As National Volunteer Appreciation Month comes to an end, we want to honor our volunteers who have passed as much as we appreciate those who are still with us.
Even after their passing, countless individuals in Pike Place Market Foundation’s journey are worth thanking and celebrating for their contributions to the place we all find a sliver of home in. We mourn the recent passing of Mr. John Herman Pehrson, a past Market Foundation Board member from 2001-2006, and a lifetime friend of these historic nine acres. After living by a meaningful allegiance to community service in the downtown Seattle area for more than four decades, he will be greatly missed.
Perhaps hidden in history, John’s contributions to the Market didn’t just begin with his tenure on the Board. Long before that, at the turn of the 21st century, and with the City’s renewed interest in supporting the Market’s social services, John was one of the many geniuses behind the original “Pigs on Parade” event and its two celebratory revivals. We chatted with Marlys Erickson, past Executive Director of the Pike Place Market Foundation, to learn more about how John, with some hog-wild ideas, passion, and engineering skills, brightened the Pike Place scene for thousands of Market supporters.
John Pehrson’s character and creativity at Pike Place Market began in 2001, when the Market Foundation Board of Directors was inspired to create an art-driven, engaging fundraising campaign for the Market, to ultimately encourage visitors to donate to support the Market community’s longevity through its social services. As a starting point, who better to model the campaign after than the Market’s most beloved bronze mascot, Rachel the Piggy Bank?
Inspired by the Market’s iconic friend, then-Executive Director Marlys enlisted a Seattle-based company to craft 170 fiberglass pig models, for selected multimedia artists across the region to decorate for final presentation on the Market cobblestones and around downtown Seattle. It was an idea crazy enough to work, as each meticulously artist transported their finished hogs from their studios to a rented warehouse in SoDo near Safeco Field. But after that, one problem still loomed large: once relocated to the warehouse, how would the pigs make the final journey downtown unscathed?
After serendipitously meeting John, a retired Boeing engineer that worked on the Saturn V Booster rocket for more than thirty years, Marlys fondly remembers his generosity in putting the Market first. “We were totally stumped on how we were going to have a real parade with all these fiberglass pigs. We had rented flatbed trucks, but we couldn’t figure out how to position the pigs to get the most on a truck,” she says. “When I told John about it, he said, ‘These problems seem pretty easy.’”
Without flinching, John recruited Lunar Rover chief engineer and longtime friend, John Allen, to craft the pig platform design and implementation. They then loaded the pigs onto the trucks, in a meticulous arrangement, and drove them to several prominent spots in the Westlake, Belltown, and University District neighborhoods, between midnight and 3 a.m. We imagine some Market coffee was involved in the process!
More than 170 fiberglass pigs were cemented onto concrete blocks and then taken to their new homes on the Pigs on Parade route in 2001.
Another obstacle, Marlys recalls, was that each fiberglass pig was attached to a 350-pound slate of cement—ideal for deterring overambitious art collectors, but not so convenient for seamless transportation in the parade route. In response to this, John and an expanded team of engineers built 75 custom wagons, in addition to calculating the trucking logistics, to give each pig a first-class ride in the parade route. Using their combined knowledge, the Johns also spent hours testing the cornering ability of the pigs to make sure they wouldn’t topple over at any point along the parade. “It was easy for a team of engineers, not so easy for ordinary people like me,” Marlys laughs.
The return of Pigs on Parade in 2007—with 100 pigs for the Market’s 100th birthday—was again a Seattle favorite!
Eventually, the countless hours of late-night mastery paid off: as the city rejoiced the beginning of summer, the inaugural Pigs on Parade drew a crowd of over 10,000 visitors on Memorial Day weekend in 2001, with John credited as the “Pig Mobility Engineer” in its programming. The success of the first parade would spark a similar event in 2007 for Pike Place Market’s centennial birthday in August, along with the Market Foundation’s 40th anniversary in October 2022.
Marlys fondly remembers those days with John, saying, “He was always really connected to the Market.” Shortly after the first parade, she recruited the engineer to join the Foundation Board of Directors, while he was living a short skip away from the fish and flowers on First and Virginia. After his time on the Board, John became heavily involved in the development of the Market to MOHAI pedestrian corridor. As he continued to spread his love for the downtown area in his later life, he won several awards for his outstanding commitment to urban development, green space use, and education.
Engrained into more than a century of rich history as the “beating heart” of Seattle, the Market Foundation is indebted to John’s willingness to step in and make a difference in Pigs on Parade nearly 25 years ago. As John’s 98 years of life are celebrated by all those who knew and loved him, Marlys thought that it was only right to acknowledge all he did for the Market community. “He was a really good guy, who cared a whole lot,” she said while making a donation in his memory.
As we round out National Volunteer Appreciation Month, we thank John Pehrson, his family, and Marlys Erickson for all their contributions to the Market community. Even as our Market friends move on to their next chapters, John lives on as a genuine example of how a little bit of Market effort and ingenuity goes a long way, and how giving what you can leaves a lasting impact on future generations.