Meet Our Members: Nick "Happy" Davis

Nick "Happy" Davis going over the building expansion plans for the Foothills Community Center with Jim Tarbert, Board Chairman.

By Russ Alman, Communications Director
 
Nick “Happy” Davis sauntered into Foothills Community Center about a month ago in his black cowboy hat with a huge grin. It seems like he hasn't left here since.

Nick "Happy" Davis

A North Central Washington native, Nick was aware of the Center through his grandparents' and parents' involvement but hadn't become a member himself. Lydia Agidius, FCC Program Director, realized this and invited him to get involved by asking him for a donation. He asked what else he could do to help, and she invited him to become a fundraising ambassador. Now Nick is at the Community Center daily, picking up flyers and marketing materials and heading out into the community to drum up financial support.
​
“It's just been delightful!” he exclaimed.

​Nick was born in Wenatchee and raised near Lake Chelan until age 6, when his family moved to Wenatchee after his father went to work for Alcoa in the 1950s. While he was in high school, his family moved to Cashmere, where Nick graduated in 1965.

Nick's father became an orchardist and passed on his love for growing fruit to his son. As a result, Nick decided to build his own orchard and bought a 100-acre property in Sunnyslope. Over the course of the next three decades, he also worked as a fruit broker.
​
Like many orchardists in the Wenatchee Valley, as the fruit industry evolved and land became scarcer, Nick transitioned from orchardist to land developer. In addition to Viewmont and Majestic View, he is now working on his third subdivision, Sunny Skies.

Nick's entire family — including two daughters, 5 granddaughters and four great granddaughters — all continue to live in the Valley. Alisa Davis, the owner of Tastebuds Coffee & Wine, is one of his daughters — Nick came up with the name for the restaurant.

“It's special for me and to be recognized now as an elder, but having fun,” he said. “My granddaughter, when she was two, 22 years ago, Emma Bruner, nicknamed me ‘Happy.’ So everybody calls me ‘Happy.’”

He is excited about the name change to Foothills Community Center and intends to get his whole family involved. “I talked to my granddaughters and they love playing cribbage and they're coming to play cribbage with me here for their birthday,” he said. “It's just a fun, fun place to get together.”

While the Wenatchee Valley has evolved significantly since his youth, Nick is still in love with the area. “It's just a blessing to me, being in marketing, worldwide, our Wenatchee Valley apples, pears and cherries. I travel, I come back home and this is a Garden of Eden,” he said. “This is where people, when they get a little bit older, respect their time and quality and safety in a community and having this community like Foothills Community [Center] now put their arms around like they did me.”

He is now working on an idea to help fund the building expansion project that he calls “Happy Heroes,” which he started with a $1,000 donation of his own at the March board of directors meeting. He wants to dedicate the breezeways of that connect the building expansion to the existing structure to display recognition plaques of donors to the campaign, and he wants to recruit the donors to fill the walls.

Nick is thrilled to have become engaged with the Center. “It's just a blessing to have [a project like this to take on] and become alive and awake and just have that good morning feeling and or daily feeling all day long here at the Community [Center.]”

---

Watch the video podcast on our YouTube channel, The Buzz.