Longtime Union community activist wins accolades from alma mater

UNION — Sue Briggs, a well-known, longtime Union community activist, received high accolades recently from her New York State alma mater.

Briggs, a current city councilor and former mayor who has been instrumental through the years in countless community improvement projects, received Keuka College’s Community Service Award.

In her acceptance speech, she told Keuka faculty, graduates and friends that the award means much to her.

Keuka, a four-year liberal arts college in the Finger Lakes region of New York, recognized Briggs for her public achievements in an on-campus ceremony June 13.

Briggs graduated from Keuka with the Class of 1954, then earned a master’s degree at Kent State University in Ohio. She joined the U.S. Air Force in the early 1960s, serving as a personnel services officer.

In 1968, she moved to Union County with her husband, Benjamin Hill. The couple had three children.

Hill, an Air Force flyer, was sent to Vietnam in 1968. The couple divorced after his return. Later, she married Loyd Briggs, who died in 1986.

In 1973, Briggs went to work at the Knotty Pine Cafe in Union. A few years later, she and co-worker Karen Skeen bought the place.

“Women are changing the way the workplace works,” Briggs said. “It is wonderful to see men on a par with women, not above.”

From 1973 on, Briggs immersed herself in Union community affairs. She served on the city budget and planning committees, and the community center planning board. She and her friend Bobby James became the first women to join the Union Commercial Club.

She was elected to the Union City Council in 1988, and four later was voted in as mayor. She served in that capacity for eight years.

As mayor, Briggs helped bring about a host of community improvements.

The city raised funds for renovation of the sewer treatment plant, a project that included using effluent for the the soon-to-be-built Buffalo Peak golf course.

Also during Briggs’ mayoral service, Union built a state-of-the-art medical clinic, started construction on an athletic complex for school and community use and acquired an historic forest ranger station compound. The downtown area was designated as a historic district and added to the National Register of Historic Places.

Briggs, currently a city councilor, devotes much of her time and talent to Union United, a community action group dedicated to carrying out the goals of the city’s strategic plan.

She is director of the Cove-Union Powder Medical Association and is a member of the boards of Union County Tourism, Northeast Oregon Economic Development Corp. and United Way.

She is a past president of the Union County Chamber of Commerce, an organization she has also served as treasurer, vice president and president-elect.

She is active in the United Methodist Church as well, serving both as a lay speaker and a lay leader.

“Volunteering in the community opens a world of possibilities, not just for helping others but for the connectiveness you feel and the networking that’s so useful when you want to make things happen,” she said.

Briggs worked 16 years as a secretary for the Training and Employment Consortium. She retired from that position in August 2007, but with all her community involvements, the pace of her life has hardly slowed.

“The rewards energize you to keep on doing,” she said.

The 77-year-old Unionite traveled to the ceremony with her sons Ben, David and Dan Hill.

 While they were in New York, they toured the Finger Lakes, reunited with relatives, and visited the baseball Hall of Fame at Cooperstown.

“It was neat, a wonderful time,” Briggs said of her journey.