Harold Jensen is a truck driver and workaholic with a subtle sense of humor. Wanda Jensen is his loyal wife of 53 years who dropped out of high school to have a family (“not because she was pregnant,” adds Harold with a smile), then attended Enterprise High School at age 25 to earn her GED. They have been residents of Enterprise since 1956 and were recently notified of their selection as Grand Marshals for the annual Summerfest Parade in downtown Enterprise.

“They took a vote on who they wanted to run out of town next,” said Harold of the honor.

“To me it just means we are being honored for participating in the community through the years,” said his wife.

A member of the city council in the 1970s and the Wallowa County Chamber of Commerce’s Civic Leader of the Year in 1984, Harold’s biggest contribution to the community may have come in 1982 when he and Wanda donated land to the city behind the current Safeway building for recreational purposes. The city has since installed underground sprinklers and maintains two well-used softball fields on the property.

The Jensens and their small five-truck trucking company called Farm Supply Distributing, Inc., have sponsored many summer sport teams through the years. “Watching the kids enjoy playing ball is my payback,” says 74-year-old Harold Jensen.

Wanda and daughter Jan Jensen agree that Harold does not like the tag workaholic, then add that it fits. “He will probably never retire,” Wanda said.

“I have never made enough money to either leave or retire,” said Harold. Then he admits on a more somber note, “I enjoy my work.”

In 1963, the Jensens purchased a house and 10 acres of land where Safeway now sits. The price was $16,000 and Harold says that it was just as hard to scrape up the $1,000 downpayment then as it is to purchase a home today. In 1977, Safeway purchased part of the property, including the remodeled home. Jensen promptly bought the house back and had it moved to a new location a short distance out of town.

They have since sold off parcels of their land on property that now houses Davis’ Body Shop and part of Parks Foundry.

In his later years Harold has taken great comfort from his hobby of restoring old tractors. At present he has 13 tractors in various stages of repair both in the garage behind his home and at his shop located northwest of Safeway.

Wanda, 69, was born in North Carolina. Harold was born in Weiser, Idaho, and moved to the Colville, Wash., area when he was 10 years old. It was in the Colville area where the couple met, married and had their four children. Born one year apart, children Chris, Jan, Roger and Ron were all pre-school age when the family moved to Enterprise.

A truck driver much of his life, Harold and his five trucks have been hauling petroleum, fertilizer, some farm machinery and grain for the Wallowa County Grain Growers for the past 25 years. “If they got a load of petroleum that we didn’t haul over those 25 years I don’t know about it,” Harold said. Prior to that time he drove logging truck both for himself and in partnership with Bill Dougherty of Wallowa.

Harold talked about the 30 cows he and his father had to hand milk while growing in the Colville area. Of the technology that came later, he said, “God should have built a milking machine before he built a cow!”

The Jensens, with three children still living here and a fourth, Roger, living in Alaska, agree that they foresee no reason why they would ever leave the area.

“We have been an awful lot of places, but this is the most beautiful place we have ever seen,” Wanda Jensen said.