Riding near the front of Saturday morning’s Philomath Frolic and Rodeo Grand Parade in a snazzy red Mustang convertible, Rick Wells waved to the crowd while sporting a light blue top hat and a matching novelty tuxedo T-shirt.
Wells, who has probably crossed paths with just about everybody in town in one way or another, served as this year’s parade grand marshal.
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“I can’t put it into words,” Wells said about the experience. “I mean, it’s just awesome that they wanted to recognize me and let me do something like this.”
Wells greeted paradegoers from the back of the convertible with wife, Cindi Wells, in the passenger seat and owner, Steve Johnson, at the wheel.
“It’s a big honor to be the grand marshal,” Wells said. “I would have never, never envisioned that or had even thought about it until they called and asked me if I wanted to be in it. I said, “Who in their right mind wouldn’t want to be in it?”
Wells, 66, just last month completed 20 years of service on the Philomath School Board. First elected in 2003, he took a two-year break from 2019-20 before returning for his final four years.
The push into public service materialized when his daughter, Audrey, was taking classes at the Oregon School for the Deaf in Salem. Needing to return to the school to complete requirements for graduation, his daughter could actually get a diploma at Philomath, Wells remember he was told.
The situation prompted him to ask the Philomath School District, “Why are your standards lower than the deaf school’s?” he said. “They said, ‘It is what it is’ and I said, ‘Well, maybe we need to look at changing it.’ So that’s why I ran for the School Board.”
Wells officially ran unopposed but withstood a write-in campaign for Randy McCoy during his first election in May 2003.
Wells also has volunteered for more than three decades with Benton County 4-H. And he has been involved with the Hoskins-Kings Valley Rural Fire since 1986 along with various other organizations.
But his most visible volunteer position is when he puts on the Santa Claus suit and helps spread cheer throughout the holiday season. Wells appears as Santa at several events in the region, including locally at the chamber’s Community Christmas Tree Lighting, the Frolic and Rodeo’s Craft Fair, the Philomath Parade of Lights and the Lions Club-sponsored appearances at Philomath Community Library.
During a 2020 interview with Philomath News, Wells said, “I love to see the look on the kid’s face and the joy that it brings to them.”
The appearance in the Frolic and Rodeo’s Grand Parade was a first for Wells.
“He’s dedicated, he cares, he just loves the kids and wants what’s best for them,” Frolic and Rodeo board member Chris Workman said. “He’s a super smart guy with a very down-to-earth, let’s get it done kind of attitude.”
Wells grew up in the Camp Adair-Coffin Butte area north of Corvallis, earned his high school diploma in 1977 at Crescent Valley High School and was first introduced to the community through his first wife, the late Kathy (Moon) Wells, who was a 1978 Philomath High School graduate. In late 1983, Wells was driving for Dick Spinney Trucking and was asked to pick up a load of sawdust in Peedee and haul it to Toledo.
Not sure how to get from Peedee to Toledo, Wells asked for directions from his contact at the mill after the sawdust had been loaded.
“He said to just ‘make a right out of the mill and that’ll take you to Wren’,” Wells said. “I said, ‘oh, I’m good from there'” and he headed south down Kings Valley Highway.
“I come into Kings Valley and the house that we are in now had a for sale by owner sign and that was like on a Tuesday or something,” Wells said. “By that weekend, we owned it.”
Forty-one years later, Wells is still there — the home located just up the road from the Kings Valley Store on the Luckiamute River. Many of the sawmills that once dominated the landscape are no longer around and more vehicles drive up and down the highway.
“Most of it is the people that are here,” Wells said when asked why he enjoys living in the region. “And then, of course, you just look around at the hills and everything — Kings Valley is just beautiful out there.”
Wells and his first wife had four children together — Mary, Audrey, Sarah and Austin. After a crash on Highway 20 took her life in 2012, Wells eventually remarried and his second wife, Cindi, also has a child.
“So we have five (kids) and I can’t remember how many grandkids,” he said. “I know I have one great grandson — Stetson, he was down at the (Lions Club) breakfast and he had pancakes for the first time today.”
It certainly sounded like a full, memorable day for the grand marshal and his family.
