The grand marshal for this Saturday’s Tokeland July 4th parade won’t be there in person, but she will be on all the attendees’ minds.

Elenore McKee was selected as this year’s parade grand marshal in recognition of her many decades of community service to the area. Sadly, she lost her life in the early morning hours of Oct. 22, when her house burned down.

But the Westport/Grayland Chamber of Commerce still wanted McKee to remain grand marshal, so when the grand marshal’s Float takes the parade route Saturday, it will do so with a large portrait of her surrounded by flowers.

“Elenore was the very epitome of a small-town girl becoming a solid and giving citizen to her community,” said Bob Merrill, a Chamber member and chairman of the parade. “Everyone out here knew her and was involved in one charity or another she was working.”

McKee was born Aug. 2, 1937, and came to Grayland via ferry from South Bend.

“She went to school down here, so she is a native South Beach person,” said Chamber Vice President Marlise Pederson. “She and her family still have a little cranberry bog her family works.”

After graduating from the Ocosta School District, McKee worked for many years for Pacific Northwest Bell in Seattle. She later moved to Olympia, then Wisconsin and then back to Grays Harbor County.

McKee was very active in a number of South Beach organizations, including Friends of the Westport Library, the Seattle Children’s Hospital Orthopedic Group — she was a 30-year member, the South Beach Presbyterian Church — where she taught Sunday school for many years, the Westport Historical Society and was active in Harbor Association of Volunteers for Animals. She also worked as an organizer for the Ken Miller Park organization for 10 years and was considered to be the unofficial mayor of Grayland by members of the community.

“She loved cats,” said Pederson. “She had a knack for attracting cats that needed a home. And the occasional raccoon that would show up trying to look like a cat.”

She worked at Grayland Hardware for more than 33 years, retiring in 2015.

“She worked at the hardware store for many years, and right up to when she retired she could carry out big heavy bags of fertilizer,” said Pederson. “She was such a small, slight person, but these big guys would come in with their bad backs saying they couldn’t lift them and she’d take them right out.”

And when she belonged to an organization, she didn’t just belong, according to Pederson. She took active leadership roles, either president or on the board of directors, in each and every one off and on over the many years she was connected to that organization.

“I don’t think there’s been a week that’s gone by since her passing where someone has not mentioned to me, ‘Elenore did this, and Elenore used to take care of that.’ She just did so many things.”

If something doesn’t go perfectly at the parade Saturday, Pederson will heed the advice McKee gave to her when things went awry.

“When something didn’t go right she would say, ‘Just pick up the pieces and carry on smartly.’”

COURTESY PHOTO Elenore McKee, shown here at a previous year’s Tokeland July 4 parade, will posthumously serve as Grand Marshal in the 2017 parade Saturday.