Finding beauty in her own back yard

Masquers board president has lifelong love of arts

SOAP LAKE - Mary Ackerman loves the theater, but for a while, chances were good you wouldn't find her on the stage.

Ackerman joined Soap Lake's Masquers Theater Board in 1994 and has been board president for the last four years. She has also held the position of vice president and treasurer.

"We've been in every little building up and down the whole street," she recalled. "It's so wonderful now to have this beautiful theater and not have black coffee cans for lights. And we don't count the money on the hood of cars anymore when we're doing a play."

Save for a 1979 bit part with her daughter, Ackerman has rarely performed on stage. She prefers to remain behind the scenes.

"I'm basically pretty shy," she said. "I'm thinking, though, of changing that and getting a little bit part here and there, maybe."

She paused for a moment.

"Now if our directors read this, I don't know what they'll think: 'Oh no, we've got to hide!'" she said with a laugh. "We do have wonderful directors and wonderful actors. We couldn't get along without them."

Ackerman has lived in the Columbia Basin since 1970, and in Soap Lake since 2001. She was born in Brainerd, Minn., but was primarily raised in Spokane.

She moved to the Basin for a marriage, and started in the Grant County Public Utilities District as a power scheduler in 1974. The position controls power for the whole county by the hour, Ackerman explained.

"You have to pay attention to things like, is there some big industry that's going online that all of a sudden is going to have a huge demand for power?" she explained. "Is there somebody that's going to go offline so therefore you have more power?"

After four and a half years, Ackerman transferred to the treasury operations and finance division as a clerk, then became a treasury assistant. She retired in December 2005 after 31 years at the PUD.

"I loved it, I loved the finance end of it," she said.

Ackerman is also an elected public official on the McKay Healthcare Center board. She was appointed in 2000 because of her involvement with the Soap Lake Conservancy and was elected to the position in 2001. Her term expires in 2011.

Upon the suggestion of state Department of Community Trade and Economic Development Tourism Development Manager George Sharp in 2004, Ackerman found models to participate naked in a fund-raising calendar. The calendar raised $12,000 for the hospital.

"People have asked us (to do it again)," she said. "We tease we're looking for men this time."

Ackerman is also a board member of the Soap Lake Food Bank, the Granco Federal Credit Union and on the United Way.

Ackerman has two daughters, one son, two stepdaughters, eight grandchildren and three stepgrandchildren.

Ackerman is involved in the Soap Lake community because she cares about keeping the arts alive and well.

"We're all in this together," she said. "It's the human part of the arts we all need."

Ackerman hopes people go to the theater and realize what the area has. Those who don't come are missing out, she said.

"Soap Lake is an art community," she said. "It's just kind of a little eclectic art community, we have wonderful artists here."

Ackerman loves to attend Spokane theater, and counts amongst her hobbies knitting and reading. She belongs to a 5:15 a.m. walking group, kayaks and tries to swim in Soap Lake most afternoons in the summer.

Becky Morris first met Ackerman at a Soap Lake Revitalization Team meeting about four years ago.

"She's just one of the main players," Morris said. "She's the type of person that can connect other people. She knows a lot of people and when she hears a need in one corner, she can suggest or relay the information to somebody in another area. She just seems to connect people and get an awful lot of work done."

Clarke Foerstner has known Ackerman for about a year and a half through a friend, and walks with her in the morning walk group.

"What I really like about her that a lot of people don't know is her wonderful sense of humor," Foerstner said. "A lot of people don't know that because she's so serious all the time. We'll be driving down the street and say something and she'll just burst out into laughter all of a sudden. I like her commitment. She's committed, dependable, a hard worker and she's always very timely and she gets the job done. She's a good companion, she's fun to hang out with."

It's clear Ackerman's heart lies within the theater.

"Actually, all my life I've loved the theater, I've loved the arts, I've loved culture - as soon as I could retire, I was going to get out of here and go to Spokane, be involved in the theater and culture, and go to Gonzaga and study philosophy," she said. "But I decided before I would leave I would find the beauty in my own back yard. So that's what I have been doing, and it is a very beautiful back yard."

It's still probably Ackerman's plan to eventually move on, she said, but not yet.

"There's so much happening in this town," she said. "It's doing fantastic, the theater is doing well, the Soap Lake Art Museum is working, and it's a community where everybody supports each other."