Doing their patriotic best, Elsie and Ray "Red" Evans pose for a photo June 18, 2025, in front of their home in Wallowa. The counple will be the grand marshals of Wallowa’s Independence Day parade this year. (Bill Bradshaw/Wallowa County Chieftain)

Love of community as well as country brought them the honor

WALLOWA — Every year, city workers in Wallowa get together and vote on who should be the grand marshal or marshals of the town’s annual Independence Day parade. This year it’s Ray “Red” and Elsie Evans.

And it’s not hard to see why. The couple has lived all (Red) or most (Elsie) of their lives here and is devoted to the little town of about 900 population. True, many of the storefronts in town are vacant, but residents there hope to see that turn around.

“We’re so tickled that we got a new bank,” Elsie said of Umpqua Bank opening a branch in town in May. “We don’t have to drive all the way to Enterprise. We just like anything that supports Wallowa, because it used to be a lot more than it is now. We had a drug store, but now Winding Waters has put in a new one. Restaurants and we had a couple of taverns. Now there’s a bar and a coffee shop and Umpqua Bank came to Wallowa. Things are coming back.”

Like many who grow up in a small town, Red dreamed of greener pastures in the big city. He actually started to make the move.

“I love living here,” he said. “One time, I got all packed up and made it as far as Elgin and thought, no, I don’t want to go to the coast of Oregon. I didn’t want to leave my hunting and fishing and the outdoors here; it was great. It still is. I don’t do that much any more because I can’t walk that far, but I like the people in Wallowa and in the county.”

The couple lives in a pleasant little house on a corner lot that’s well recovered from the August 2022 hailstorm that ravaged Wallowa. A couple of evergreen trees on their neighboring son’s place are just starting to come back from the storm. That’s where their son’s dog McKinley, a large malamute, ranges though behind a chain-link fence because he’s so playful.

“He’ll knock me down so we put up the fence,” Elsie said.

The Evanses, who dated for three years in high school, married July 15, 1963, and have two sons, Derk and Dean — both of whom still live in Wallowa. They also have four grandchildren, one of whom is in town. They don’t have any great-grandchildren — “Yet,” Red said.

Like their dad, Derk and Dean also considered fleeing to the big city.

“Our children, they couldn’t wait to get out of Wallowa,” Elsie said. “But the minute they became parents, they couldn’t wait to come back to raise their kids here.”

But why were they voted grand marshals, one of the singular honors for Wallowans?

It’s likely because of their civic involvement. That and their ages, Elsie said.

“Since we’re 80 years old, they were probably thinking we’d better do it now,” she laughed.

But on a more serious side, they’ve each contributed to the town in their years here.

Elsie laid it out best.

“I would say it’s because he served as a volunteer firefighter, on the City Council for quite some time and on the cemetery board,” she said. “He cares about his city.”

For her part, she worked at the now-defunct Shell Mercantile downtown for several years in the clothing department. Beyond that, anyone who went through Wallowa School would know her.

“I also worked 22 years in the kitchen at the school as a baker,” she said. “They did (get fresh-baked bread.) I went in at 6 a.m. and started making the bread from scratch. At least once a month they’d get cinnamon rolls. I had a good reputation for my cinnamon rolls.”

For these grand marshals, love of their community says it all.

“That’s what it’s all about,” Elsie said. “Wallowa’s the place to be.”