Emphasis shifts to retail after maior remodeling

Western Sierra Lumber Co. recently held a grand opening sale at their new store in Pleasanton, Calif.

Deciding it would be highly profrtable to concentrate on the retail consumer, the company embarked on their current remodeling plans.

Only the first step in a planned exparsion program, the new store replaces a smaller store that had been on the property for nearly 15 years.

Manager of the store Bob Lincoln came from the Fresno, Calif., area to head up the operation. Assistant manager is Jim wood who also moved {rom the San Joaquin Valley.

The three day sale was a big success and the beautiful store was launched in grand style eliciting many compliments.

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p)ROBABLY ONE of the busiest lumberr men in the San Francisco East Bay is none other than Larry Owen. A sales representative for Simeone-Williams Lumber, he has a territory that includes everything east of the Mississippi plus eastern Can' ada. As if this isn't enough to keep him busy, he is exceptionally well'occupied with his Hoo-Hoo activities.

Larry started in the lumber business a little over thirty years ago. Getting his degree from the University of Oregon at Eugene, Larry decided to travel to the Bay Area.

He went to work for E.K. Wood Lumber Co., a prestige out{it in those days. "You never got rich working there, but then you never got fired, either," he recalls. It seemed there was a never-ending stream of ambulances. Either you were rushed to the hospital or you died t}ere, for all it took to keep your job was punch' ing that clock.

In those early years, his mentor was none other than Charles McCormick, founder o{ the McCormick Steamship Co., owner of the McCormick Lumber Co., and a close friend of Larry's dad. From this fine old gentlemen, he gained much in the way of counsel and advice.

Remember trying tobty lumber in 1946? Larry, too, had problems. One story he tells with relish concerns the Quincy Lumber Co. in Quincy, Calif. Owen Morris was the sales manager and the mill sawed some mighty fine lumber. With a twinkle in his eye, Larry remembers that if you hadn't bought lumber from Owen for fifty years, you couldn't get lumber from him, or so the story went.

Larry found out Owen liked politics. Each trip through the Feather River country, Larry stopped in and talked politics. But not lumber. On his fifth trip to the mill, as he got up to go, Owen bade him sit down for a moment more, Owen said, "I know you can't make these trips up here for nothing. So this time I saved you four cars."

A year later, he was attending a HooHoo meeting in San Francisco, and the club was holding a Concat. Lew Godard of Hobbs-Wall Lumber spotted Larry sit- ting there and grabbed him. "C'mon, Larry, you oughta get into this," Lew said. And so he entered Hoo-Hoo. At different

Story d| q Glonce

Here's the background on the man who raised the bulk of the money for the memorial grove being dedicated this month and how he found the legendary charity of lumbermen still alive today.

times since then, Larry has been active in various Bay Area clubs.

Three years ago, the San Francisco club nominated him to membership on the Supreme Nine. When Larry won election to Jurisdiction VI, he soon became involved with a new committee looking into the feasibility of a suitable Hoo-Hoo memorial.

But now it became necessary to raise the money. In attempting to raise money, he traveled all over this jurisdication, from Redding and Eureka to San Diego, Phoenix, Albuquerque and even Honolulu. In so doing, he traveled more miles on behalf of Jurisdiction VI than any other member in the history of Hoo-Hoo.

But, in the meantime, it came time for re-election. Determined to put the redwood grove over, he ran a second time, and a third time. Each time he was re'elected and each succeeding year he continued his travels.

"I never realized how much each one of us had in common until I started on this," he recalls.

What Larry liked to do was get up near the close of a meeting and tell his story. He told what it was and what Hoo-Hoo was trying to do. Inevitably the money came flowing in.

Like one night at a Hoo-Hoo meeting in Miami last January. It was a moving ex' perience for Larry, for while he was talk' ing, lumbermen began to dig into their pockets, bringing out a dollar here, a dol' lar there, passing it to the front of the room. Or in Oakland. The board of direc' tors of Club 39 contributed money from the treasury. Then each man present dug into his own pocket and donated money. And so it went.

YA G0TTA know the territory, and Larry, despite the slug he has to cover, does. He also somehow found time to make the HooHoo redwood grove a reality.

When the idea of a redwood grove came up, he drove over to San Francisco. There the Save-The-Redwoods eagerly welcomed him back. "Back? Why, I've never been here before," he assured them. Maybe he hadn't, they told him, but Hoo-Hoo had. Twice before. too. The club had started on this in 1922 and dropped it. Then, during the war, the pattern repeated itself. The S.R.L. hoped Hoo-Hoo would complete it.

He went back to the board meeting in Milwaukee more convinced than ever that this was what Hoo-Hoo should do. One by one he gained the support of a majority of the Hoo-Hoo board and won the vote. Hoo-Hoo would have a grove; singlehandledly, he had won them over.

Responsible for collecting the greatest portion of money, the bulk of it came from his own jurisdiction VI. Finally, the fund went over the top. Hoo-Hoo had collected $5,600.00, which would be matched by the State of California, and could purchase the grove. It is being dedicated September 13, about forty miles north of Eureka.

What about Larry? A modest, quiet, unassuming man, he would probably sum it up best in another way.

While talking to a visitor, the phone rings. Excusing himself {or a moment, he picks up the phone and talks to a customer. After finishing, he turns back to his visitor and says, "You know, when somebody calls me on this phoneo I always try to pick it up right away. I don't like my caller to be asked, 'Who's calling?' Heck, I'm just LarrY Qwsn."