you might want to sign up for a special opportunity on Nov. 5.

“Scan Day” is what it’s being called by the Sonoma County History & Genealogy Library and the Historical Society of Santa Rosa.

Volunteers and library staff will, at no charge, scan historical photos and documents and place the digital files on a complimentary flash drive.

All who register at sonomacounty.libcal.com/event/2857162 can bring in up to five objects to be scanned.

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WHICH SCHOOL was happiest that the rain took a break Wednesday?

Maybe Santa Rosa’s Biella Elementary. Had it rained, the 370 kindergartner through sixth-graders couldn’t have donned art-?bedecked white shirts and spent more than an hour running and walking courses that filled the playground and spilled into neighboring “Dutch” Flohr Park.

The healthful event made for quite a sight, and pledges by parents and supporters will help Biella’s PTA.

No student smiled brighter than 10-year-old Anicia Lutz, whose artwork of Billy the Blue Heron, Biella’s mascot, was chosen to adorn the front of every one of those white shirts.

Chris Smith is at 707-521-5211 and chris.smith@pressdemocrat.com.