Sean C. Morgan
Sweet Home city staff was one man down last Friday night for the annual Christmas parade.
For years, Sweet Home Public Works Maintenance Supt. Pat Wood drove his pickup at the tail end of the Sportsman’s Holiday and Christmas parades.
Wood, 61, died Dec. 1 from an apparent heart attack, and longtime Public Works employee Norm Sharp took his place in the parade, with a banner on each side of his pickup in Wood’s memory.
“All the crew here asked me to do that and fill in for him,” Sharp said. “I said, I would be honored to do that.”
Sharp graduated from high school with Wood, he said, then they went their separate ways until Wood went to work for the city. Sharp has been with the city since 1991.
They had a good relationship, he said. “He was a very good person at listening to what you needed and wanted. He allowed me to go ut and do my job. We had a lot of trust.”
That went both ways, between Wood and his crew, Sharp said, and they all worked well together because of “his ability to listen to what we had to say. A lot of times, he’d go our way.”
Other times, he wouldn’t, but he heard what his crew had to say.
“By getting respect both ways, that’s how we became a very strong crew,” Sharp said.
Wood went to work for the City of Sweet Home as water and sewer treatment plant superintendent in 1994. He succeeded Dale Ivan as maintenance superintendent in September 2000.
“I’ve had the pleasure of working with him since 1997,” said City Manager Craig Martin. “I appreciated his dedication to the community, to the city. He always had can-do, will-do, you-can-count-on-it, we’ll-take-care-of-it attitude.”
Martin attributed that to Wood’s previous experience working in the woods.
He could always count on him, and Wood was always “very thorough,” he said.
“For most of the time I’ve been here, he was our first call,” Martin said. “He was usually first out and first to respond and willing to go the extra mile.”
When the water main under Wiley Creek broke, it turned out to be one of the most memorable jobs for the Public Works crew, Sharp said. “It was one of the coolest things we ever did.”
With careful timing, pumps and someone filling tanks, the Public Works crew was able to keep water flowing to Foster residents, Sharp said, and no one in Foster even knew there was a problem at all.
Wood was the one who pulled together crews to sand the streets or to begin cleanup after a storm. He did a lot of proactive work in the storm system to help minimize flooding.
He was heavily involved in organizing and setting up the facility when Public Works moved from Ninth Avenue to 24th Avenue, Martin said.
Mike Adams, Public Works director, said Wood was “very instrumental in how it’s laid out and how it’s being used.”
He insisted on clean vehicles for parades and a professional presentation from his department, Martin said.
Wood coordinated assistance for volunteer groups, wuch as the Beautification Committee, Martin said. He and his crews embraced it so the volunteers could do their work.
Wood was key to saving the historic railroad depot before Bi-Mart began constructing its new store.
“I think that represents how much he cared about this community,” Martin said. He came up with a plan and coordinated community resources to move the depot from the Bi-Mart property to the Public Works maintenance yard.
The fate of the building remains undetermined, but Wood told The New Era he wanted to preserve the historic building for the community whenever members of the community decide they want to do something with it.
“He was very instrumental in getting community resources together,” Adams said. He had relationships with people throughout the community.
“He really demonstrated how much he cared by how he did his job all of those years,” Martin said. “He will be missed. He was so supportive of a lot of little things that make Sweet Home great.”
“Pat was a good guy,” Adams said. “Pat was somebody I thought an awful lot of. Worked well with him. Enjoyed working with him.
“He was somebody we could discuss work-related issues, agree to disagree and it was always professional. You knew where you stood with him, which is appreciated.”
He was plain-spoken, outgoing, and “you knew where you stood,” Sharp said. At the same time, he was very understanding.
Mechanic Tim Riley agreed. That’s what people keep saying about him.
Wood took a lot of pride in his work and in his crew and what they did, Adams said. The crew thought a lot of him as well. His crew always made sure the work was done professionally and looked good.
He is someone Sweet Home citizens and his crew can be proud of, Adams said. He always concerned himself with making sure citizens get their money’s worth out of their public dollars.
“The one thing that was amazing, there was never anything made by anybody that couldn’t be made better,” Riley said. If it was manufactured, it could be fixed or improved. The city didn’t need to go out and buy a new one.
Holes needed filled, trees picked up or depots moved, his crew could get the job done, Riley said. The crew had never been treated like it was qualified. Today, it’s a great crew because Wood did treat them that way.
“I miss him 20 times a day,” Riley said.
“It’s a big loss for us, for our organization and the community,” Adams said. “He was someone I relied on an awful lot.”
A memorial service is scheduled for 1 p.m. on Wednesday at Sweet Home Evangelical Church. Inurnment will be at Gilliland Cemetery.
Sweet Home Funeral Chapel is handling the arrangements.
City Hall will be closed from 12:30 to 2:30 p.m. to allow employees to attend the funeral.