Blanks get Battle Days honor

Bob and Fran Blank will be this year’s grand marshals of the Rosalia Battle Days parade.

“They ran out of old people,” Bob Blank said. “I think they scraped the bottom of the barrel and had to look under it.”

Bob said his parents lived south of Rosalia near where the wind turbines are now. He is a 1955 graduate of Rosalia High School and has lived in Rosalia all his life, except for two years in the military.

He said he worked on the Pacific pipeline from 1961 until he retired in 1995. He worked as a maintenance man for the supply line that runs near Rosalia on its route from Canada to California. Blank said he learned maintenance methods on the job.

After his retirement, he said he farmed a little.

“I kept busy doing something,” he said.

The Blanks have two children and four grandchildren.

“Now I’m busy with the grandkids,” he said. “Nothing very spectacular.”

Fran Blank stayed at home with the children.

The Blanks now live in town and still enjoy Rosalia Battle Days.

“I get to see a lot of people,” he said. “I enjoyed the rodeo, too.

“We always have good parades and a bunch of antique cars, not really a car show, but just a lot of cars,” Bob said.

“It’s kind of a get-together for people who’ve gone to school here,” he said.