Richard and Charlene Spooner clasp hands next to photos of their family earlier this month at their home in Clarkston. The couple has been together for more than 70 years.
8
Long dance Clarkston couple — and local square dancing royalty — will celebrate their 70th anniversary this week
It
began with a flower. They’ve been together ever since. In her final year of junior They will celebrate their 70th anniverhigh in Clarkston, Charlene sary Thursday. (Ewing) Spooner plucked a He would ride his bike to see her. rose and pinned it to a cute boy’s hair. They went on small dates to the movie “We’ve been kind of making eyes theater and bigger ones like formal at each other,” Charlene reschool dances, where Charlene membered. “And he left it in said she “felt like a queen.” story by all day long.” They married in 1951 JAYCE CARRAL Richard “Dick” Spooner, and had three children photos by who was in seventh grade by 1959. Charlene and AUGUST FRANK and a newcomer from Richard said they grew up Alberta, Canada, said he in loving households and GOLDEN TIMES wanted to emulate that for got teased a little but didn’t their own children. mind at all because Charlene “They were pretty lovey was a beautiful “sweater girl.” “We wore tight sweaters,” Charlene dovey,” said Linda Bailey, their eldest child, who retired as director of develexplained, laughing at a slightly flusopment of Washington State Univertered Richard. sity’s College of Agricultural, Human “She was outstanding, in my view,” and Natural Resource Sciences. If her Richard said. GOLDEN TIMES
T U E S D A Y, A U G U S T 3 , 2 0 2 1
