Three minutes with… Charlie Clupny of Hermiston

Published 4:59 pm Tuesday, February 8, 2022

Let’s start with Valentine’s Day. You have a Valentine. Tell me about your wife, Carol.

That’s a loaded question. My wife and I met at work, here in this county. She’s also a trained speech and language pathologist, just like me, but she’s the famous one. She wrote a book.

How do the two of you spend Valentine’s Day?

Well, that’s her birthday, which makes it easy to remember. There’s always something special that happened. We’ve had skiing Valentine’s Day parties and surprise parties. On her 50th, I rented a cafeteria at the high school and I got my son’s theater group to perform a murder mystery that was attended by 90 people. Her present that year was to go on a women’s kayaking trip through the San Juan islands.

What are you planning this year, or is that a secret?

What I can say is that she is going to have a surprise dinner somewhere. It’ll take some time to get to this place, and we will have a couple of very special guests that are going to be riding with us. I’m not going to say any more.

How long have you been married? And what of your kids?

Forty years, this year. We’ve worked with many children, in education, who are like our own. And we adopted two children. Our oldest son is the coordinator of professional development for the Jackson County Library System. He lives in Ashland (Oregon). Our youngest one, he has a place in Fairbanks (Alaska) and works at the Pogo gold mine.

After so many years, and raising children, how do you keep things fresh in your marriage?

We’re always looking for things fun to do. We laugh with each other. We laugh at one another. I can’t think of being around anyone else.

You’ve been involved in many different things in the community. Can you tell me about some of them?

For 16 years, I was the emcee for the Festival of Trees. For several years, I was Santa Claus for a music presentation at the Umatilla School District. I’ve been a volunteer firefighter, I served on the city council in Stanfield and the Knights of Columbus for my church for over 40 years. I was a Cubmaster for 4 or 5 years. I was involved in all three builds of Funland Playground. Of course, there was the Boy Scouts and the Lions Club. That’s just some of what I’ve done.

What do you think of Hermiston?

I thought it was a wonderful community in 1978 when I moved here, and I never changed my mind about Hermiston. I’m 69 now. You know, I am a speech and language pathologist. I could’ve chosen to work and live anywhere in the world. This is where I chose to work.

Why is that? Why did you want to work with children here?

Kids in rural areas need to have good services. I thought I could do that. I worked for the (InterMountain Education Service District) for 33 years. In this area, I served kids who are now adults. I still know them by name. I know a lot of people by name. You can say I’m on the pulse of Hermiston.

Pulse of Hermiston? What are the biggest stories happening in town right now? What should we all be looking at? Look at our growth. You see what’s going on. When I came here, the town was smaller. It has grown so much. That’s quite a story.