On Friday, January 12th, Christine Egelstad, a quiet icon and leader in the community, a Club member, and a recent Citizen of the Year, gave her classification talk.
Christine was raised in Marysville. College was to begin in Texas but after two weeks returned to the area, enrolled at Everett Community College achieving a AA in Criminal Justice, transferring to Central Washington University in accounting. In 1993 took a part time job at a Coast to Coast Hardware store where she met Greg. They were married in 1996. Gillian was born in 1999 and Grace in 2000.
In 2009, Greg and Christine bought the Lake Stevens Ace Hardware store. Christine's involvement in the community started when she was asked to Chair the AquaFest Grand Parade and not too long afterward joined the Executive Board. Christine followed that by joining the Greater Lake Stevens Chamber of Commerce Board representing the AquaFest Board and later the Lake Stevens Education Foundation which she list as one of her favorites.
In 2018 and 2019 they bought the Ace Hardware store in Everett followed by the store in Stanwood. Covid hit and the popularity of hardware stores didn't stop with residents continuing to shop at the store. Greg passed in December 2021. Greg did all of the buying for the stores. After Greg's passing, she got immediate help from Andy, the owner of the Ace store in Anacortes and he showed Christine the ordering process at Ace Hardware. Afterwards she sold the Everett and Stanwood stores.
Both of her daughters work at the store with Christine. Grace is engaged and will be married in September. Christine is a firm believer in investing time and resources in the community of Lake Stevens. As I indicated earlier, Christine is an quiet icon in the community who everyone enjoys working with on various community projects and shopping at her Ace Hardware store in Lake Stevens.
Christine is a Group Leader for Ace and is actively involved in working with other Ace Store owners.