Tom and Patsy Calvin are the Fall City Days Grand Marshals for 2013.

Tom and Patsy both grew up in small towns just down river from Longview, Wash. Tom was born in Chehalis and attended school in Cathlamet, while Patsy hailed from Skamokawa.

Tom first laid eyes on Patsy the summer before high school, when he took the ferry over to Skamokawa on his way to Astoria.  Patsy was with a group of girls, when Tom asked his cousin, “who’s that cute one?”

Similar to the Snoqualmie Valley School District, both towns came together to attend Wahkiakum High School. Tom finally worked up the courage to ask Patsy out his junior year. High school sweethearts, the two have now been married for 63 years.

Tom started his career in the logging industry, working with his father in the woods.  He logged in Washington, Oregon, California and British Columbia before going to work for Weyerhaeuser’s Snoqualmie Falls plant in 1963.

They had two daughters Connie and Gay Lynn, then moved in 1966 to Fall City shortly before son Brian was born. The couple have called Fall City home for almost 50 years, and are still living in the same family home.

Tom worked for Weyerhaeuser for 23 years, retiring in 1986 as Snoqualmie Log Yard Superintendent.

The couple has six grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.

Patsy worked for Boeing for six years before they moved to Fall City, and after the children got a little older, she went to work as a library technician in the Snoqualmie Valley School District, spending 17 years working with the books and the children. She enjoys making porcelain dolls, swimming, knitting, reading mystery spy novels and yard work.  She is a member of the Daughters of Norway and attends the Fall City Methodist Church.

Tom has served as a Fall City Water District Commissioner since its conception in December of 1980.

Tom stated, “I remember when Jack Kelley showed up at our front door. ‘I want to form a water district, will you run for commissioner?’ Patsy said, ‘That’s a good thing to do for your community’, so I agreed.

“Over the course of the next year, a handful of us began meeting in each other’s homes readying ourselves for the duties of  a water district, a favorable election was held and here we are, 33 years later.”

Tom spent many years fishing with friends in British Columbia. He enjoys hunting, genealogy and reading westerns, and loves to take road trips and the couple has traveled extensively around the United States and Alaska.  Over the years, the  couple has traveled throughout the United Kingdom, Italy, Ireland, Scandinavia, Norway and Mexico.