Teacher. Mentor. Insightful community leader.
Creator. Actor. Writer.
A staunch advocate for the arts, former longtime Walla Wallan Parke Thomas left a memorable mark center stage, part of it before theater audiences. To the shock and dismay of his family and huge cast of friends and former students, he exited too soon, felled on May 29, 2024, by health challenges including diabetes. He was 69.
Many of his efforts wrapped around theater where he appeared onstage and worked behind the scenes. He and his canine companion Oliver invigorated the Quail Run Retirement Community in Walla Walla for a decade. During that time he relished writing newsletter “Tails from the City, The Quail Times.
” Ollie, who has the look of a Yorkshire terrier with brown, white and black features, was a familiar greeter at Quail Run where as its manager Parke hosted many dining and entertainment events open to the community and Ollie greeted visitors and residents. “I’m not sure who rescued who: Ollie or Parke,” said his friend Kathy Conry of Manhattan, New York. A fast friendship formed after Parke’s brother Jeff Thomas found the tiny canine “abandoned, bedraggled and alone,” nearly submerged in mud.
A vet said Ollie was about 6 months old. Jeff gave him to Parke. “Ollie’s the sweetest little dog I ever knew,” Conry said.
“He has the best dog stories since ‘Lassie Come Home.’ ” Former Walla Wallan Phyllis Bonds, now of Bellevue, Washington, said like Conry, she and Parke bonded through theater. They were in several plays together and he directed her in others.
Parke's dog Ollie On a drive from Seattle to Walla Walla with Parke, Bonds said Ollie rode on her lap. “He was a real trouper, that Ollie. He was a perfect traveler.
And that would be true of the trip back, as well, even though we hit a terrible rain storm as we drove through Snoqualmie Pass ...
plenty of thunder and lightning and torrential rain.” Xanadu, the problematic shar pei, is Ollie’s predecessor. “She peed on her bed” and famously ate the upholstery in Parke’s pink Cadillac, dubbed Cruella DeVille.
Parke brought in canine psychological counseling for Xanadu,” Conry said. Parke, a Waseca, Minnesota, native, was born Feb. 15, 1955, to the Rev.
Emrys and Eleanor Baldwin Thomas. Five-month-old Parke, his parents and elder brothers Terry and Jeff moved to Everett, Washington, and five years later settled in St. Paul, Minnesota, where he started elementary school.
The Thomases transplanted to Walla Walla when Emrys became pastor of First Congregational Church in late 1963. Parke graduated with the Walla Walla High School Class of 1973. Wanting to be remembered as “always an actor,” Parke honed his passion while onstage in many productions at Wa-Hi and Walla Walla Community and Whitman colleges, directed plays at The Little Theatre of Walla Walla and in 2008 served as artistic and stage director for "Anything Goes,” WWCC Foundation’s 2008 summer musical at Fort Walla Walla Amphitheater.
He mentored many as a fellow actor, director, teacher, friend and community leader. “Parke Thomas is an incredible acting teacher and director,” posted Kathleen Schlemmer in 2011. “More than anything else he inspired me, and every student of his with whom I'm acquainted, with a love of the theater.
He taught us that theater is damned hard work and there are far easier ways to make a living so if we didn't share his passion for it (which is nearly impossible when you're anywhere near the man) we should go be accountants or lawyers or something much more reasonable. “But for those of us with the passion there are entire worlds full of joy and tears, music and laughter, tragedy and shimmer curtains.” She said Parke gave actors the tools to navigate those worlds.
“Any student, school or production would be blessed to have him.” He was a featured performer in Coeur d'Alene Summer Theatre and later as an actor and co-manager in summer theater for 20 years at The Forestburgh (New York) Playhouse in the Catskills. Other friends, former students, fellow actors and colleagues weighed in after Parke died.
“Parke is one of the people that really taught me what theater and performance were meant to be, and I’ve taken all of that with me for the last 20 years as I’ve made my way in the world. He was a kind and big-hearted fellow, who you’d know first as a teacher and inevitably as a friend,” Ned Thorne said. After about 18 years working and living in New York City he returned to Whitman as an adjunct faculty member for 12 years in the theater department.
He designed curriculum for and taught various courses in acting. He directed and or choreographed two or more productions per academic season, coached dialects and was a faculty advisor for Harper Joy Theatre publicity and editor of Encore Magazine. At the same time, he was Blue Mountain Heart to Heart Board president, devoting nine years to the agency.
“Parke was just a wonderful man,” former Walla Wallan Paul Wickline said. “I had the distinct pleasure of joining him onstage in ‘My Fair Lady’ in 1992, directing him in ‘South Pacific,’ and asking him to choreograph ‘Cinderella’ — all at the Fort Walla Walla Amphitheater. .
.. He was wise, supportive, honest and a true gentleman.
” “I was honored to know Parke when I was cast in the role of the Queen in ‘Cinderella’ at Fort Walla Walla Amphitheater,” said Sherri Robanske. “He was an important person and helped me immensely as I was from the Dayton theater community. We kept in touch on Facebook and talked about our little doggies,” Robanske said.
“I was in awe of Parke when I watched him play Fagin (in ‘Oliver!’),” Richele Heilbrun recalled. “He was an amazing actor who commanded the stage. I enjoyed sharing the stage with him when I was a teen in the ensemble when he played Henry Higgins (the professor in ‘My Fair Lady’) and Harold Hill (in ‘The Music Man’).
Heilbrun played Nellie Forbush to Parke’s Emile De Becque in “South Pacific.” “He was always so kind. He came to a performance of mine in Richland, where I was just in the ensemble, and sent a handmade card backstage to me,” Heilbrun said.
Parke took time off after leaving Whitman before becoming manager for 10 years at Quail Run. This is where Ollie came into the picture. Parke kept family and friends apprised of Ollie's experiences with his own newsletter, “Tails from the City, The Quail Times.
” On Aug. 1, 2022, in Ollie’s voice, Parke reported, “So many adventures and life-lessons lately that I hardly know where to begin. I have walked among a huge family of honking goslings, spied bald eagles over my head, watched giants play in the sea, and become a seaman first class, all in the course of a month’s time!” The pair observed a flock of 20-30 goslings, tended by diligent geese parents who fended off a pair of eagles shopping for a meal for their hungry eaglets.
The extremely protective geese took umbrage at Ollie and Parke’s presence, “beating the wild tattoo with their wings” until they sensed the observers “meant their offspring no harm.” Ollie and Parke’s adventures that month also included visiting family on Fidalgo Island, watching a pod of orcas in Puget Sound and a ferry ride to Orcas Island for lunch at the famous Rosario Resort. Parke retired at 65 and moved to the Puget Sound area to be near family.
He sprinkled his social media posts with beautiful photos he took on drives in the Walla Walla Valley and beyond, from scenes of cows clustered by a fence, to riots of rhododendron blooms, Skagit Valley, Washington, daffodil and tulip fields and the Pioneer Park gazebo mantled in snow. He was devoted to his family from his brother and sister-in-law Jeff and Jan Thomas, to his great-niece and great-nephew, the latter pair of whom he introduced to the “The Music Man” in February. “They say they’re loving it,” he posted from the theater on Feb.
25. Most recently he accepted a position on the Mount Vernon (Washington) Arts Commission and had anticipated active involvement at the time of his death. The memorial service was July 17 at First Congregational Church in Walla Walla.
At his request, memorial contributions may be made to the church where he sang in choir with a beautiful, resonant bass and as a soloist over the course of many years. He was preceded in death by his parents, brothers Terry and Greg and a legion of friends..
