Mari and Dave Clack receive Spokane Community Impact Award

(as reported in The Spokesman-Review by Jonathan Brunt)

The artist who made what may be Spokane’s most iconic landmark and the creator of Father’s Day are among the newest members of the Spokane Citizen Hall Fame.

Six new members as well as four historic nominees were inducted at a breakfast ceremony Tuesday at the downtown Spokane Public Library. The Spokane Citizen Hall of Fame induction ceremony is a fundraising event for the Spokane Public Library Foundation.

The new living inductees are:

Artist Ken Spiering, whose work includes Spokane’s Red Wagon slide in Riverfront Park.
Investment banker Tom Simpson.
Father Bernard Coughlin, retired Gonzaga University president.
Inlander Publisher Ted McGregor Jr.
Former state Sen. Lois Stratton.
Pediatrician Dr. Deb Harper.
Katherine Tuttle, Providence Health Care’s executive director for research.

The new historic nominees are:

Orthopedic surgeon Dr. George Bagby, who invented the “Bagby Bone Plate,” which helped heal broken bones. He also helped create a procedure to fuse vertebrae in horses, which led to the Bagby and Kuslich implant used in humans.
Sonora Smart Dodd, who started Father’s Day in 1910.
Akhoy Kumar Mozumdar, who formed the Christian Yoga Church shortly after arriving in Spokane in 1907. He successfully won American citizenship in 1913 despite federal law that only extended citizenship to “free born whites.”
Philanthropist and investor Myrtle Woldson, who provided the money for numerous civic and educational projects, including the remodelling of the Fox Theater, now named after her father.

The Spokane Community Impact Award was given to Mari Clack, co-founder of the Women Helping Women Fund, and her husband, Dave Clack, the former chairman of Old National Bancorp who helped push for the creation of the University District.