Eulogy: Remembering a friend

A Eulogy For Lynne Angland
Delivered by Scott R. Cooper, Crook County Judge
November 29, 2008, Prineville Senior Center

When I reflect back on Lynne’s life, I am inclined to think about fire.

You all know that Lynne was a redhead—and she lived like a redhead, full of energy and strongly held opinions and a feisty and indomitable spirit. A spark, a fire, a flame lived within Lynne, and you felt its heat from the moment that you met her.

Yet Lynn was one of the most level-headed, kind persons I ever met. You could disagree with Lynne. I sometimes did. And she would listen politely and respectfully and then carefully with an accountant’s precision, explain why you were wrong. The consummate professional, the only way you ever knew that your failure to agree with Lynne didn’t sit well was if you looked into those big blue eyes: which would be snapping , popping and alive with intelligence, a willingness to fight for what she believe was right and sheer guts and determination. To stand near Lynn was to stand by the open fire; to stand against Lynne was to feel the increasing heat of the flames.

I loved the fact that Lynne put her passions into play for others. When she launched her in-office daycare, we all thought she was nuts. I was sitting on the board of a nonprofit daycare at the time, and we were struggling to make ends meet with donations and tax-exempt status. I know Lynne was a creative accountant, but even she couldn’t prop up the balance sheet with goodwill alone! Eventually, that experiment proved to be too costly, but Lynne didn’t admit defeat; she just changed directions. Awakened to the problem of affordable daycare faced by many working parents, she set out to build a better system at the local and state level to ensure that this need was met. She didn’t do this because she had some amazing education expertise in this area: she did it because when Lynne saw a problem, she didn’t just leave it to someone else: she had to fix it.

Lynne’s involvement with the Soroptimists and the Senior Center was a godsend. The ladies (and their beleaguered husbands) who run that organization are really amazing. They single-handedly remove from local government and the community the responsibility for providing one of the most important social service any local government has to address. And they do it very well. But they do it better since Lynne came along and began to lend her expertise to examining the bottom-line and suggesting that whatever you are doing today isn’t as important as you are going to end up tomorrow, if you keep doing it. Lynne helped ensured the financial stability of an organization that is not only nice but is absolutely necessary for serving the Crook County senior community. Almost no one who is directed served by the senior center appreciated the importance of her commitment and its critical timing to the senior center’s future success. Certainly, the patrons of the senior center seldom connected Lynne’s involvement with the benefits they daily received. That was fine with Lynne. She was ever the background player. She was one of those people those of us in community leadership value most: the kind of person you turn to when a job needs doing, needs doing well and you don’t necessarily need the person doing it to grandstand and hog the limelight while they fix the problem. Lynne was made for that role, and she played it very well.

There are only three reasons why the county’s Natural Resource Planning Committee has survived. The passion of Sarah Thomas, a friend of Lynne’s whom we mourned earlier this year, was one of them; the leg work of Mike Lunn, who carries on alone, was another; and the leadership of Lynne Angland was the third. For those who don’t know about this committee, it is rather unique in Oregon’s local government structure. It is a group of people, NOT like-minded, who depend upon and care about the natural world in Crook County. It is comprised of farmers and ranchers, timber interests, local businesses, community leaders, agency personnel, environmentalists and other diverse groups. They gather once a month to discuss subjects like how to protect watersheds and how to promote forest health and how to graze cattle without damaging the land and how to protect frogs and wolves and fish and such. Lynne presided over this sometimes fractious group with good humor, with passion and with deep and abiding interest in all they talked about. What this group does is far outside the realm of cold numbers lined up in neat columns, but Lynne wasn’t the kind of person whose life and whose broad interests were ever going to be confined or defined by a ledger sheet.

There is little consolation to be taken in Lynn’s premature departure. Her absence leaves a hole too big too fill. Her family, whom she loved deeply, will miss her most, but her friends will miss and mourn her for days, weeks, months and years to come. The only silver lining to be found in this tragedy is that when Lynn left us, on her way to attend a state childcare commission meeting, she was on her way to do something bigger than herself, more important than just her community and exemplary of her passions and commitments to making her world a better place to be. Her flame flickered bright to the very end, and I have a hunch, that’s the way Lynne would have wanted to exit the world.

Let me close with poem loosely borrowed by Edna St. Vincent Millay. When I heard about Lynne’s passing, I immediate thought of this, and it gave me a little comfort, because I think it very succinctly sums up the Lynne Angland I knew, admired and called my friend:

My candle burned at both ends,
It did not last the night.
But oh my loved ones and my friends,
It gave such lovely light.

