Arthur “Art” Blakey Jr. is used to being a pioneer of sorts.
In his family, he was the first grandson, the first to serve in the military and the first to have a career in law enforcement, he said.
And now, after being named King Boreas Rex the 74th on Thursday night, Blakey charts new ground by becoming the first African-American to assume the top title of the St. Paul Winter Carnival.
“But I don’t look at it that way,” he said. “I just look at it as being a good volunteer.”
Though he gives his time in Winter Carnival circles — as the 2006 West Wind and a current board member of the St. Paul Festival and Heritage Foundation, the group that puts on the carnival — he might be familiar to folks who attend another, slightly bigger Minnesota celebration.
For the past 45 years, Blakey has worked on the State Fair police force, starting on foot patrol in 1965 and moving up to chief in 1980.
Outside the Fair, he spent 33 years with the Ramsey County sheriff’s office, retiring in 2003 as deputy sheriff.
But Blakey hopes carnival-goers, for the next week at least, look past his old badge and see him as Boreas.
“I don’t want them to look at me as an ex-cop,” he said.
And while he has traded gunfire with a robber and testified in criminal court cases, he admits to having butterflies about the new role.
“I know I’m going to be nervous the first couple of days,” he said in a clandestine interview a week before coronation.
But his mentors — a half-dozen past Boreases — told him just to be himself.
“They said, ‘Do your own thing; don’t try to emulate anyone else. It’s your year; you’re the person,’ ” Blakey said.
So, he has already settled on his motto for the 2010 carnival — “Fun, family and community,” he said — and plans to have the 2010 royals travel together on a bus as they make up to 50 stops at nursing homes, schools and veterans homes during the 11-day fest.
His Boreas suit — each king has his own made — comes from Milbern Clothing Co. near Snelling and University avenues.
He started with a dark-blue suit and added gold trim; the cuffs are strips of red, black and green; his epaulets are twists of gold-colored braid.
His cap — Blakey calls it a garrison cap, from his five years in the Air Force — is emblazoned with a jeweled crest.
The finery aside, Blakey considers himself an average St. Paul guy.
He graduated from Central High School in 1954 and lives in the Summit-University home he and his wife, Carolyn Carroll-Blakey, 61, built in 1975.
The couple has three children — Janelle, Arthur III and Brooke — and five grandchildren. His kids — and now the grandkids — studied at St. Peter Claver Catholic School on Central Avenue.
His family figures big into his carnival roles. He dubbed his kids “Papa’s West Wind Posse” in 2006 and, despite a sponsorship by Avalon Security, had to get his wife’s blessing to undertake the pricey, yearlong role of Boreas.
“My wife and I decided this would be our Christmas-birthday-anniversary-vacation all rolled into one,” he said.
Here are a couple of other tidbits about Blakey that might be nice to know as he reigns over the Winter Carnival the rest of this month:
First, he might be the only Boreas to have been shot by robbers.
Blakey was off-duty with his niece at a VFW post in 1996 when three masked robbers burst in, bullets flying, according to a Pioneer Press story.
One customer was shot in the elbow as dozens of others ran for cover.
Blakey used his own firearm to shoot the lock off a back door, allowing customers to get out of the way. Then he flashed his badge and told the robbers to drop their weapons.
One of the men shot Blakey three times in the gut.
Blakey fired back; the man survived and was sent to prison.
Second, he might be the only Boreas to have ever headed up visiting-team security during Minnesota Vikings home games. Blakey has had the job of NFL “security consultant” since 1998.
His allegiance to the Vikes runs so deep, said 2010 Winter Carnival Prime Minister Jimmy Francis, that it will influence the royals’ schedule Sunday during the NFC championship game against the Saints in New Orleans.
“We’ll be somewhere with a lot of TVs,” Francis said.
And if the Vikes head to the Super Bowl in Miami on Feb. 7, Blakey’s going, too.
“I guess that’s one of the perks of the job,” Francis said.
Even with the potential VIP treatment in Miami, Blakey still considers himself a commoner who has become a king.
“It’s really an honor,” he said. “I still wake up at night and say, ‘I really don’t believe it.’ ”
John Brewer can be reached at 651-228-2093.
SEE THE KING AND QUEEN
To see the newly crowned 2010 King Boreas Rex and Aurora, Queen of the Snows, you can head to downtown St. Paul for the 2 p.m. Grande Day Parade today.
Or you can sit on the couch at home and watch it broadcast live on the St. Paul Neighborhood Network, cable channel 19. The parade will be rebroadcast at 7 p.m. Monday and Tuesday.
Copyright 2010 Pioneer Press.