Glenda Pike, a longtime champion of Route 66 in Missouri along with her husband Tommy, died Friday, reported the Route 66 Association of Missouri in a Facebook post. She was 77.
Tommy Pike was the president of the Missouri association for many years, and Glenda often was by his side at many Route 66 events and happenings. They had been traveled Route 66 since the 1970s.
According to her obituary:
Glenda was the winner of the 2019 McReynolds Award from the Missouri Alliance for Historic Preservation, for outstanding achievement in Historic Preservation, for her and Tommy’s work with Route 66. She was an original Docent for the Bicentennial Museum of the Ozarks, now the History Museum of the Ozarks. She was a long time member and former board member of The Greene County Historical Society and a 58 year member of The Ozarks Antique Auto Club, She was a member of the Greene County Sesquicentennial Committee, and a member of the Birthplace of Route 66 Festival Committee. She was a charter member of The Route 66 Association of Missouri and former editor of “Show Me 66” magazine, a publication of The Route 66 Association of Missouri. Glenda also loved to participate in Route 66 preservation and promotional activities, collect glassware and pottery, cook, sew, and attend car events, swap meets, and flea markets.
The city of Springfield, Missouri, said this about the Pikes:
Lifelong Springfieldians Tommy and Glenda Pike are a walking, talking encyclopedia of Mother Road lore and history. In 1989, while antiquing in Halltown, the Pikes came across a sign-up sheet to form a Missouri Route 66 association. They signed up and went to the Route 66 Association of Missouri’s first meeting at STOS Truck Stop in Mount Vernon. The pair have been active members of the association ever since. Tommy is the association’s current president. |
“We love the slower pace of the Mother Road, its icons – both new and old – and the friends we’ve made along the way,” Glenda said. Tommy has held positions on several Route 66 committees in connection with the National Park Service. The Pikes and their daughter Tonya, who grew up with a love for Route 66 and is the current secretary of the Route 66 Association of Missouri, spend a lot of time trying to convince cities and towns along the route to invest in their pieces of Route 66.
“It’s an economic development tool,” Tommy says. “If communities embrace their Route 66 history, the tourists will come.” Tonya is an advocate for teaching the importance of preservation to the younger generation.
“Before we know it, it’ll be time for the younger folks to inherit the Mother Road and they will have to become its caretakers,” Glenda said.
Here’s a lengthy 2015 interview by Missouri State University of Tommy and Glenda for a Route 66 Oral History project:
She is survived by her husband of 58 years, Tommy; daughter Tonya Pike, a brother, Jackie W. King; and a sister and her husband, Debra J. and Randy Cox; plus numerous nieces, nephews, cousins, relatives and friends.
The funeral will be at 1 p.m. Thursday at Greenlawn Funeral Home North in Springfield, Missouri, with burial to follow in the adjacent Greenlawn Memorial Gardens. Visitation will be from 5 to 7 p.m. today at the funeral home.
In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made to the American Heart Association.
(Image of Tommy and Glenda Pike courtesy of the city of Springfield, Missouri)