NORDLAND — A retired Chimacum teacher who received a top environmental award last year has been named, along with his wife, Marrowstone Island Citizens of the Year.
Ray and Carolyn Lowrie, who moved to Marrowstone in 1957, received the annual award from the Marrowstone Island Community Association recognition of their volunteer work and community service.
“This was humbling. I was honored and surprised,” Ray Lowrie, 82, said Tuesday.
“This was not anything that ever crossed my mind.”
About 50 people attended Monday’s ceremony at the Garden Clubhouse.
The award was presented to Ray Lowrie by Port of Port Townsend Commissioner Ken Collins. Carolyn Lowrie was not at the meeting due to illness.
Ray Lowrie, who taught science at Chimacum High School for 32 years prior to his 1992 retirement, was presented in September with the Port Townsend Marine Science Center’s Eleanor Stopps Environmental Leadership Award for his environmental education work.
The Marrowstone Island association cited his efforts on behalf of salmon. He taught his students to build a hatchery on Chimacum Creek, where they raised the fish.
He also set up a project in which some of his students learned how to build a boat, and learn navigation.
“By going that ‘extra step,’ he was a mentor to many kids, teaching them about ‘real world’ projects and instilling in them a life-long love and respect for nature and the environment,” according to the association’s statement.
When the family moved to Marrowstone Island, Carolyn Lowrie became the ‘island barber,’ trading her work for other needed items.
She also became known as the ‘face of Chimacum’ as the Chimacum Elementary School secretary where she “went far beyond her job description, soothing panicked teachers, drying children’s tears, and just ‘being there’ for so many people needing assistance of any sort,” according to the statement.
The Lowries moved to Marrowstone Island from Bainbridge Island.
“When we came here, there were about 100 people and they all took us in” Lowrie said.
“They showed my wife how to do a lot of things that country folk do, like can their own food, and they made her feel extremely welcome.
“So after we’d been here awhile, she resolved to pass that on to the younger people.”
Lowrie said, there are fewer young people on Marrowstone today than when he was raising his family.
“Today when you see the school bus go by, there are only a few heads bobbing up and down. It used to be full of kids,” Lowrie said.
As Marrowstone’s population has ballooned to about 3,000 people, it has lost some of its charm and become “citified,” Lowrie said, although he said it will never be as crowded as Bainbridge Island which now has about 23,000 residents.
Lowrie said that both islands were far away from the public consciousness until two parks were opened — Fay Bainbridge on Bainbridge Island and Fort Flagler on Marrowstone Island — both part of the Washington State Park system.
“No one knew about this place until the park got here,” Lowrie said of the Fort Flagler’s opening in 1976.
Lowrie served as a Port of Port Townsend commissioner from 1986 to 1992, and was a member of the North Olympic Salmon Coalition board from 1993 to 2003.
He served as a volunteer firefighter for the Marrowstone Fire Department from 1976 to 1988.
The Lowries have four children, three of whom live in the area.
Part of the honor is the job of scheduling a potluck dinner.
Lowrie said he’d like this to be an opportunity to get all of his children and grandchildren together.
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Jefferson County Editor Charlie Bermant can be reached at 360-385-2335 or cbermant@peninsuladailynews.com.
