Labor Day legacy lives on

On Sept. 3, 1932, a local couple were attending a Labor Day barbecue at Silver Beach. About 6 p.m. the woman goes into labor and tells her husband it's time to get to the hospital, the baby was coming! Off they go and at 10 p.m. the baby entered the world. Burl and Beverly Hagadone’s son, Duane, made quite an impact in his 88 years.

A decade ago, Bert and I happened to go for a Labor Day weekend dinner at the Beachouse Restaurant at Silver Beach that turned out to be their last night open for business. The aging structure was slated to be demolished. I savored the huckleberry ribs for the final time as we watched the sun set literally and figuratively from the outdoor patio. The next week, I wrote about the history of the location and the previous businesses that had been there throughout the decades. The morning my column appeared in the Press I received a phone call.

“Kerri, Duane Hagadone here,” boomed the familiar voice. I laughed and said, “Mr. Hagadone, I think I would have recognized your voice.”

What followed was a lovely and unexpected conversation about Duane’s family connection to Silver Beach that included the story about his mother going into labor on Labor Day. We talked about the city we love, where Duane’s travels were taking him next, the newspaper and the news business. Just lovely and intimate.

I will always appreciate Duane and the Hagadone Corporation for providing so many opportunities to me since 1986 when I took a part-time job in the classified department at the Coeur d’Alene Press. I’ll always respect that for his entire life he invested in the city of his birth (CHS '50) ... not just with his pocketbook, but with his heart. Duane’s fingerprints are on Coeur d’Alene in so many unseen places far beyond The Resort or floating green or the newspaper publisher role he assumed at age 26 when his father, Burl Hagadone, unexpectedly died.

Duane Hagadone was a fascinating and complex man as are most extremely successful people. But, at the end of the day, he was just a hometown boy done well. He died in 2021.
You are missed Mr. H.

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Here’s a collective Good Sport Award to the hundreds of kids, from kindergartners to seniors in high school, who let their parents take first day of school photos Tuesday to document history and to post on Facebook. I thoroughly enjoyed seeing so many smiling faces, especially those of the parents!

Now we all need to pay close attention to those buses and heed flashing stop lights when they’re picking up and dropping off on the routes.

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The Tuesday following Labor Day weekend is probably one of my least favorite days of the year. Even though the calendar says the last day of summer isn’t for three weeks, it’s all over but the shouting for all intents and purposes.

Tradition, or at least generations of people who summer in the Hamptons, tell us that it’s a fashion faux paus to wear white after Labor Day. Pshaw. If I owned a pair of white shoes that weren’t athletic shoes I’d sashay about town showing them off.

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Happy birthday today to Paulette Fabian, Maggie DeTar, Steve Yost and Rich Dickman. On Sept. 5, Jay Broderick, Ken Bookamer and Dave Pulis will cheer another year. Celebrating on Friday are Carl Riegert, Jack Evans, Amy Carlson, Evelyn Wegner, Dave Chamberlain and Della St.Clair. On Saturday, Keri Alexander and her mother, Sherry Krulitz, Vicki Fulton, Laura Umthun, James Arras, Lori Millsap, Kathleen Cavender, Nikki Luttmann and Jim Brannon mark another year on the calendar. Anne Mitchell, Lea Williams,Vicki Currie, Lisa Gould, Sheena Dunn, Angie Demmig, Lorna Price, Gayle Simpson, Imogene Sverdsten, Irina Ponomarenko, Brad Marshall, Sonya Fernandes, Rosemary Dickson and Bob Coles celebrate Sunday. 9/9 birthdays for Dani Zibell-Wolfe, Mary Larson, Kibbee Walton, Seth Anderson, Dominick Pokosa, Daniel Connelly, Krysta Azzollini, Marty Meyer, Donna Boise and Chase Price. Tuesday, Gregg Gain, Mary Ellen Denton, Tami Martinez, Helen Terway and Annette Kennedy will blow out the candles.

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Kerri Rankin Thoreson is a member of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists and the former publisher of the Post Falls Tribune. Main Street appears every Wednesday in The Press and Kerri can be contacted on Facebook or via email rkthor52@aol.com.