Life Story: Thelma Taft played big role in Everett radio

Thelma Taft was a co-owner, key player and occasional on-air personality at Everett’s KRKO radio back when radio reigned supreme.

It was 1941 when she and her husband Bill Taft, along with Bill’s brother Archie Taft Jr., bought the Everett station. Through the 1940s and mid-’50s, Thelma Taft handled much of the station’s accounting and sometimes broadcast the news.

Under Taft family ownership, which lasted until the mid-’70s, KRKO’s power increased as transmitter locations moved from downtown Everett, to a spot near what’s now Everett Community College — the college’s Tower Street address points back to those radio days — and to the current transmitter site in Everett’s Lowell area.

With its studio in Everett’s Key Bank tower, KRKO is now owned by the Skotdal family.

“Her big claim to fame, at Christmastime she played a fairy queen on the radio. She’d read children’s letters to Santa,” said Sparky Taft of Mukilteo, the eldest of her two sons.

Thelma Taft died Feb. 12 after a long struggle with cancer. She was 87.

At her grandmother’s memorial service at Everett’s Trinity Episcopal Church, Toni Taft said a video was shown summing up Thelma Taft’s life. It included her own words.

“It ends with her talking, saying ‘I have nothing to regret.’ She lived a really wonderful life,” said Toni Taft of Bellingham. “She was always there for us. She loved her family. She was a fixture in town, and very instrumental in the community.”

Among songs played at the service was “My Way,” sung by Frank Sinatra. “That was very her,” Toni Taft said.

Thelma Schars was born Aug. 5, 1921, in Olympia, where her family had a jewelry business. She graduated from Olympia High School and in 1938 married Bill Taft. He was in Olympia as manager of KGY Radio. The station was owned by his father, Archie Taft Sr., who also owned KOL in Seattle.

The couple came to Everett with the purchase of KRKO in 1941. They made their home in north Everett, where Sparky and Bill Jr. were raised, and later at Lake Stevens.

Sparky Taft said his parents were close friends of former Everett Herald owner and publisher Robert Best Sr. and his wife, Jane Best. “In the 1950s, my dad and Bob Best talked about starting a TV station in Everett,” he said.

“There are a lot of memories,” said Bill Taft Jr., of Lake Stevens, who said his mother lived a life to be envied.

She was a crackerjack competitor in golf and duplicate bridge. In her later years, after her husband died in 1983, she taught bridge on cruise ships. A longtime member of the Everett Golf and Country Club, in 1958 she was women’s golf captain at the club.

A Life Master and certified bridge instructor with the American Contact Bridge League, she won many tournaments. Son Bill Taft Jr. and granddaughter Toni Taft both said they were paired with her when she bested top bridge player Barry Crane, once in San Francisco and again in Victoria, B.C.

Bill Taft Jr. was in the Navy, stationed at Vallejo, Calif., when his mother flew down to join him in a regional bridge tournament in San Francisco in the 1960s. It was a two-session event, with a break for dinner in between. “We went back to the hotel and decided to take a nap. We woke up 10 to 15 minutes before the next session,” said Bill Taft Jr.

They made it back in time to become victors that night, beating Crane, who was not only a bridge champion but a TV director and producer.

Toni Taft said she and her twin sister, Tami, Sparky Taft’s daughters, grew up near their grandmother, and learned sports as well as bridge from Thelma Taft. At Lake Stevens, their grandmother taught them to sail and swim. She also took them skiing at Mount Pilchuck.

Thelma Taft was preceded in death by her husband, Bill Taft Sr. She is survived by her sons, Sparky and his wife Jean Ann, and Bill Jr. and his wife, Judie; by former daughter-in-law Kay Taft; by six grandchildren, Toni Taft, Tami McHugh, Bob Taft, Billy Taft, Tyler Taft and Julene Jones; by four great-grandchildren and three great-great-grandchildren; and by companion Wallace Lundeen.

Sparky Taft said his parents were tied closely to the Everett community, and raised money for many causes and projects. Among her proudest achievements, he said, was serving as PTA president at Everett’s Whittier Elementary School.

“She was a very involved mom,” he said.

Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460, muhlstein@heraldnet.com.