For Ken and June Iverson, Kent will always be home.
Although the couple now lives in Maple Valley, Ken, 89, and June, 86, were both honored to be this year’s Kent Cornucopia Days Old Timers king and queen, duties of which include participating in the Cornucopia Days parade at 2 p.m. Sunday.
“If they ask you where you’re from, (you say) Kent,” Ken said.
Ken was born at an Auburn hospital and grew up on his family’s farm on Kent’s East Hill. June was born in Ellensburg and moved to Kent when she was 8. The couple met their senior year at Meridian High School. There were 21 students in their graduating class, June said.
Ken was originally set to graduate in 1944, but joined the class of 1947 to finish high school after returning from serving three years in the Navy during World War II.
The two began dating in high school and got married May 14, 1949.
Ken and June lived and worked in Kent after graduating.
The couple’s first apartment was on the corner of Railroad Avenue and Meeker Street, across from the train depot.
“That took some getting used to the train coming by,” June said.
Ken held a variety of jobs in Kent, including working as a delivery driver for Sugar Made Pie bakery.
He spent a season fishing in Alaska in 1953 before beginning a sales career in Kent. He worked as a furniture salesman for several years and then joined Bowen Scarff Ford in 1964.
June worked at Peoples National Bank in downtown Kent for 30 years.
“I got to know a lot of people,” she said.
After retiring in the late 1980s, Ken and June moved near Shelton, where they had a summer home and to be near June’s sister. They lived there for 20 years before moving to Maple Valley.
Ken said he enjoys the convenience of living in the Kent area.
“When we lived in Shelton it took 12-13 miles to go to a grocery store or to a hardware store,” he said. “I used a lot of hardware stores. And here I can go to the hardware store in five minutes.”
Throughout the years, the Iversons saw many changes in Kent.
“The valley used to be all farms, ” June said. “Now it is all industry.”
“Really if you try to remember what it was like in those days when we were kids, it is difficult to see the place now,” Ken added.
Ken recalled growing up on his family’s farm on Southeast 240th Street.
“You had to milk cows every morning before you went to school,” he said. “It only took an hour or so. Everybody did it. It wasn’t something that was just our place. Everybody up there did that.”
“It was just the way of life then,” June added.
June said the city has grown a lot over the years.
“We remember Kent when the population was like 3,000,” she said. “In our lifetime everything has changed so much.”
Ken remembers attending the Lettuce Festival as a child, which preceded Cornucopia Days and celebrated the Kent Valley’s primary crop.
“My dad brought me downtown,” Ken said. “We went to the carnival a little bit and we went over and got a little plate of salad.”
Ken said lettuce queens mixed a large salad with pitchforks in the back of a large trailer.
This isn’t June’s first time appearing in a parade in Kent.
June was a Cornucopia Princess in 1946, the city’s first festival after the war. The same court appeared in the Cornucopia Days parade several years ago.
“It has been an interesting life,” June said.
The Iversons have a daughter, Nancy, who is married to former Kent city councilman Ron Harmon; a grandson, Kyle Hopkins; and two great-grandchildren, Liv, 6, and Marcus, 2.
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