New beginning in old hometown

When he was preparing to retire from his faculty position at the Pennsylvania State University, Clayton Ruud wanted to move someplace where he could easily ski in the morning and be home with his wife by evening.

Wife Paula Mannino wanted a community that was sophisticated enough to have a big city feel, yet was comfortable, and where she could have a home where she could indulge her passion for food by offering Italian cooking classes.

They packed up and drove west, where he knew the skiing was good, and first stayed with family in Yakima and Lynnwood. They checked out cities in California, Oregon, Washington and Idaho. Nothing seemed quite right until they came to Spokane for Bloomsday in 2005. The possibility of the Lilac City crept into their heads.

Ruud grew up in Spokane, graduating from Lewis and Clark High School in 1952, but he’d been gone from the area a long time. He remembers his first skiing adventures on the rope tow on Mount Spokane in 1948.

My, things have changed since then, he discovered. He warmed immediately to having five premier ski areas within a 90-minute drive. Mannino likes the city’s ambience.

But they couldn’t find a house that suited their needs. They wanted at least two stories (with bedrooms upstairs), a view and about a half acre. The didn’t want a formal dining or living room, but rather a large great room with an appropriate kitchen for Paula and a large sunroom that could be used as a dining room as needed.

So, being the professor of industrial engineering that he is (he received Boeing’s Outstanding Educator Award in 1998), Ruud designed a floor plan, which was turned into a blueprint and resulted in a house on a half-acre lot in Spokane Valley’s Northwood area.

They moved into their 2,700-square-foot, multi-storied dream home (with separate attached sunroom) in spring 2007. Mannino’s kitchen – with its 6-by-7-foot center island, five-burner stove, two sinks and other accoutrements – is now ready for her cooking classes, which begin this month.

They’re putting in an herb and cutting garden on the south side of the house and are still figuring out where to hang and place some of their treasures.

This past winter, Ruud’s skiing routine was set. He was at 49 Degrees North on Mondays and Mt. Spokane on Wednesdays, with the Prime Timers group. Fridays were open for whichever ski areas beckoned. Now that the area’s ski resorts are shut down for the season, the couple will turn their attention to their garden when they aren’t bicycling or hiking. Additionally, Ruud does some work for the American Society for Testing Materials.

“Well, I didn’t want to retire and do absolutely nothing,” he said.

Ruud remained in contact with some high school friends with whom he has reconnected in person. He and Mannino also are making new friends and a new home, just they way they had imagined it.

“I’ve been 50 years gone,” Ruud said, “and I felt like a stranger, a newcomer, in many ways. But we’re glad we moved here. We have good neighbors and good friends. We’re home.”