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From majorette to 'marshalette'
7/1/2009 10:52:46 AM
Splash Editor
In Darlene Stokke's living room is a life-size painted carousel horse - one the longtime Liberty Lake resident used to ride decades ago as a child.
The merry-go-round - as Stokke calls it - served as an entertainment draw to the shores of Liberty Lake from 1923 through the mid-1950s. It now has been rebuilt and is in use in Michigan, minus one horse.
Liberty Lake is woven throughout Stokke's 80 years of living in the East Valley area, and that history is one of the main reasons she's been named the 21st annual grand marshal - or "marshalette," as Stokke says - of this weekend's Fourth of July parade.
"We are honoring Darlene for various reasons, one of them is her family's historical ties to the community. But Darlene also represents one of those unique individuals who has been here a long time but has stayed involved," said Ross Schneidmiller, a parade grand marshal selection committee member.
Stokke has instructed countless area children in her decades of elementary school teaching. She has sung in the local church choir and taught music at schools. And she was known for years as the "pie lady" for her organization of the pie feed after the annual Liberty Lake parade, a tradition that has now ended because of government restrictions, Stokke laments.
 Submitted photo Darlene and Norm Stokke hold two of their children in this photo taken July 4, 1956. |
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Becoming a teacher was an early dream. As the eldest of five children, Stokke used to plop her siblings down on chairs to play school.
Liberty Lake was a frequent haunt of hers, including the annual Valley picnic held at the lake, riding her bike to the shores, teaching swim lessons in the water and whirring around on the carrousel.
During high school, Stokke was a majorette and cheerleader - "anything but studying," she said with a laugh. After graduation, she went to college for a year in Missouri, and then returned to teach in southern Idaho for two years. She earned $2,100 a year.
Afterward she went to Washington State University for two years, then got a teaching job and finished her bachelor's degree over nine years at Eastern Washington University through night and summer classes.
She married Norm Stokke in 1952, after he finished a stint in the Navy and U.S. Coast Guard. He went to Eastern for a teaching degree, as well, and they both had long careers in education in the local area.
Stokke has three grown children, and her daughter still lives in the Liberty Lake community and teaches at Bowdish Middle School.
In the couple's early years, Norm Stokke dismantled the old Liberty Lake School, which was built in 1912 at the corner of Molter Road and Sprague Avenue, and used the beams and bricks to build the couple's home. They sold bricks for years, and many can be found in residents' fireplaces or decorative brickwork.
"They're everywhere," Stokke said.
Darlene Stokke taught 25 years at the elementary level, mostly in the West Valley School District as a kindergarten and first-grade teacher. Her husband taught, served as principal and also worked as CVSD's personnel director.
"She's very passionate about teaching kids and has high expectations. She wants them to perform and believes they can do it, and she's just relentless in bringing that out in all her students," said Amy Bragdon, Stokke's former teaching partner and principal.
Stokke taught Bragdon's son, and she recently gave Bragdon some of his elementary work that she had bound in a book.
"She was so creative in pulling in their learning and making it very fun for the kids," Bragdon said.
Stokke taught her students how to do pottery, and used the lessons to teach shapes. She asked students to make up their mom's favorite recipes and used the exercise to teach writing skills and math equations, said Bragdon, who lives in Newman Lake. "She incorporated all the learnings in a very creative way. … She has a very creative and direct approach to life."
Liberty Lake neighbor and friend Polly Soderquist said she's spent years with Stokke in different activities. They were founding members of the Beachcombers Garden Club, they volunteered together as ushers at the Spokane Civic Theatre, and they've played bridge together and volunteered at the Fourth of July activities in Liberty Lake.
"She was the pie lady, and I always volunteered in her booth," Soderquist said.
For nearly a decade, Stokke bought dozens of Marie Callender's pies for the after-parade pie feed.
"A lot of people thought I made all those pies," Stokke joked.
Her husband passed away in 1988, and Stokke retired from teaching in 1991. She has five grandchildren.
Stokke said one of her favorite things in Liberty Lake is watching neighborhood children bike down the sidewalk in front of her home along the lakeshore.
"She's one of those diehards for Liberty Lake," Bragdon said.
Profiles:
Darlene Stokke
Age
80
Family
Widowed; three children; five grandchildren
Retired from teaching
1991
Lived in Liberty Lake
50-plus years
Favorite thing about Liberty Lake
"It's just looking at the lake, and it's just home, that's all. I was always out here since I was a little kid."
Favorite part of Fourth of July
"It's all the people walking up and down the sidewalks along the lake. All the parades of people who walk by the window."