Tacoma’s ‘Mayor of McKinley’ has died, but Larry Scheidt’s legacy will live on
Larry Scheidt dedicated much of his life to McKinley Park.
So on the day Scheidt passed away at the age of 67 after a long, difficult battle with dementia, it only seemed fitting for his family to visit the acres of hillside of trails, wetlands and native habitat that he helped restore and transform.
It’s what Scheidt would want, his family said.
In fact, it’s what he did want, and he unexpectedly told them as much.
Diagnosed with Lewy body dementia in 2013, Scheidt’s condition left him nonverbal for much of his final two years of life, which he spent at an assisted-living facility.
According to his family, Scheidt’s words returned in the weeks leading up to his death on Feb. 7.
The surprise, according to Larry’s daughter Tara, was “the best gift you could ever imagine.”
What was far less shocking was what the gift revealed about Scheidt’s thoughts.
Even at the end, McKinley Park was on Larry’s mind.
Though his ability to communicate was limited, Tara Scheidt said her father quickly started talking about “ivy on the trees,” a problem at McKinley Park he’d spent years of his life hacking away at.
“There’s no more ivy,” Tara Scheidt remembered reassuring her dad.
The words seemed to bring him peace, she said, but her father wasn’t done.
“‘When I’m gone, go to the park.’ He just kept saying that, over and over and over,” Tara recalled.
So that’s exactly what the family did when Larry Scheidt succumbed to a disease that slowly stole him away from them.
The trip included a reflective stroll along “Larry’s Loop,” the McKinley Park trail that bears his name
“We walked through the park, and it was just incredible,” Tara said of the family’s pilgrimage. “You could just feel him there, because he was always there.”
It’s only a slight exaggeration.
Scheidt’s effort to reclaim McKinley Park after years of neglect is the stuff of local Tacoma legend, particularly on the Eastside.
It started in the early 2000s with the formation of Friends of McKinley Park, which Scheidt championed.
The effort picked up steam in 2009 when Scheidt turned his personal quest to return the park to its former glory into an official partnership with Metro Parks.
Often, Scheidt would arrive early at McKinley Park on weekdays, clearing overgrown trails and debris before heading off to his “real” job as an exterior designer. On weekends, work parties he organized slowly but surely built on the progress.
As I noted in a 2018 column, “At one point, 240 goats were brought in to help clear brush, though, by all accounts, the voracious animals had little on Larry.”
“I can’t even begin to convey the amount of impact Larry has had,” former Tacoma City Council member and current County Councilman Marty Campbell told The News Tribune at the time. “He dedicated years to this, not just a weekend.”
“It’s all due to Larry,” added Metro Parks Executive Director Shon Sylvia when asked about the state of McKinley Park compared to a decade earlier.
Lynette Scheidt, Larry’s wife and former Lincoln High School sweetheart, said her family has been floored by the outpouring of well-wishes and memories shared since her husband’s passing.
Many of the sentiments rightfully focus on McKinley Park, including rumblings of a community effort to rename the park in his honor.
It’s a gesture the family is humbled by, Lynette said, while also noting her husband’s efforts never included a desire for recognition.
Beyond tales of McKinley Park, Lynette said, the family has been repeatedly moved by individual stories shared by the people Larry touched during his many years as the unofficial “Mayor of McKinley.”
Recently, Lynette said she’d returned home to find a handwritten letter attached to the mailbox.
It was from a neighbor, she said, a man who had spent nine years in prison before being released and encountering Larry in the neighborhood.
“When I came out of prison, Larry came over and said, ‘I believe in you,’” Lynette recalled the letter saying. “Nobody would talk to me, but Larry said, ‘I believe in you.’”
“That’s just Larry,” is how Lynette succinctly put it.
It was memories like these that filled her head when the Scheidts visited McKinley Park the day Larry died, she recalled.
Lynette and Tara are certain Larry was there with them.
How, exactly, do they know?
Simple. The sun came out, ever so briefly.
By the time they left, it was gone.
“It has to be. There’s no other explanation,” Tara said.
Celebration of life for Larry Scheidt
▪ Saturday, May 2, 1-2:30 p.m.
▪ Tacoma Christian Center, 3507 McKinley Ave., Tacoma
▪ Reception from 2:30-4 p.m. at the VFW Post 969, 3510 McKinley Ave., Tacoma