Thoughts at the Twilight

This article first appeared in the Central Oregonian of Prineville, Oregon, November 2008

At this writing, the election of 2008 is behind us (or at least I hope it is.) A new County Court is now elected, and I am entering the final phase, the twilight, of my 12-year political career as the transition to the new county administration begins.

It will be a strange moment when I leave office after Dec. 31. No more cell phone ringing urgently. No waking up at midnight to check the weather and wonder if the snowplows have been dispatched yet to Juniper Canyon. No more calls at home from constituents just as I’m sitting down to dinner or putting the kids in bed. I can once again read the morning paper without that nagging worry about whether the reporter got the story right. Best of all, I hope I’m done for good with same-day over-and-back trips to Salem starting at 5 a.m. and ending at 8 or 9 at night.

For the most part, my successor is welcome to it, but despite the relief I feel at handing off much of this job to someone else, there is still a tiny, tiny piece of me that regrets that I won’t be around in a leadership role as the next chapter of Crook County history.

You see, serving in public office isn’t so much about having something to do as it is about serving a passion. Any one of my predecessors in the office of county judge and county commissioner can tell you, they didn’t do it for the money. All of us were inspired by the idea that maybe we could run things just a little better. Our hope was that as a result of our service, we might leave the county and its citizens a little—or a lot—better than we found them, and all of us in our heart of hearts had a sneaking suspicion on leaving office that the next administration might change thing.

And of course change is exactly what happens. After all, that’s the point and the promise of an election: it’s an opportunity to reconsider, to allow new people to bring fresh approaches to persistent problems, to throw out what we have been doing and do something different in the perennial hope of a better result. Only in this way does the grand experiment that is democracy ensure the continuous and forward advancement of our system over time.

Of course, not everybody’s plan works out as envisioned. Make no mistake, campaigning successfully is a walk in the park compared with the challenges of governing successfully!
The role of the candidate is to promise. Reality has a funny way of forcing one to adjust one’s promises after the fact.

Do you remember the campaign of George W. Bush 2000? We were going to get out of the business of “nation building.” We were going to “decrease dependence on foreign oil.” We were going to rein in federal spending. Then came Sept. 11, 2001. Oops.

Over the course of the last year, I’ve heard candidates promise much to the community. We’re going to have a better economy, planned growth, better communication, open government, etc., etc. etc.

At the same time, I’ve been reading the papers and watching the news as the housing market has taken a nose dive, consumer confidence has plummeted, standards of living for retirees dependent on investment income have fallen, manufacturing has slumped, unemployment has risen and federal and state revenue sharing has dropped.

Despite the promises of candidates to deliver the Promised Land in local government, they may be fortunate if country, county and community simply survive the next four years intact.
Perhaps the most amusing campaign promise of all is what I like to refer to as the “Goldilocks” standard—the idea that the government through regulatory intervention can somehow control the destiny of the community so that its business growth, development patterns and conflict arising out of changing economic and social norms can somehow be implemented at a pace which is neither too hot nor too cold but is “just right.” In truth, that is the Holy Grail of every government and every elected official, and like the Holy Grail, it has never been discovered. The boom and bust cycle of the American economy forces communities and government alike to take advantage of good times and regroup in bad times. A government which applies the brakes in the up-times risks slowing the economic engine to a point that it can’t be revved again when the inevitable downturn begins. That is both political and economic reality. Always has been, always will be.

Be that as it may, the newly elected candidates can do some things right as they move forward with their new responsibilities. While those things lack the “sex appeal” of fulfilling policy promise, they probably will mean more to quality of life for all of us.

Boiled down, an elected official in local government needs to do six basic things:

· Sketch a vision not of what has been but of what could be.
· Hire good people and get out of their way.
· Appoint volunteers who have passion and competence for their contributions to community betterment.
· Budget modestly, providing what is needed but not overburdening those who are expected to foot the bill.
· Work well with other units of government. You never know when you will need help from your neighbor.
· Stay in touch with your community and its emerging and changing values

As I close my tenure in office, I can look back on my tenure in office and realize that I’ve committed myself intensely to all of these areas. Some of these tasks I’ve performed better than others. Sometimes, I’ve been more on top of my game than at other times. No doubt my successor will tackle these challenges in his or her own unique way, and I wish him or her well in doing that.

Elected office doesn’t come with a manual. No conference tells you what to do the day after you take the oath of office. It’s a “do it yourself” thing. I only hope that whatever the next administration does—and I ‘m sure it will do things differently than I have done them—that it will do them keeping these principles in mind.

They served me well, and in the long run they serve the people of Crook County well, too.