Richard & Lylas’ Life Story

After high school Richard tried to be a pro football player at UC Berkeley. That life style ended quickly. Lylas of course went to Cal doing her thing for four and one half years and received her degree. Richard ended up at University of Oregon and received his degree in 1960.
With two degrees between us and no jobs we decided to get married.
We then moved back to Eugene, Oregon so Richard could do his graduate work in Economics while Lylas worked as a librarian in a specialized library on campus. After several years of graduate work Richard finally finished his degree and we moved to Salem where Richard took a job working for the state of Oregon as an Economist doing the revenue forecasting.
By the end of our first year in Salem our son Joel was born. After another year of so we purchased land and started working with an architect on a design of a house that Richard and Lylas would build. Upon completion of our house Kirsty was born. Lylas most vivid memory of our first building project is standing on scaffolding, pregnant with Kirsty, shingling on the roof in a snow storm. We did have quality times together.
Richard’s career kept advancing. He first became head to the Research Section as he worked with the Governors and the Legislative revenue committees. He them was asked to create a new research office in the Legislature. Thus he created the Legislative Revenue Office which administers the House and Senate Revenue committees and analyzed all bills for their revenue affects. Since Richard’s hours were very long during a Legislative Session the children and Lylas would visit him at times during the evenings or weekends at the Capital. Every family member has interesting stories to tell of these days in the Capital.
During this period Lylas worked as a volunteer at the preschool and the grade school that our children attended. She also started a life long passion with spinning and weaving. As the children grew Lylas’s spinning and weaving activities grew. She became a state fair demonstrator in spinning, a teacher in natural dying and an organizer in the Sheep to Shawl program in Salem.
After ten years of working for the Legislature Richard’s career turn again. He was appointed by the then Governor to be the Director of the Department of Revenue and Fiscal Policy Advisor to the Governor. This would continue of the next four Governors.
Our son finished high school and received his undergraduate degree at the University of Oregon in Philosophy. He then went into the Peace Core in Paraguay.
After returning from Paraguay he worked for the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs where he met and married Lisa Watts a Native American from the Seneca Nation in New York. Lisa is a national consultant on Native American museums. Joel, after receiving his MBA, is currently the Data Base Administrator for Oregon’s largest fire district.
Kirsty went to the Northwest College of Art and received her Bachelors degree in fine arts. She currently has her own business in Portland doing various types of design work for businesses, dance companies, movie and many non profits.
Richard and Lylas retired from the State of Oregon and then got a call from the Federal Government asking Richard to be the Fiscal Policy Advisor to Uzbekistan. After we settled in Tashkent, Uzbekistan Lylas was asked to help on a UN project in teaching Uzbeks how to dye silk with nature, native products. After a year in Central Asia we returned home content to travel to see the world rather then work as we saw the world.
Upon returning home we took up our second large building project. We had owned a large lot for years at Black Butte Ranch in Central Oregon. We finally decided to build a second home on the sunny side of Oregon. Again we worked with and architect on the design. This time with the help of our children we built an interesting structure in the ponderosa forest of Central Oregon where we spend a lot of our time when we are not traveling to see and appreciate other cultures of the world.