LOCAL
Wallowa.com
Joe Town spent half his life in Wallowa
By BILL BRADSHAW
Wallowa County Chieftain
WALLOWA — Joe Town
has spent most of his 90 years
in Wallowa, and most of
those years serving the city in
one fashion or another.
He recently retired as a
longtime city councilor and,
most recently, as City Coun-
cil president.
He said Wednesday, Jan.
5, that a stroke he had in April
is causing him troubles.
“I’m not doing too bad
for an old man,” he said. “It’s
limiting my total abilities.”
Born in North Dakota,
Town served in the U.S.
Navy during the Korean War.
He was an electronics techni-
cian aboard a destroyer, but
didn’t get close to Korea.
“I spent most of my time
in the Mediterranean moni-
toring Russian radar,” he said.
He and his wife, Max-
ine, both were teachers. They
moved here from Alaska in
1975. She taught fi rst and
second grades for 20 years at
Wallowa Elementary School,
while he taught all math,
physics and chemistry at
Imbler High School, some 34
miles away.
Those may have been
tough subjects for many, but
Town was pleased with his
students.
“You’ve got good kids to
work with,” he recalls.
The Towns had two chil-
dren. A daughter now lives in
Hawaii with their two grand-
daughters. A son died of cere-
bral palsy in his 40s, Town
said.
The couple retired in the
mid-1990s and decided to
stay in their home.
“I built an A-frame house
here,” he said. “We decided
to not move after we retired
and just stay here.”
Town began his service to
the city with his fi rst term on
the council in 1977.
“I got involved and
chaired a lot of Senior Cen-
ter projects for many years,”
he said.
His fi rst stint in offi ce
lasted until 1985. He returned
seven years ago.
Holly Goebel/Contributed Photo
Longtime Wallowa City Councilman Joe Town receives a
plaque in appreciation of his decades of service to the city
alongside Mayor Gary Hulse in the council chambers at City
Hall during the last council meeting, Tuesday, Dec. 21, 2021.
Town, who recently turned 90, retired from the council.
Wallowa County Chieftain, File
Retired City Council President Joe Town, left, stands with
longtime Senior Center cook Tammy Odegaard in 2015. Town,
who was a member of the Wallowa Senior Center Advisory
Board, was instrumental in getting the center built.
Between that time, he con-
tinued working on the city’s
budget committee.
“The most important thing
was starting the Wallowa
Senior Center Endowment
Fund with the Oregon Com-
munity Foundation,” Town
said. “It has grown to over
$140,000 and returns about
Power outage still under investigation
Lights out for
entire county
all day Sunday
By BILL BRADSHAW
Wallowa County Chieftain
ENTERPRISE — The
cause of Sunday’s wide-
spread power outage in Wal-
lowa County is still under
investigation — and likely
will remain so for days or
weeks, according to a spokes-
man for Pacifi c Power &
Light on Monday, Jan. 10.
The lights went out just
after 9 a.m. and were restored
just before 4 p.m.
According to a PP&L
post on Twitter on Jan. 9, the
meters of 5,318 customers
were aff ected, hitting virtu-
ally all of Wallowa County.
Posts and emails began
assuring a restoration of
power in late morning, ulti-
mately saying it would be
restored by 5 p.m.
Drew Hanson, a spokes-
man for PP&L, said Jan. 10
that service was restored to
about 900 customers in the
Wallowa area by about 1 p.m.
and the remainder of the
county had its power restored
by just before 4 p.m.
“Crews were dispatched
at the fi rst reports of an out-
age, but weather-related driv-
ing conditions slowed our
response time,” Hanson said.
He said crews were out on
the ground and by air look-
ing for possible causes. There
was no single cause, such as a
vehicle hitting a power pole.
“The actual cause of the
interruption is under investi-
gation,” he said, adding that it
could take some time.
“We understand the impact
being without power in such
weather can have,” Han-
son said. “We fully under-
stand the impact and appreci-
ate customers’ understanding
while crews are working.”
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$6,000 a year for operation of
the center.”
Helping start the entree
program to support nutri-
tious meals countywide was
another long-range endeavor,
he said.
Although he’s never
served as mayor, being coun-
cil president is the same
thing when the mayor is
unavailable.
