May 3, 2008: May Queen Brianne Stead and King Mark Maddox reigned over the 82nd Community Day festivities  May 2. This May Day fete was the first celebrated outside for decades. The weather was kind, not too warm and not too cool, and everyone had a wonderful time.
     Brianne and Mark are the 82nd May queen and king. The first royal couple were Faye Williams Duke and Bill Smith who were crowned in 1926.  Jeannette Larin Hlavin and Pearl Engel report in their History of Tacoma Eastern Area, "Community Days are dated from 1920, the program of that year being officially recognized as the First Community Day. The date was May, 7, and it rained."
     Unofficially Community Day goes back further starting as a time to clean up the school grounds in 1912-1913. "community clean-up." In the Hlavin/Engel history B. W. Lyon wrote, "The children were careless about marking, and buildings were marred, and streets and vacant lots  and much of the residents property was strewn with rubbish.
      "Something needed to be done. The boys and girls of the school cleaned up the school and grounds. We were so pleased with the results that we decided to have a clean up day and notified Mayor C. A. Nettleton that we were going to clean the marks off the town. As we went over the town, people seemed to get into the spirit of things and soon fires were sending much rubbish up in smoke. The next community clean-up had sports and a baseball game..."