TOPPENISH —Certainly, the artistry of the Toppenish murals has been transformative for this community, and the talented individuals who created them are often lauded, and typically well-paid, too.
However, there’s another group of talented individuals who have been instrumental in making sure those murals were fully appreciated over the last 20 years, and whose only reward has been the satisfaction of a job well done.
They’re the volunteers who have spent thousands of hours in the Toppenish Visitor Center, assisting tens of thousands of visitors to get the most from their time here.
Always generous with their time, five of the longest-serving volunteers sat down with the Review Independent April 6, to share some of their recollections and observations about the part they’ve played to help create an internationally-renowned community identity.
The first mural painted in Toppenish, “Clearing The Land,” on June 3, 1989, was also the first Mural In A Day, in Toppenish or anywhere else for that matter.
“No one had ever done a mural in a day,” said Nina Zutter.
It was a festive occasion, part of statewide celebrations of Washington’s centennial year, and it began a tradition that has been going strong ever since.
The next step after getting the mural completed was to make sure visitors knew where to find it, for their viewing pleasure, and by 1990, the first visitor center had been established.     
Margaret Eddie recalled that the office equipment consisted of “two chairs, a rickety table, and a telephone.”
An inauspicious beginning, perhaps, but the small group of volunteers made the most of it.
They worked to sell memberships to the Mural Society, and actively solicited help with their day-to-day duties.
“We’d have meetings and try to get more volunteers,” said Roberta Kerby.
They also took it upon themselves to create marketing materials that could be handed out to visitors to promote the growing number of murals.
“There was no map. No book. We didn’t have anything,” said Eddie.
So, they took photos of the murals and wrote up information sheets and hand-assembled them, one at a time.
“If you weren’t busy, you put books together,” said Kerby.
In the early years of the Mural Society, Toppenish didn’t have an established Chamber of Commerce, so the volunteers also filled in that gap, too.
“We were the Chamber, but we weren’t supposed to be,” said Eddie.
Members of the volunteer group even helped decorate the town for the holidays.
Leona Bouchey single-handedly saw to it that the trees in Old Timers’ Plaza were suitably lit up each year.
“I put lights on the trees in the hop park for 10 years,” said Bouchey.
She said she might have done it longer, but her family insisted that she stop.
The volunteers also participated in other promotional opportunities, at least one of which was international in scope.
A German publisher decided to put together a German-language publication dedicated to the murals.
He had in mind a series of photos that would include the murals and live subjects posed together.
“He wanted cowboys and women in period dress,” said Kerby.
The volunteers accommodated his request, recruiting the necessary models and costumes.
“He had lots of poses,” said Kerby. “It was very good promotion.”
Though it was the volunteers who did the legwork, Kerby was quick to acknowledge the cooperation of the community.
“We had a lot of community support,” she said.
The Mural-In-A-Day event has also had good fortune when it came to weather.
“Every year we’ve been lucky,” said Jane Davis.
Kerby said one year it rained the day before the event, but so far, not the day of.
“Knock wood,” said Kerby.
Ask the group of volunteers what’s the most interesting and enjoyable part of their work and the answer is unanimous: the people they meet.
Zutter recounted meeting a hop grower from Tasmania.
Bouchey met a European visitor who expressed an interest in seeing the prisoner of war camp near Toppenish where prisoners worked in sugar beet fields.
Bouchey said she had heard about the camp from her father, who had been acquainted with some of the prisoners, but the site had long since disappeared.
Kerby said she had met a number of Russian visitors.
“There’s a museum in Russia with some f of our stuff in it,” said Kerby.
Davis remarked that all the contacts she’d had with visitors had been positive ones.
“I can’t think of any grouches,” she said.
As 20th anniversary of the Mural-In-A-Day approaches, the city boasts 70 murals, from one end of town to the other, and it’s easy to wonder if there might be a limit to the number of murals that the community can handle.
The volunteers certainly don’t seem to think so.
Eddie spoke for the group when she said, “When we run out of walls, we’ll build more walls.”
In honor of the event’s 20th anniversary, this year’s Mural-In-A-Day will span two days, June 5 and 6, and the mural will be painted on a wall of the new Visitor Center, in Pioneer Park.