BELLEVUE — The board of the Washington Festivals and Events Association has awarded Bruce Skinner of Port Angeles its first lifetime achievement award during an annual meeting that recognized a plethora of North Olympic Peninsula people and events.
Skinner, the executive director of the Olympic Medical Center Foundation and of the Washington Festivals and Events Association (WFEA), was surprised with the special award as he and Stephen Ruffo, a veteran music festival organizer who lives in Port Townsend, were inducted into the WFEA’s Hall of Fame on Wednesday night during the group’s annual meeting in Bellevue.
“We gave Bruce this special designation because he has gone above and beyond what anyone else has ever done for the special events industry in the state of Washington,” WFEA President Eddie Redman said.
Said Skinner: “I was shocked by this. They took me completely by surprise. I owe a lot to WFEA — I’ve been able to steal a lot of ideas from a lot of other event organizers, which has made our events better.”
Grand Summit award
The Juan de Fuca Foundation for the Arts won the Event of the Year for the North Olympic Peninsula for the Juan de Fuca Festival as well as the WFEA’s 2024 Grand Summit award.
The Grand Summit is the highest award given by WFEA in recognition of the best balance of the elements necessary – printed materials, marketing and programming — to ensure success.
The Juan de Fuca Festival, which drew about 6,500 people over Memorial Day weekend this year, was tapped as tops in the state in four categories.
“Marketing is such an important part of what we do … It’s nice to be recognized for the hours we put in,” said Kari Chance, executive director of Juan de Fuca Foundation for the Arts.
She noted in particular the effort of the foundation’s social media manager, Peninsula Daily News and KONP Radio as “doing a really great job in promoting what we are doing.”
In other categories of the Pacific Northwest Summit Awards, winners were the Run the Peninsula, Ride the Hurricane, Sequim Irrigation Festival, the Winter Ice Village, the North Olympic Discovery Marathon and OMC Foundation’s Red, Set, Go; Harvest of Hope; and Festival of Trees.
Special events
Skinner, 76, is a consultant to the sports and special events industry with 54 years in the business.
As the director of the Olympic Medical Center Foundation, he oversees six fundraising events annually, including Red, Set, Go; the OMC Foundation Duck Race; Hog Wild; the UW Sonny Sixkiller Husky Legend Golf Tournament; Harvest of Hope, a benefit for the OMC Cancer Center; and Festival of Trees. All raise funds for the OMC Foundation, with Red, Set, Go specifically tailored for the OMC Heart Center and Harvest of Hope for the OMC Cancer Center.
Since 2017, he also has served as the executive director of the Washington Festivals and Events Association, the state’s trade association for events.
A lifelong sports enthusiast, Skinner was dubbed by the Phoenix Gazette “the Bowl director of the ’80s” while he served as the executive director of the Fiesta Bowl in Phoenix. He was instrumental in the Fiesta Bowl’s successful bid to crack the New Year’s Day four-bowl lineup determined by the National Collegiate Athletics Association in 1981.
He served as the executive director of the Fiesta Bowl from 1980 to 1990 after serving as assistant executive director for seven years. Skinner went on to serve as the president of the International Festivals and Events Association from 1990 to 2001.
He is the author of the book, “The Complete Guide to Selling Event Sponsorship,” and is the founder of the Arizona Rock n Roll Marathon in Phoenix and the Rock n Roll Marathons and Half Marathons in Seattle and San Antonio.
Skinner was a journalist first, writing for the Peninsula Daily News during his junior and senior summers at Port Angeles High School.
When he went to the University of Washington, he found out that the PDN experience put him “way ahead of everyone else” in covering sports and local government, and after receiving a waiver because he had not yet graduated, he covered sports at The Daily of UW before graduating with degrees in journalism and history.
At the age of 23, he became news editor at the Peninsula Daily News and later was recruited for the Fiesta Bowl in Phoenix.
He and his wife, Kathy, bought their home in Port Angeles in 1985 but didn’t return until 1990 to direct the OMC Foundation. Skinner’s first event for the foundation was the Duck Race and the second the Festival of Trees.
“I love to grow things,” Skinner said. “I always like them to get better.”
Skinner is a hiker and runner who has competed on all continents.
He always wanted to move back to Port Angeles. He had taken local beauty for granted until he saw other places, he said.
“There are very, very few places in the world where you have mountain views and water views at the same time,” he said.
Music festivals
Ruffo, who just celebrated his 80th birthday, has more than 40 years’ experience in creating music festivals and workshops.
“I feel thrilled and small about this whole thing,” he said of his induction into the WFEA Hall of Fame.
“It’s kind of embarrassing. I’m honored and thrilled,” he said from his home in Port Townsend, where he continues to be involved in Winterfest in Bellevue and the Wooden Boat Festival in Port Townsend.
Ruffo, who plays guitar and mandolin, said he fell in love with bluegrass music in the 1990s when he was living in Humboldt County in California. He had moved there from San Jose and there developed both his music and craftsman woodworking skills.
He met bluegrass legend Laurie Lewis at the Haystack Music Program in Cannon Beach, Ore., and used his business degree and love of bluegrass to create with her Bluegrass at the Beach, a nationally renowned music camp that ran from 1992 to 2007 and grew into one of the premier bluegrass events in the country.
From there, he joined the board of Wintergrass. Since 1995, he has been involved in almost every aspect of the festival.
Wintergrass originally was in a Tacoma hotel, but in 2009 or 2010, Ruffo said, new managers “did not like that we were sitting on their coffee tables jamming.”
Wintergrass moved to the Bellevue Hyatt, where, in February, the festival hosts renowned bluegrass musicians, including Grammy Award winners, said Ruffo, who continues to oversee production at the festival.
From 2003 to 2015, Ruffo partnered with mandolin legends David Grisman, Mike Marshall and Chris Thile to create the globally recognized Mandolin Symposium at UC Santa Cruz.
In 2012, he co-produced the International Bluegrass Music Awards in Nashville at the Grand Ole Opry.
He plays in a band in Port Townsend, Southbound, and built the home for he and wife, Kelly Doran, in Port Townsend and has a wooden boat.
“To live in this town, you have to have a boat or a Volvo. So I’m halfway there,” he joked.
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Leah Leach is a former executive editor for Peninsula Daily News.
Stephen Ruffo. (Leah Leach/for Peninsula Daily News)
