BEND OREGON Reflections on Old Bend - Reflections on Old Bend

Bend’s Most Influential People

by JIM CROWELL

Bend has had many influential people over the past century, many of whom are living and working here now. Time and the next-generation will, of course, be the future arbiters.

Robert W. Sawyer

Sawyer arrived in 1913 and was the editor and publisher of The Bulletin from 1919 to 1953. A Harvard Law School graduate, his editorials dissected every local issue with an attorney’s skill and logic, producing both broad local consensus and widespread controversy. Sawyer led the charge that created Deschutes County (carving it from Crook County in 1916). He was president of the Bend Chamber of Commerce and co-chairman of the effort to build the “new” hospital in downtown Bend in the 1950s. He was also a Deschutes County judge from 1920 to 1927. Sawyer raised Bend’s profile by being named to several important state commissions by different Oregon governors, and he also served as president of the National Reclamation Association and as a member of the National Board of Forestry. He was named “Oregon’s Top Private Citizen, 1900-1950,” by Governor Charles Sprague. Had Thomas Dewey defeated President Harry Truman in 1948, Sawyer was the consensus choice for Dewey’s cabinet as Secretary of Agriculture.

Sister Catherine Hellman

St. Charles Medical Center’s reputation as a big-time institution is due to the leadership and vision of a woman who came to Bend as a young surgical nurse in 1948. Sister Catherine Hellman, a member of the Sisters of St. Joseph, subsequently emerged as a gifted administrator who led, inspired, cajoled and sometimes jabbed the community conscience at every step along a fifty-year road that led to the current medical mecca of Central Oregon. Her order not only owned the hospital and its related assets, the small cadre of nuns managed every department and worked every floor. It was Sister Catherine who, with remarkable diplomatic finesse and an indefatigable work ethic, crafted the transition from a small, rural Catholic hospital to a large, nonprofit institution with a local board of directors.

Robert W. Chandler

No community in Oregon has had two successive editor/publishers with the academic backgrounds, personal ambitions and intense interests in public issues as Sawyer and Robert W. Chandler, editor/publisher of The Bulletin from 1953 to his death in 1996. Chandler, like Sawyer, held sway in an era when newspaper editorial pages had a more significant impact on public opinion. Chandler, a Stanford University graduate, served on a variety of local and state boards. His primary impact on community life in Bend, however, resulted from the delight he took in following an old journalistic dictum: “Print the news and raise hell.” His editorials—usually three per day—were clear, concise and so tothe- point that he could draw a quart of blood in a single sentence. Chandler had an opinion on every subject and those opinions often carried a deal-making or deal-breaking significance.

Mike Hollern

Hollern was president of the company— Brooks-Scanlon—that exerted monumental influence on Bend from 1916 until it was sold in 1980. Brooks’ economic legacy continues through its subsidiary, Brooks Resources Corporation, and its community-leading philanthropy through both Brooks Resources and its Bend Foundation. Hollern, a member of the Brooks family, has directed both since coming to Bend. Both exert significant impact on the town, through park land donations and development, support of cultural events, sponsorship of public art, or as the inspiration for Bend’s ubiquitous street roundabouts. Hollern arrived in Bend in the early 1960s and was soon elected to the Bend school board. He has served more than twentyfive years on the High Desert Museum board of directors and two terms on the Oregon State Transportation Commission, arguably the most influential lay commission overseeing a state agency.

Bill Smith

Smith’s vision of transforming the skeleton of the Brooks-Scanlon mill site into the vibrant Old Mill District/ Les Schwab Amphitheatre, plus his lead role—while working for Brooks Resources— in creating the Western theme for downtown Sisters, leaves a giant commercial footprint that will no doubt last for generations.

Bill Healy

Healy changed the whole concept of tourism in Bend and, in many ways, the Bend economy. He was both the visionary and the day-to-day managing partner of a small group that built the Mt. Bachelor ski area, beginning in 1958. Healy believed that skiing could put Bend on the national map and that every out-of-town skier was a potential new resident. Healy’s steady expansion of the mountain’s ski facilities and his overall promotional genius produced an explosion of ski-driven tourism and second-home building that helped cushion the demise of Bend’s historic economic base of timber and lumber.

Vince Genna

In designing and building one of the nation’s best public park-and-recreation systems during his thirty-plus-year tenure as local director, Genna’s legacy is spread over Bend, and it will forever enrich the lives of Bend residents and visitors.

Don Pence

An unheralded Bend school district music director, Pence took it upon himself to create the state’s first community college in Bend in the early 1950s. He launched it as a night school in what is now the Bend-La Pine School district administration building in downtown Bend and, subsequently, became the “Father of Oregon Community Colleges.” Higher education in Bend simply would not be where it is today had Pence not ventured out on a lonely, difficult path with far more heart than administrative expertise or academic sophistication.

Alexander Drake

Drake, the town’s founder, owned and platted Bend’s downtown, but he stayed only long enough to reap a fortune and then retired to Pasadena, California. There is little evidence that he participated in any form of civic life and, interestingly, the citizens of Bend bought the property that became Drake Park .