About Rick Pankow

Raised in St. Louis, Rick moved to the Seattle area in 1980 and quickly landed a job at a nursery where he was introduced to a close-knit group of childhood friends. It was through these friends that he met his future wife, Linda DeBell. They were married on June 19, 1982.

His wife said his passions included his family; coaching basketball for his two sons, Kelly and Blake; his work; and golf.

Friends will always remember Rick as the five-time winner of the Mr. West competition - his last win in the homespun games coming even as he was losing his battle with cancer.

The 43-year-old was the real athlete among a zany but tight group of buddies who regularly hold the competitions. Mr. West is the most elaborate of those games - an annual two-day extravaganza of volleyball, bowling, badminton, horseshoes, golf, you name it.

Rick won the last Mr. West competition, even though he was weakened by non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and months of chemotherapy. His younger brother, Craig, said that a week later, Rick could barely walk because of the cancer.

"He had fun but he had a competitive streak in him, too," said his business partner, Chuck Burget. "No matter what it was, work or play, boy oh boy, he would go after it. But he would never do it at anybody else's expense."

Rick co-owned Pacific Plants, a wholesale nursery business in Issaquah. His love for the outdoors and nursery work was the inspiration behind Rick Pankow Foundation’s horticulture scholarship grants and Trees of Hope delivery.

The Rick Pankow Foundation was started in 2001 after Rick's passing, allowing the legacy of Rick to live on in the spirit of giving.

Caricatures created when Rick Pankow & Chuck Burget started Pacific Plants in 1989. Rick’s enthusiasm for landscape architecture was inspiration for the foundation's mission to offer scholarships to students preparing for a career in horticulture and the delivery of Trees of Hope.