Huckleberry Festival names grand marshals

The grand marshals for the 40th Huckleberry Festival are Kathy and Jim Hill. Kathy has been the vendor chair for the festival for the past 22 years, she retired from these duties last year. Both she and Jim were very surprised and honored to be named the grand marshals for the 40th Annual Huckleberry Festival parade.

Kathy was born in Festus, Missouri and grew up in the Detroit area. She moved around extensively with her first husband (Michigan, Las Vegas, Houston, New Mexico). Kathy's first husband passed away when they were living in New Mexico.

Jim was born in Boise, Idaho, but spent most of his years prior to moving to Trout Creek in Nevada. Kathy has one daughter from her previous marriage, and Jim has one son and one daughter from a previous marriage. Between them, they have four grandchildren. Kathy and Jim met in 1983, in Carson City, Nevada, where they both worked for Nevada Bell Telephone.

Jim's mother had a good friend living in Trout Creek (Edna Faro), and in 1990 he brought Kathy to the area to visit. On that trip they decided that Trout Creek was the place to spend their retirement and thus bought a few acres. Jim had been visiting Trout Creek since the early 60's, coming to the area with his family to visit friends and to hunt. In 1993, after he and Kathy had retired, they proceeded to build the house that they live in, to this day.

They have both volunteered for various organizations in and around the Trout Creek area since the early 90's. Both were active in the Trout Creek Volunteer Fire Department. Jim was a fire fighter and Kathy was secretary/treasurer of the board.

Jim makes handmade knives, chairs, quilt racks, and other items as requested. Kathy helped start the local sewing group that meets every Thursday in Trout Creek and volunteers for Bountiful Baskets. She has been active in local quilt guilds and loves to knit as well as quilt.

Jim has made many of the picnic tables for the Trout Creek park, helped rebuild the booths and completed a lot of groundwork for the Huckleberry Festival. Kathy took over as the vendor chair when Pat Austin (last year's nrand marshal) retired.

The number of festival vendors has slowly increased each year. When Kathy took over there were 65 booths. Today there are more than 100. Kathy and Jim have shared a booth at the festival since 1993, where they sell knives and wood items that Jim makes, and scarves, baby items, children's towels and quilted items that Kathy makes.

For their years of combined community service, we are proud to honor Kathy and Jim, as our 2019 grand marshals.