There will be a memorial for a well-respected Grand Forks mayor and community member Yasushi Sugimoto.
The service will be held on Tuesday, July 5 from 2 to 4 p.m. at Omega Restaurant in Grand Forks and prior to that (1 p.m.) the park area by the Granby dental clinic will be dedicated to him.
Yasushi Sugimoto, or Sugi as he was known, had a deep impact in the community over the many years he called Grand Forks home. Sugi passed away on May 5 at Hardy View Lodge, which was part of property that he formerly owned.
Sugi was, for one, the mayor with the longest, continuous tenure in Grand Forks’ history, holding the position for 19 years, starting in 1977. In 1997, Sugi was presented with the Freedom of the City, a prestigious award from the City of Grand Forks.
He was also a founding member of the Grand Forks Credit Union.
Alice Glanville, who is a prominent community member and author of many historical books about the area, said that while most people focus on his contributions on the financial side of things, like the credit union or the work he did with the slag piles, farming was very important to him.
“With his municipal work, a lot of people don’t realize that, but he was a very important food grower in the area,” Glanville said.
Along with having a farm along the North Fork Road, he was known to be, at times, the largest potato and carrot grower in Western Canada, he was a founding member of the Grand Forks Co-op Business Exchange and spent 10 years as its president.
He was also a member of the B.C. Vegetable Marketing Board and provincial director of the B.C. Cooperative Seed Association.
Glanville said that Sugi was well respected by the community and by those he met on city business. She said he gave the public’s voice extra consideration during his time as mayor.
“I think we were fortunate to have people like that to work with the public,” she said.
Alice said that she knew the former mayor for as long as she could remember.
“I’ve just known him for a long time,” she said.
Sugi was born on January 1, 1920, on Haida Gwaii and moved to Grand Forks with his family when he was 21 and from there, built up one of the largest farms in Western Canada at the time.