Ruonavaara honored as namesake for Rec Park grandstands

Clarence Ruonavaara is one of 32 names listed on a plaque
commemorating the Recreation Park Lighting Committee, a group of
volunteers who for 28 years maintained and improved the community’s
ball field and gathering place.
“These are my buddies,” said Ruonavaara on Monday morning,
standing a few feet from the plaque. “There are only seven left of
the 32.”
One by one he names them, briefly telling of these men’s service
to Healdsburg. There’s Francis Passalacqua, the well-known attorney
who also started CYO baseball and was Ruonavaara’s first coach.
There’s Steve Searcy, who started the Healdsburg Future Farmers
Country Fair 70 years ago. Art McCaffrey, who decided Rec Park
should have lights and whom other men followed and supported.
McCaffrey also started the Redwood Empire Invitational Basketball
Tournament—known widely as REIBT—a high school sporting event still
treasured today.
The list goes on with many of Healdsburg’s most recognizable
names: Smith Robinson, Doug Badger, Ed Seghesio, Felix Lafon, to
name a few. “Pretty important people,” said Ruonavaara. “A who’s
who of those days.”
On Saturday, Ruonavaara will be honored at 11:30 a.m. at
Healdsburg Day at Recreation Park in a ceremony naming him as the
namesake for the soon-to-be renovated grandstands. The 91-year-old
former ball player, teacher, coach and school administrator says he
will accept the honor not for himself, but for all the men and
families who spent nearly three decades volunteering their time to
the city park.
“I’m being honored because I’m the one still alive,” said
Ruonavaara. “I represent them all. Far more than I’m being honored,
they’re being honored.”
And, he adds, the men’s families. “There are many women who
don’t get the credit,” he said. “A lot of wives had to put up with
a lot of husbands out at the ballpark.”
Healdsburg vice-mayor Tom Chambers will be on hand at the
ceremony to present a proclamation honoring Ruonavaara. “He
deserves it for everything he’s contributed to the town in the past
years,” he said. “Clearly he epitomizes what it is to give back to
the city. His long-standing interest in baseball is just
great.”
Kim Thompson, a member of the Grandstands Committee, suggested
naming the grandstands after Ruonavaara. The committee agreed that
he was the obvious choice. “Clarence has done so much for baseball
and athletics and kids in Healdsburg, it was just a natural
decision,” he said. “He’s an amazing person.”
Ruonavaara is thrilled by the community’s efforts to restore—not
destroy—the grandstands at Rec Park. Much like the Recreation Park
Lighting Committee formed in 1948 to build lighting and later
maintain the public park, a Grandstands Committee formed last year
to renovate the classic wooden grandstands. The committee has
raised more than $400,000 to date and plans to begin renovations in
July, a project expected to be completed in October of 2011.
Healdsburg contractor Jerry Eddinger is overseeing construction
efforts, and expects work to begin in early July. Plans call for
volunteers to tear out the grandstands’ underneath section for
reframing and new concrete, along with a rebuilding of the
structure’s exterior, ballpark dugouts and, if there’s time, the
roof.
Work will stop for the winter when the rains begin. “Then we’ll
come back as quick as we can in the summer after high school
baseball is over,” said Eddinger. “We’ll finish up the interior of
the grandstands, we’ll paint, do grading and electrical work. We’ll
put in handicap seating and make the ingress and egress ADA
compliant.”
Ruonavaara sees the grandstands project as a continuation of a
Healdsburg legacy that began nearly 90 years ago when “50 guys put
up $50 each” to buy three acres to build a community ballpark. With
the land purchased a group of 14 raised another $2,200 to buy
materials—including the wood from the Cotati Speedway, which had
just went under—to build the ballpark and grandstands.
“That’s where volunteerism has rooted itself, and it was
contagious,” he said.
And so began a baseball tradition in downtown Healdsburg that
stretched five decades. In came the Prune Packers, a semi-pro ball
club that played teams from neighboring communities. These were
days long before the New York Giants moved to San Francisco and the
Kansas City A’s moved to Oakland, times when young men worked long
days during the week and picked up bats and gloves on the
weekends.
Rounavaara joined the scene as a teenager in 1933 during the
Depression after his father moved the family from Albion to
Healdsburg to take a job making railroad ties and grape stakes on
Mill Creek. A pitcher who developed his arm strength as a boy
throwing stones across the Albion River and accuracy by breaking
bottles in the riverside dump, Rounavaara played ball for
Healdsburg High School, the Prune Packers, the Odd Fellows and the
Cal Golden Bears.
In 1947 Rounavaara returned to Healdsburg after serving in the
United States Navy and earning a teaching credential at UC
Berkeley. He took a job teaching social studies at Healdsburg High
School, continued playing semi-pro ball and later joined the newly
formed Recreation Park Lighting Committee. The committee raised
money and installed lighting at the field, then went on to maintain
and improve the park year-after-year for 28 years. The group
continued its work until 1976 when it handed responsibilities over
to the city.
As the decades passed the need for Recreation Park continued to
grow. With Major League Baseball coming to the Bay Area, baseball’s
semi-pro teams began to fade. The need for the park, however, only
increased. The community met at the park for Healdsburg High School
football games beginning in 1950 and the Healdsburg Future Farmers
Country Fair moved to the park in 1956. The park became the favored
spot for various organizations and home to a myriad of community
youth sports and special events like Relay for Life. “It’s used far
more now than it ever was,” said Rounavaara.
Now approaching its 90th birthday, Recreation Park is, by
Rounavaara’s estimation, a core of the community. “It means so much
to so many people,” he said. “The [plaza] gazebo can be the
showplace for the community. The ballpark is the living room.”
For more on the Recreation Park Grandstands project, call
433-5113 or go online to www.recparkgrandstands.org.