PORT ANGELES — Step on up for some yellow journalism. When it’s time to cover the Duck Derby, there’s no other choice of colors.
Gary Caswell, owner of Sunburst Builders of Sequim, on Sunday won this year’s grand prize, a Toyota Tacoma pickup truck donated by — as in every derby since its inception — Wilder Toyota.
The truck is valued at $15,790, according to its manufacturer’s suggested list price sticker.
“It’s quite a deal, what can I say?” asked Caswell, who was shooting clay pigeons at a gun club when the race was run and learned of his prize by telephone.
He said he’s unsure what he’ll do with the truck, which will become his second Toyota pickup.
60 winners overall
The 17th annual derby produced 60 winners in two races, the first a corporate competition in which Sherwood Medical Group of Sequim won the $1,000 prize.
The main event saw 30,577 yellow ducks jam the Nippon Paper Industries USA Co. Ltd. canal, the first 59 of which won prizes ranging from $25 gift certificates to holiday lodging, merchandise, $2,000 in cash and the truck.
Very Important Ducks — actually swimming pool chlorinators — bobbed and bumped against each other in the first race.
Because it started at slack tide, they were helped along by a stream of water from a Port Angeles Fire Department truck — the crew of which later playfully turned its hose on spectators across the canal.
After the larger ducks had been plucked from the water, an oversize dump truck from Doug Parrish Excavating sent its brimming load into the canal, unleashing a yellow tide northward past the paper mill.