Wally Gibson, Director of the Long Valley Senior Center, originally from Delta, Utah, has a story to tell and it is well worth sharing. He was born in 1938, a year before the beginning of WWII. When he was eight their family moved to Chino, California, he was quick to recall the year he graduated from Chino High School; it was 1956.
After graduation he attended two years at Mount San Antonio college in Walnut, Calif., where he had been awarded a scholarship in Automotive Engineering. This is where his story really hit home for me, we understood each other. Southern California, muscle cars and the sounds and smells of drag racing - those were good times. He and a friend entered the California Chrysler “Tune Up” contest. They took home a third-place trophy, and Chrysler Plymouth in Pomona offered him a job in their engineering department.
In 1964 Wally was drafted into the army. After basic training at Fort Ord, he was stationed at White Sands, N.M., for six months serving in the 802 Army Engineers. I believe he sat up a little straighter when he quoted their motto, “By our labors, they may fly.” Then he was off to serve in Vietnam for two years after which he was able to come home to the U.S. serving in a reserve unit working on military short-range cannons.
After returning to civilian life, Wally was able to pick up his career at Chrysler as one of the electrical specialists. He would frequently haul “Streamliners” which would hit up to 300 mph, for Chrysler, to the Bonneville Salt Flats, and fine tune their electrical systems along the way. He was also interested in working on and driving dragsters. During one of these races he was in a terrible accident, his car went tumbling end over end for an extended roll over. Wally recalls, “I was lucky, they tell me I should have died.” He had watched other drivers and their cars and used his engineering skills to design his rollbar and a safety harness which in the truest sense saved his life.
In 1998, he took an early retirement returning to Orderville, Utah, to take care of his mother, Lily Barnett. In 1999, he met a group of volunteers who were working on the reorganization and remodeling of the Long Valley Senior Citizen Center (LVSCC). Wally began his retirement career with LVSCC in January 2000, delivering meals to seniors throughout Kane County with the Care and Share program. In 2010, Wally took on the title of LVSCC Coordinator. When asked what the coordinator position involved Wally smiled commenting, “I just try to keep the peace and keep things going.”
There’s a little more to it than that but after 24 years working at your retirement job it must just be second nature.