City Recorder Carolyn
Harshfi eld said Town will be
hard to replace.
“The city is truly going
to miss him,” she said in an
email. “He used to be a math
teacher and was amazing
helping with the city budget.”
Mayor Gary Hulse agreed.
“He has been a super big
help with the city of Wal-
lowa,” Hulse said. “He’s vol-
unteered with many things.”
At the council’s last meet-
ing Dec. 21 — which also
happened to be Town’s 90th
birthday — the councilors
presented him with a cake
and a plaque honoring his ser-
vice to Wallowa.
“That was my birthday.
They said you have to come
to the council meeting,”
Town said. “We just talked a
bit about some of the things
that have happened since I’ve
been here.”
During that time, they
recalled that the City Hall
was moved to its current
location from its former site
across from the Post Offi ce,
the Wallowa Senior Center
was built in 1995, the new
fi re hall was put in after 9/11
and Kevin’s Tire Shop that
was faced with being forced
to close down at its old loca-
tion moved to a building that
he now leases from the city
on the truck route.
“We saved those jobs,”
Town said of the tire shop
move.
Hulse and others will truly
miss working with Town.
“He’s been super good to
work with,” the mayor said.
“He’s a great guy and will be
greatly missed on helping out
with the City Council.”
But for Town, it’s been
enough.
“It’s 45 years,” he said.
Wednesday, January 12, 2022
IN BRIEF
‘Nature in the
Abstract: Rocks!’
focus of Brown Bag
JOSEPH — Geologist
and photographer Ellen
Morris Bishop will be fea-
tured in one of the weekly
“Brown Bag” sessions put
on by the Josephy Cen-
ter for Arts and Culture on
Tuesday, Jan. 18, from noon
to 1 p.m., according to a
press release.
Bishop is one of many
artists exhibiting in the
current show at the cen-
ter called “Nature In the
Abstract.”
“At all scales, the pat-
terns of a landscape,
whether fence lines that
have mellowed with age,
patterns woven in reeds and
grasses, the stacked sym-
metry of basalt columns,
and so much more, reveal
much about its history and
can help defi ne its composi-
tion,” Bishop said. “Captur-
ing those patterns in images
helps engage the viewer in
the landscape’s story and
mysteries.”
The exhibit is up until
Feb. 22.
Bishop is well-known
locally as a writer and pho-
tographer, and is highly
regarded across the region
for her work and her books
on Northwest geology. Her
latest book is “Living With
Thunder.”
The Brown Bag will be
by Zoom. Those interested
can go to the website at
josephy.org, or email rich.
wandschneider@gmail.
com to get a link to this free
event.
COVID-19 cases
on the rise again
SALEM — COVID-19
cases are moving upwards
again during the fi rst full
week of 2022.
The Oregon Health
A3
Authority reported 35 cases
of COVID-19 in Wallowa
County during reports from
Jan. 4-10, including 10 over
the weekend in the Jan. 10
report. The surge has the
county total during the pan-
demic up to 829.
The last week saw the
highest one-day total of
COVID-19 cases reported
to date in Oregon, with
10,451 reported on Jan. 7.
The Jan. 10 report, which
had three days of data,
showed 18,538 cases and
18 deaths.
Hospitalizations due to
COVID have been increas-
ing in Oregon, and in
Region 9, with the OHA on
Jan. 10 reporting 14 hospi-
talizations due to the virus
in the region.
NEOEDD seeks
website redesign
proposals
ENTERPRISE — The
Northeast Oregon Eco-
nomic
Development
District is seeking pro-
posals to redesign its web-
site, according to a press
release.
A copy of the detailed
request for proposals can
be found on the NEOEDD
website, www.neoedd.org
(see the Upcoming Events
page).
Questions from contrac-
tors will be accepted until
Jan. 21. Proposals must be
submitted by Jan. 28.
The RFP includes the
district’s background, web-
site redesign goals and
scope of work, RFP pro-
cess and project time-
line, proposal submission
instructions and contractor
selection process. The RFP
also includes examples of
website components we
like and a site map draft.
For more information,
contact Lisa Dawson, dis-
trict executive director,
at 541-426-3598 ext. 1 or
by email at lisadawson@
neoedd.org.
— Chieftain staff
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