Cy Meyers of Winlock laughs as he tells a story in May 2014 at Brosey's Hardware in Winlock.
Lewis County lost two respected leaders last week with the deaths of Chehalis native Orin Smith and Marvin B. “Cy” Meyers, former Winlock mayor.
Smith, a successful businessman who oversaw major expansion of Starbucks as chief executive officer and served on The Walt Disney Company’s board, was well-known for his philanthropy in Lewis County. Among dozens of causes, he donated money to Centralia College, the Chehalis Foundation, the Gail and Carolyn Shaw Aquatic Center, the Industrial Park at TransAlta and Vernetta Smith Chehalis Timberland Library, named for his mother. He also provided guidance and leadership to those organizations benefiting from his financial largesse.
Smith, who played on a Chehalis state championship high school basketball team, graduated from W.F. West and later Centralia College, the University of Washington and Harvard Business School.
He was a remarkable man who worked hard and achieved much but never forgot his hometown. He died Thursday at 75 at his home in Jackson, Wyoming.
Meyers, a native of Hood River, Oregon, who died Saturday at 93, gave his time to serving the community of Winlock and the Lewis County Republicans. In fact, I always considered him Mr. Republican and looked forward to seeing him at local gatherings.
He struck me as the epitome of a Marine, a survivor who fought at Iwo Jima during World War II and a friend of many Japanese-Americans in Hood River who were interned on the home front. The son of a Marine whose family homesteaded in Hood River, Meyers as a child paraded around in his father’s uniform. In the early 1900s, his maternal grandfather ran a blacksmith shop where the Lewis County PUD building is today.
Meyers, who played football and basketball in high school, joined the Marines in 1943. He learned to drive a tank and was assigned to the Fifth Marine Division’s Fifth Tank Battalion, Company A. He was in the seventh wave to hit the shores of Iwo Jima Feb. 19, 1945. He saw men raise the United States flag on Mount Suribachi Feb. 23, and lost his best friend and his platoon leader when their tank exploded after hitting a buried torpedo warhead. He described the ocean along the beach as red from the blood of the dead and wounded.
After his discharge, he returned home, where he met Bonita and married her Jan. 19, 1949. He remained in the Marine Reserves, taught in a tank school during the Korean War, and was discharged in 1951.
In late 1959, the couple moved to Winlock where Meyers delivered eggs throughout Southwest Washington and they raised their four children.
Meyers served as Winlock’s mayor for six years until 2009, eight years on the Winlock School Board, four each on the Winlock City Council and Educational Service District 113 Board, 10 on the Civil Service Commission, a few years on the board of adjustment, and 12 years on the Washington State Republican Party’s executive board.
Meyers told me that fighting during the war left scars, and described it as the second worst thing he ever experienced in his life. The first was losing his wife of 60 years in April 2009.
Now, they’re together again.
Public Records Bill
I never thought I’d see the day that I agreed with Gov. Jay Inslee, but I give him credit for vetoing the hastily passed bill that exempted the Legislature from the voter-approved Public Records Act.
It’s the height of hypocrisy for legislators who create state laws to exempt themselves from such laws.
The justification provided by local lawmakers who voted in favor of the exemption sounds good — the need to protect the privacy of people who seek their help — except that the same contention could be made by people serving on city councils, school boards, county commissions and other public agencies. Yet they must comply with the law.
In government, transparency should reign. Elected officials are public servants, and their work should be open to public scrutiny.
Unfortunately, in recent years, I’ve seen people abuse the law, creating an unnecessary burden on local governments and costing taxpayers a lot of money. Perhaps legislation could be passed to protect privacy and to define “reasonable” requests as opposed to those designed to simply burden government and, if refused, line pocketbooks.
Basketball
Congratulations to the Chehalis Lady Bearcats for their state championship win Saturday evening in Yakima. My husband always enjoys listening on KELA radio to high school basketball games, and this year we stumbled upon the High School Sports Network at https://www.nfhsnetwork.com/, which enabled us to watch some local teams in state competition live. We simply paid $9.95 for a one-month pass. What a treat to see the games from the comfort of our soft easy chairs.
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Julie McDonald, a personal historian from Toledo, may be reached at memoirs@chaptersoflife.com.
