Behind the Sign

Jesus Guillén came to the Skagit Valley as many immigrants did, in the hope of a better life for himself and his family. He pursued that goal not only as an agricultural worker, but as an artist who celebrated his fellow farmworkers and the beauty of the fields and landscapes where they labored. Thanks to his artistic vision, us Skagitonians are able to see ourselves and the place we've chosen to live in a way no other artist has depicted. This is a brief overview of his life and legacy.

After weeks of "sprucing up," the Skagit County Historical Museum will re-open on February 11 with its first exhibit for 2022, entitled "1968: The Year That Rocked Washington." 1968 rocked in a lot of ways, good and bad, and its tremors can still be felt today. Meyer Sign plans to not only write about the exhibit, but explore some of the themes that come out of it -- and we hope our faithful and ever engaged readers will contribute their memories in reflecting on its significance to life in the Skagit Valley and beyond.

By all accounts, the first hospital in Mount Vernon was Mount Vernon General Hospital -- just around the corner from another early Mount Vernon hospital founded by Harriet Rowley. A magazine article in the Library of Congress, published in 1921 by the Herald Publishing Company offers a Chamber of Commerce-worthy description of its founding.

I’m a sucker for exploring contemporary links, living and otherwise, between present and past. For me, these are portals to worlds that still resonate with us if we take the time to discover their origin — and so we offer you this one on the history of Rowley General Hospital and the amazing woman, fondly known as “Mother Rowley,” who founded what was Mount Vernon’s first hospital.

This is the second and final installment of our series, A "Simple Conversation" With Jay Bowen: Art, Death, and Resurrection. In this episode we learn more about Jay's artistic career and a life changing (nearly life ending) incident that distilled his sense of mission as an artist and a human being.

You can't walk through Hillcrest Park in Mount Vernon without noticing the kinetic metal fish sculpture at its north end. Here's the story behind it.

This is the first in a two part series based on an interview with Skagit Valley artist and member of the Upper Skagit Tribe, Jay Bowen. In Part One ("Origin Story") we'll learn about Jay’s understanding of his tribal past and the glimpses it offers into the “pre-contact” world of our Skagit Valley history, and how that past shaped Jay’s childhood growing up in a culture very different from the one of his ancestors. We’ll follow Jay’s decision at a very young age to become an artist, and we’ll leave him in Santa Fe at a place he describes as “heaven.”

In looking back at the stories we told in 2021, it seemed to me that “People, Places, Things” was a crackerjack of a theme. Although it might at first glance seem like a straightforward organizational approach, the reality is that those three categories are often very much intertwined. But fools rush in, as they say…so pour yourself another cup of joe, add the last of the egg nog to it, and take a little trip down memory lane with me.

A couple of weeks ago, Meyer Sign owner Ken Hitt and I visited a place just down the road from the company’s Old Hwy. 99 South address. It was one of those events that proves yet again that when one door closes, another opens…and then serves up a killer sandwich.

If you've ever wondered about the significance of the inscribed masonry tag on the Skagit Valley Co-op building at the corner of 1st and Division, let me just say that you can't make stuff like this up. Read on and see if you don't agree.

To call the accomplishment of The Corps of Discovery a game changer would be an understatement. Short of the American space program and our human journey beyond our planet, no story of exploration comes close to the significance of Lewis & Clark’s in terms of how we see see ourselves as Americans — and most especially, as people of the American West. Meyer Sign would like to take you with us on a discovery of the Lewis & Clark story through what will ultimately become a book entitled, “The Core of Discovery: A Lewis & Clark Traveling Companion.”

Meyer Sign is proud to have been chosen to design, fabricate, and install an impressive sign that marks the entry to Skagit Regional Airport -- thanks to a collaboration between Port of Skagit and Heritage Flight Museum. While the sign itself is impressive -- just try and find another sign in the Magic Skagit that has an actual airplane mounted to it -- the bigger story "behind the sign" is the historical and cultural venue it signifies. In this Tales From the Magic Skagit story, the executive director of Heritage Flight Museum, Lt. Col. Greg Anders, shares the story of his family's tribute to combat air veterans, and the legacy it hopes to leave for the Skagit Valley.