December 2007
Fifty Is Nifty: The WSBA’s Class of 1957
Honoring Those Celebrating 50 Years of Service to Our State
by Stephanie Perry
Friends, families, and dignitaries enjoyed a luncheon at the Renaissance Seattle Hotel on October 17 to pay tribute to 48 attorneys and judges who joined the WSBA in 1957 and have been members for 50 years. In appreciation for their half-century of serving the public, WSBA President Stanley A. Bastian and the Board of Governors presented 50-year certificates and lapel pins to the members who joined the Bar in 1957. That was the year that Sputnik was launched, President Dwight D. Eisenhower began his second term, Elvis Presley’s “All Shook Up” and “(Let Me Be Your) Teddy Bear” topped the music charts, and the first production Boeing 707 rolled out in Renton.
Washington State Supreme Court Chief Justice Gerry L. Alexander made brief remarks honoring the 50-year members. WSBA President Bastian presented a retrospective look at historical events of 1957, the year the award recipients were first licensed to practice law in Washington.
In addition to the members of the class of 1957, dignitaries in attendance included Senior United States District Court Judge Justin L. Quackenbush and former WSBA presidents Dale L. Carlisle, Stephen DeForest, J. Richard Manning, and Robert Redman. After the presentation of certificates and lapel pins by members of the WSBA Board of Governors, the chair of the WSBA Senior Lawyers Section, Jerome Jager, gave a brief address. The luncheon concluded with closing remarks by President Bastian.
1957 — A Moment in Time
• A car costs about $2,100, and a house $18,000. Gasoline is 31 cents a gallon, and a postage stamp is just three cents. Bread costs 19 cents a loaf, and milk is $1.00 per gallon. The stock market is 436, the average annual salary is $5,500, and minimum wage is $1.00
per hour.
• General Foods Corp. introduces Tang breakfast beverage crystals. Velcro is patented by George de Mestral of Switzerland. The Frisbee is renamed and nationally marketed. Eveready produces “AA” size alkaline batteries for use in “personal transistor radios.”
• At the age of 14, Bobby Fischer first successfully defends his United States Junior Chess Championship title, then wins the United States Open Chess Championship.
• The first large-scale American nuclear power plant goes into operation.
• In September, Eisenhower sends federal troops to Arkansas to provide safe passage into Central High School for the Little Rock Nine.
• Albert Camus receives the Nobel Prize for literature. Nikita Kruschev is named Time Magazine’s “Man of the Year.”
• Theodore Geisel, aka Dr. Seuss, writes The Cat in the Hat.
• Jackie Robinson announces his retirement from baseball. On September 4, the last game is played at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn as the Dodgers prepare to move to Los Angeles.
• Sputnik is launched. The world’s first artificial satellite is about the size of a beach ball, weighs 183.9 pounds, and orbits the Earth in 98 minutes.
• Elvis Presley performs at Sicks’ Seattle Stadium, drawing an estimated 16,200 people (90 percent of them teenage girls) — the biggest crowd for a single performer in Seattle up to this point.
• The Washington State Highway Department establishes a special office charged with acquiring property within the established right-of-way of the Seattle Freeway, now the Seattle portion of I-5. Along a route some 20 miles long that cuts through the city, some 4,500 parcels of land, most improved with homes, apartment buildings, and businesses, are slated for acquisition and property clearing.
• As announced in Bar News, the City of Vancouver offers a monthly salary of $665 for the position of city attorney.
• Bertha M. Snell, said to be the first woman admitted to the Washington State Bar, dies at the age of 84.
• Fred C. Palmer is the WSBA president, T.M. Royce is counsel, and Alice O’Leary Ralls is executive secretary (this position is later re-named executive director). The Annual Meeting is held in Seattle for the first time since 1949, and 800 lawyers attend — the Ladies’ Auxiliary of the Seattle Bar Association plans “a full program of activity for wives of lawyers,” including fashion shows, flower arrangement talks, and lectures on antiques.
The 50-Year Members for 2007
Thomas Conley Adams Jr., Lacey
David Henry Allard, Evans, Georgia
The Honorable Eugene Carroll Anderson, Anacortes
William James Barker, Tacoma
William T. Beeks Jr., Seattle
Ernest A. Bentley Jr., Bellingham
Donald Hay Brazier Jr., Olympia
Ralph M. Bremer, Lake Forest Park
James David Burns, Seattle
Donald Aubrey Cable, Seattle
James Reber Callaghan, Medina
Frank Richard Chastek, Spokane
The Honorable Milton Richard Cox, Vancouver
James Richard Cunningham, Olympia
Julian Correll “Pete” Dewell, Seattle
William Hudson Dunn Jr., Vancouver
Frank L. Farrar, Britton, South Dakota
Thomas Stephen Foley, Washington, DC
James B. Gober, Chehalis
Thomas Jerome Greenan, Seattle
Bernard D. Greene, Seattle
Lewis Guterson, Bellevue
The Honorable Terence Hanley, Gig Harbor
Bruce A. Harlow, Poulsbo
The Honorable Richard M. Ishikawa, Seattle
Jerome L. Jager, Seattle
Donald Louis Johnson, Bellevue
Charles J. Keever, Honolulu, Hawaii
James Edward Kennedy, Bellevue
Arthur Timothy Lane, Seattle
Raymond Jourdan Lee, Livingston, Texas
George Sanfrid Lundin, Seattle
William Hillyer Mays, Gig Harbor
C. Robert Ogden, Spokane
The Honorable Frank W. Payne, Federal Way
John Richard Praeger, Seattle
The Honorable Justin L. Quackenbush, Spokane
Richard Que Quigley, Kennewick
Robert R. Redman, Yakima
Theodore Archie Roy, Yakima
Payton Smith, Seattle
John Raymond Sullivan, Rockport
Fredric Tausend, Seattle
Donald Herbert Thompson, Tacoma
Robert H. Thompson, Seattle
Harold F. Vhugen, Seattle
Robert K. Waitt, Sammamish
Robert M. Westberg, San Francisco, California
