Barbara Skinner, who loved Sumner and was the first woman elected mayor, has died
Barbara Skinner always had a smile on her face.
“She was one of the most upbeat persons I’ve ever known,” Mark Evers said. “She was always very cheerful.”
Evers used to work alongside Skinner — literally and figuratively — when she was the mayor of the city of Sumner from 1998 to 2006, when she retired at age 67. Evers said he always sat to the right of Skinner during the City Council meetings.
Skinner died Jan. 6.
Barbara Skinner and her husband, John Skinner, have three children and 10 grandchildren in the Puget Sound area, according to The News Tribune’s archives. Barbara and John married in 1956. He passed away in 2017.
Skinner retired in 2006 to spend more time with her family and friends. She was involved in local politics for about 27 years, according to The News Tribune’s archives.
“When my children were growing up,” she told the paper, “my mother would baby-sit and help out, especially in emergencies. I want to be that kind of grandma.”
Skinner was the first woman to become Sumner’s mayor. She was also active in the Rotary Club of Sumner as well as the St. Andrew Roman Catholic Church. Prior to becoming mayor, she was a member of the Pierce County Council.
Before Skinner retired, she helped with Sumner and Bonney Lake’s $22 million sewer plant upgrade, which was “one of the largest projects in both cities’ histories,” according to The News Tribune’s archives.
“My brother lives on State Street,” Skinner said at the time. “He’s been bugging me for eight years to get rid of the smell.”
Evers was also in the same rotary club as Skinner. She was the club’s “top piano player” for years, he said. As she played, she would sing popular songs from the 1920s and ‘30s.
“She was like a second mother to me,” Evers said. “She was a rare breed.”
Mayor Kathy Hayden wrote in a tribute online that Skinner was her neighbor, friend and mentor. Skinner was “instrumental” in getting Hayden elected to her first term on the City Council, she wrote.
“We lost a big part of Sumner when she passed away last week. But, she left her mark, including having yours truly in the mayor’s seat,” Hayden wrote.
Skinner “loved a good debate,” Hayden wrote, noting that council meetings often went past midnight when she was mayor.
Her tips on being an elected official, Hayden said, included always dressing to impress and only drinking beer from a glass in public, never from a can or a bottle.
“You may or may not know that Barbara lived here all her life, going to Sumner schools, raising her family here and getting involved in everything from St. Andrews to Sumner Rotary,” Hayden’s tribute said. “... at the end of the day, she loved all of Sumner and was always your neighbor and friend first and foremost. Maybe that’s the best tip of all.”
