The City of Prescott announces the 2018 Christmas Parade Grand Marshal

Melissa has been to Alaska five times and hiked on a glacier, having seen firsthand the effects of melting glaciers on the ecosystem. A great lover of animals, Melissa has a particular soft spot for bears. Her father would send a teddy bear while he was away in the Army Air Corp during World War II and she has loved them ever since, both living and toy bears.
One very notable way that her love for animals has shown through was her major role as an early supporter of the Yavapai Humane Society. The group began by holding bake sales outside JCPenney to raise money for the organization. Before the fundraiser went beyond bake sales and became enough to truly support the animals, Melissa would often resort to some unconventional methods of helping these furry friends. She recalls many dogs she adopted who were maybe a bit too large for her living room, pets bailed out of kill shelters with her grocery money, cats she was allergic to, and one incredible story of an abandoned Shetland pony who managed to fit in the back of her station wagon.
Melissa Ruffner is a rare Arizona gem, having been born and raised in Prescott. Her parents fed her curiosity and fostered her love for learning. She started her education at Lincoln Elementary School, attended Prescott High School, and graduated from St. Joseph’s Academy. Hearing incredible tales about her famed great-uncle, Sheriff George Ruffner was bound to spark her love of history and adventure. As a Sheriff during the prohibition era, George would often attach a custom-made old horse trailer to his vehicle and drive it around the Courthouse Plaza a couple of times before going to look for bootleggers and speakeasies. The horse trailer was so loud on the street that it gave all the criminals time to hide their illicit activities. One very interesting story about her great-uncle George involves a mortician named Frank Nevins. Nevins owed George a debt for stabling his horses in Ruffner Plaza stables, so one night in 1903 while playing a card game together, Nevins and Ruffner decided to settle things once and for all. If Frank won, his debt to George would be forgiven, but ifGeorge won, he would own Frank’s funeral home. George must have had a good hand that nightbecause the Ruffner-Wakelin Funeral Home still is in business today. Melissa said that if her Great Uncle hadn’t won the card game that night, her parents would have never met and she wouldn’thave been born. You see, her father Budge traveled to Cincinnati to study mortuary science where her mother was a pre-med student. Their close fields of study explain how they met and the rest of that Ruffner story has become a part of Prescott’s history!
Another influential person in her life was her grandmother, Mary Ethlyn Ward Ruffner, who was Prescott’s first public school music teacher. A graduate of the Chicago Conservatory of Music, Mary came to Prescott in 1910 and performed vaudeville shows on the same stage in the Elk’s Theatre, where for 14 years, Melissa was the official storyteller for the Arizona Jamboree.
Her memories of Christmas include classic scenes of the Downtown Prescott. Her family would visit the festively lit bandstand (mistakenly referred to as the “gazebo”) on the decorated Yavapai County Courthouse Plaza, while music played. She remembers standing on the corner of the Plaza as a child where she and other children lined up near the old Piggly Wiggly to wait for Santa Claus. The store employees would give the Santa their extra stock of oranges and ribbon candy, so when Santa came riding in on a big old fire truck, the children were all so excited that he had treats for them. As she grew older and had kids of her own, she would bring them around downtown and listen to the music every year Melissa’s children would choose one gift they received and took it to the Sheriff’s office for deputies to give kids whose families could not afford toys. These stories are part of what truly makes Prescott “Arizona’s Christmas City”.