The Glenwood Women’s Club annual Easter Egg hunt the Saturday before Easter was a fun event for the children of the community at the county park in Pine Vista. This year, there were many dozens of colorful plastic eggs with candy inside. Some were marked with money prize amounts or Bunny Bucks to be spent at the Glenwood General Store. This year, Shane Branson supplied some special silver and gold eggs and the other fun prizes. The little kids were very excited when they found gold or silver eggs. Our Easter Bunny did a wonderful job.
I’ve heard the bunny also goes by the name Brooklyn Branson, always ready to volunteer wherever needed. The parents and little kids enjoyed lots of pictures with Easter Bunny.
Five Glenwood High School students, Jayla Avila, Devin Gimlin, Wyatt Patterson, Jocee Hoctor, and Ariana Jackson, helped hide all the eggs in the three sections. During the hunt, they helped some of the little kids find eggs, then stayed after and helped take down the section ribbon and signs, and load all the supplies, chairs, and table into our cars. Words can’t express how much we appreciate all our Glenwood kids.
We also appreciate Della Fujita for being the Easter Bunny’s assistant, walking all around the park and offering the little kids candy from Easter Bunny’s basket if they would like to pick something, because, as you may know, Easter Bunnies don’t talk. I had to chuckle over one little boy trying to coax Easter Bunny into talking to him. It was a very special day and we appreciate all the parents and grandparents who brought their little kids to be part of it. I needed to stop by the store on my way home and there were lots of children in there deciding how to spend their Bunny Bucks. A huge thanks goes to Claude at the General Store for being so supportive of our egg hunt each year.
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We are sorry to share this news of the passing of another former Glenwood kid, Lila Pierce Trout. This hits home pretty hard for our own family as Lila was Glenn’s little sister. She was the youngest child of parents Jake and Wallie Pierce and grew up here on Shady Nook Farm. At the beginning of eighth grade, Jake and Wallie switched from dairy farming to raising beef cattle. Needing a little steadier income as they started their ranching operation, Wallie took a teaching position in the elementary grades at Trout Lake School. The Trout Lake highway didn’t exist back then. There was just the narrow dirt Mainline Road that had previously been the rail grade for the track on which the St. Regis log train carried logs from Trout Lake to Glenwood. It was barely drivable in good weather and not at all passable in winters, so it was a longer drive from Glenwood to BZ Corners and on to Trout Lake in the early 1960s.
Lila came to Trout Lake with her mom and they lived in a little house in Trout Lake. One year, they spent some time staying at my own grandmother’s house until the house they were planning to live in was ready. She joined my Trout Lake class, where we became instant great friends. It was always just a bit sad for Lila that she didn’t get to finish junior high and high school with all her Glenwood friends, but I can attest to the fact that it didn’t take her long to hit the ground running in Trout Lake and become “boss” of our Trout Lake class. Lila and Wallie drove back to Glenwood every weekend to be home with Jake and with Lila’s big brother Glenn, and I often came with them. Lila played matchmaker, and I ended up marrying her big brother several years later, so got to have another sister of my own. For the first two years Glenn and I dated, Lila went along with us everywhere. Glenn called her our chaperon. Later she was maid of honor at our wedding.
Lila lost her husband Mike McDonald to cancer last fall and was preparing for a celebration of life for him in Finley, Washington, where they lived. She had just returned from a memorable and wonderful week-long trip to Washington, D.C., with her son Craig and his family and was excited to share with us about the sights they visited and experiences they all had after she returned home. Lila was preceded in death by her parents, her older sister Bonnie, her nephew Ron Whitmire, and her beloved husband Mike. She is survived by her sons Chris and Craig Trout, daughter-in-law Katie, grandchildren Maddie and Matt, her brother Glenn, her adopted by love sister, me, and many nieces and nephews. I always found it especially nice that Lila’s first husband, Mike Trout, and his wife Laura remained friends with Lila and Mike and included them in family holiday dinners at their home in Husum. She also leaves behind a lifetime of friends and will be greatly missed by all who knew and loved her.
Her passing was very sudden and unexpected, but her sons and daughter-in-law made Mike’s planned celebration of life a joint celebration of both of them. That celebration took place at the Finley Grange Hall on April 26. At a later date, there will be an internment for Lila and Mike at the Glenwood Cemetery, beside Jake and Wallie’s place of rest and surrounded by Lila’s grandparents Oscar and Antonie Kuhnhausen, great-grandparents, aunts and uncles. A potluck gathering will be held at the Glenwood School multipurpose room after the cemetery ceremony and all Lila’s local family and many friends in this area are very welcome to attend. When that date and time are set, I’ll share that information in this column and on the post office bulletin board.
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If you haven’t had a chance, please check out the new Glenwood Ketchum Kalf Rodeo Website created by our Glenwood Rodeo Association treasurer Kara Griffin. It’s very information and easy to use. You can use either www.ketchumkalfrodeo.org or www.glenwoodrodeo.org to take you to the website. Please invite family and friends from other communities to check it out and spread the word about it. Thank you. And a huge thanks goes to Kara for all the work she devoted to that project and to both Kara and Laurie O’Leary for creating an improved poster and working hard to begin publicizing the rodeo far and wide. This is the 90th anniversary of our great little rodeo, held ever Father’s Day weekend in the beautiful valley at the foot of Mount Adams.
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Here in Glenwood, we’ve been enjoying beautiful spring days and clear, frosty nights. The younger kids are having a blast in T-ball and coach pitch baseball and the middle and high school track teams are well into their track season now. The middle school had a meet at Trout Lake on April 25 and the high school had a meet, also at Trout Lake on the 26th. They would all love some home town support so it would be a fun drive over to cheer the teams on. If you do go over, take some folding lawn chairs if you can because they make more comfortable seating beside the track and give a better view of what’s going on in all the events.
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Mary Pierce writes about the community of Glenwood every other week in Columbia Gorge News. Please send any news items to gmpierce09@gmail.com.
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