Late president of Puyallup Historical Society given lifetime achievement award

Bob Minnich, former president of the Puyallup Historical Society, was awarded the Posthumous Lifetime Achievement Award for Heritage Preservation by the Pierce County Heritage League.

Minnich died on June 14 at age 66 from invasive cancer while in hospice care.

Siblings Sam Minnich and Liz Anderson accepted the award on behalf of their brother at the annual meeting of the Heritage League on Feb 3.

“I thought it was a really nice gesture from the historical society and I learned a little bit more about what my brother was involved with, in terms of how many people he was affecting,” said Sam Minnich, who teaches at the University of Idaho.

The Posthumous Lifetime Achievement Award is an annual award handed out by the Pierce County Heritage League, which is a conglomerate of all the historical societies in Pierce County.

Staff at the Meeker Mansion in Puyallup, where Bob Minnich worked, nominated him. Bob was the president of the Puyallup Historical Society since the early 1990s.

“He was a nice guy. He put in lots of time (at the Meeker Mansion) — all the events, he helped set up and pick up,” said Wes Perkinson, treasurer of the Pierce County Heritage League and treasurer at the Meeker Mansion. “I swear he spent most of his life (there).”

The plan is to frame the award and keep it inside the Meeker Mansion, Sam Minnich said.

This story was originally published February 23, 2018 at 8:00 AM with the headline "Late president of Puyallup Historical Society given lifetime achievement award."