William “Scott” Gray has lead an interesting life with Pepsi-Cola, baseball and horses.

Gray is the newest addition to the Enumclaw Courier-Herald staff. He began as sales manager for the newspaper Aug. 6.

He spent more than three decades with Pepsi-Cola, beginning as a truck driver and working his way up to national account sales manager responsible for The Kroger Company on the West Coast.

His father, Les Gray, was a grocery store manager and owned two IGA grocery stores, one in Lake City and another in Edmonds .

“I started working for my dad right out of high school,” Gray said.

While in high school his father managed Carrs Quality Centers, a food store in Fairbanks, Alaska.

In high school Gray was a pitcher on the Alaska all-star baseball team and he said his out-pitch was a curve.

After working with his father, Gray went to work with a bottling company for Pepsi. Eventually he was offered a job in the marketing department.

“I told them I didn’t know anything about marketing,” Gray said. “They said ‘You complain and you have an opinion about everything.’ It was a test by fire.”

He passed the test and was promoted to senior national sales manager.

“The funny thing is I applied for Coke first, but I was hired by Pepsi,” Gray said. “So I got to haunt those (Coke) guys for the rest of my career.”

He has been married to his wife, Peggy, 40 years and the couple has two grown children. His son Jake works in Portland and daughter Monica and her husband live in Enumclaw with their three children, 16, 8, and 18 months – all girls.

Gray said he moved to Enumclaw in 2002  because of  he and wife’s love of horses.  His wife would come to the Plateau area to ride, which is how the couple ended up moving to Enumclaw. The couple has a quarter horse and a Kentucky mountain saddle horse. They are active members of the Back Country Horseman of Washington.

Gray said he still drinks Pepsi, but admitted when he faced a blind test with the his bosses at Pepsi in Hawaii he couldn’t tell the difference.

“I told them I could tell neither cup had Jack Daniel’s in it, but they said I had to pick. I picked the wrong one of course and they never let me live it down,” Gray said.