Frank, a Nisqually tribal member, environmental leader, and treaty rights advocate who organized a series of “fish-ins” on the Nisqually River in the 1960s and 1970s, is credited with advancing the cause of cooperative state-tribal natural resources management, and for more than three decades chaired the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission (NWIFC) before his passing, in 2014, at age 83.

The NWIFC was among the organizations to staff a booth at the La Conner Schools Billy Frank, Jr. program. Its display was highlighted by a model of the nine-foot bronze-cast statue of Frank scheduled for installation later this year in the National Statuary Hall Collection in Washington, D.C.

Near the NWIFC exhibit was the table run by the Seattle non-profit Long Live the Kings, whose mission is to restore wild salmon and steelhead runs and support sustainable fishing in the Pacific Northwest.

Jenny Marquette of Long Live the Kings introduced students to the online Survive the Sound game that invites players to follow their favorite fish character as it migrates through Puget Sound. 

“The game uses real data,” Marquette said, “to show the challenges fish face in migration.”

Participants are encouraged to form teams and compete to see who has the most surviving fish over a five-day migration from May 6-10.

A host of Swinomish and La Conner Schools groups participated in Billy Frank, Jr Day as well. 

Leslie Parks of the Swinomish Wildlife Program gave students the chance to feel deer, elk, and black bear hides as examples of traditional first food resources. Swinomish Environmental Protection Director Todd Mitchell set up microscopes to view plankton. Richard Vendiola of La Conner Swinomish Library introduced children’s books on Indigenous history and culture and biographies of Native American leaders.

Photos by Sarah Walls/Cedarbrook Studio

Students were encouraged to draw, color, and paint salmon images and were able to view a video on Frank’s life that documented his grassroots campaign to secure tribal fishing rights during what came to be known as the “Fish Wars.”

Ultimately, Frank was viewed as a bridge between the Western and Native American communities regarding environmental sustainability.

Frank was posthumously honored in 2015 with the Presidential Medal of Freedom and in the same year the Nisqually Wildlife Refuge was renamed in his honor. Legislation was passed in 2021 to send the statue of Frank, shaped by artist Haiying Wu, to the nation’s capital.  

Swinomish Tribal Community Senate Chair Steve Edwards, tribal senators J.J. Wilbur and Fred Cayou, Jr., La Conner Superintendent of Schools David Cram, La Conner School Board President Susie Deyo, La Conner Middle and High School Principal Christine Tripp, and La Conner Elementary Principal Heather Fakkema were among those attending Thursday’s 90-minute tribute to Frank.

Fakkema credited Jen Willup of the Between Two Worlds Indigenous science education program at La Conner High and La Conner Elementary Social Worker Maureen Brennan for their work planning the program.

“They’ve put in a lot of time and effort on this since the start of the school year,” Fakkema said.

And it showed, mostly notably on the faces of La Conner students.