PNA’s Ed Medeiros ‘roasted’ at retirement party

Ed Medeiros is retiring as the Phinney Neighborhood Association’s executive director at the end of this month, so hundreds of his friends and co-workers gathered at the Shilshole Bay Beach Club in Ballard Sunday night for a farewell “roast.”
Jim Diers, former head of the city’s Department of Neighborhoods, was the first roaster, as Ed sat in his rocking chair decorated with fancy feathers. Diers’ comments were hilarious, but probably not appropriate to reprint here!

State Rep. Mary Lou Dickerson (a neighborhood resident) joked that before he helped create the PNA back in 1981, Ed had been a dancer using the moniker “Gorgeous Eddie.”

Here Ed talks with Angela Fleet and Sara Schiller, volunteer organizers of the PNA’s Ridge Romp children’s entertainment series.

And he shows off one of his retirement gifts, the Dr. Suess book, “Oh, the Places You’ll Go!”

The retirement party was also a fundraiser for the PNA’s Capital Campaign. Attendees raised $38,000 to rename the PNA’s upstairs gallery in Ed’s honor. Here’s a slide of what the plaque will read:

Medeiros will be succeeded (not “replaced” as several roast attendees made clear) at the end of the month by Lee Harper, currently the executive director of the Northshore Senior Center, and formerly the Assistant Director of Solid Ground (previously the Fremont Public Association).