>La Grande Observer | Union and Wallowa Counties' News Leader

Sue Briggs is retiring as secretary at Training and Employment and Consortium in La Grande. (The Observer/PHIL BULLOCK).

- Bill Rautenstrauch

The Observer

For 75-year-old Sue Briggs, retirement is a word with different shades of meaning. It doesn't necessarily equate with taking it easy.

After a 16-year run, Briggs is packing in her job as secretary at Training and Employment and Consortium in La Grande. But she has no intention of giving up the community involvements she's built a reputation on.

The way she sees it, there's no need to. Her health is holding up fine, and she's still got plenty of go.

"I've got a doctor who tells me I'm probably good till I'm 85," she said in a recent interview.

Though she's leaving the work-a-day world behind, Briggs remains the president of the Union County Chamber of Commerce. She's also an active participant in the Union Commercial Club and a member of the Union City Council.

She plans to carry on with all that, and enjoy some retirement-like activities besides.

"I might travel a little more. I like the freedom of being able to pick and choose what I do," she said.

Briggs was born in Yonkers, N.Y., and was raised in Binghamton to the west. She was educated at Keuka College in New York State and Kent State University in Ohio.

As a sociology and religious studies student at Keuka, Briggs was a member of the school's social responsibility board. It stoked her interest in politics, she said.

"Our job was to find socially involved people to come in and speak, and I was always interested in those things. I met Martin Luther King when he was nobody," she said.

At Kent, she earned a master's degree in psychology. She worked for a time in her chosen field at Apple Creek State Hospital in Ohio — but another path beckoned.

"I had a brother who was in the Air Force, and it seemed like wherever he went he knew somebody. I thought ‘Boy, this is the life,' and I joined," she said.

In the early 1960s, she served as a personnel services officer, and she also married an Air Force flyer named Benjamin Franklin Hill. Hill had been born and raised in Telocaset in southern Union County.

The couple started a family, and that was the end of her military career.

"At that time, the rules were a lot different. If you got pregnant, you had to get out," she said.

In the mid-to-late 1960s, Hill planned to retire from the Air Force and move his family to Cove. The move came off all right, but in 1968, the service ordered Hill to Vietnam. He was severely injured in a plane crash there.

After he returned home, the couple ended up divorcing. Later, Sue met and married Loyd Briggs, a conductor for the Union Pacific Railroad. She had three children, and Loyd had seven, two of them living at home.

Until 1973, Briggs mainly occupied herself with homemaking. Then she decided she needed a job, and found one as a dishwasher at the Knotty Pine Cafe in Union.

That signaled her entrance into the Union County business scene. She and co-worker Karen Skeen ended up buying the place, and making a success out of it.

"I liked to cook and Karen liked to waitress, and we had kids who could work," Briggs said. "My kids learned they didn't want to be in the restaurant business, but the boys are pretty good cooks today."

Briggs did plenty more than run an eatery. She also immersed herself in community affairs.

She served on the city budget and planning committees and the community center planning board. She dabbled in newspaper reporting, becoming The Observer's Union correspondent.

She and a friend named Bobby James broke ground by joining the Union Commercial Club, an old, well-entrenched and — at that time — very exclusive organization.

"We were the first women they ever allowed in," Briggs said.

Eventually, Briggs decided to seek elected office. In 1988, she won a four-year term on the city council, and in 1992 she was elected mayor.

The 1980s were the best of times, and the worst. In 1986, Loyd Briggs died suddenly. Sue was forced to give up the restaurant and declare bankruptcy.

"Those times were hard. My family helped out a great deal," she said.

But she struggled through, and in 1991 landed a job as an office support specialist at TEC. It was a good fit from the beginning, she said.

"I liked learning the computers, even though I was afraid of them at first," she recalled. "And certainly, I liked the interaction with people and the fact that I was not tied to my desk. I was constantly getting up to do something."

Her interest in civic and business affairs never waned. In 1995, when her friend and fellow community activist Leonard Almquist overloaded his own schedule, she was there to help.

"Leonard was spread pretty thin, and I said I'd take over his position on the (Union County) chamber board. I've been on and off the board ever since," she said.

Currently the chamber's president, she has also served as treasurer, vice president and president-elect. Networking is her favorite part of the job.

"I get to work with a wide variety of people and I glean things from them that make me stronger," she said. "When I need help with a project, I know who to ask."

She said that as president one of her priorities is getting members to participate in the chamber's business education programs.

She believes those programs have great value, especially for businesses looking for ways to improve customer service.

"Members need to realize they don't stand alone. The chamber offers good courses that can be taken right can take right here. It saves a lot of money and time," she said.

As a current Union city councilor, Briggs is a driving force behind Union Community Horizons, a group formed to promote community and economic development.

The goal is to update and expand a strategic plan formed by Briggs and others in the mid-1990s.

Among other things, Briggs said she would like to see a retirement residence built in Union. She also thinks Union would be an excellent place for a microbrewery.

"There's no brewmaster between Baker and Enterprise, and we have some empty buildings that would serve the purpose well," she said.

In addition, she advocates for bike paths, a refurbished city library and for a "virtual" community center that would give young people opportunities to take part in activities happening outside the region.

She remains optimistic about her community and its chances for growth.

Serving in some tumultuous times, she said she hopes Union citizens can set differences aside and move forward with new ideas.

"If you're thinking positive, the negative dissipates," she said.