Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
Garfield voters will decide between two city hall veterans when they elect a mayor Nov. 5. The mayor-elect will take over the town’s head job from Jarrod Pfaff who opted to step aside rather than seek another term.
Larry Hunt
A Garfield councilman for seven years, and mayor pro-tem for six, Larry Hunt is running for mayor for the first time.
“I’ve really enjoyed being on the council. We’ve accomplished a lot and our existing mayor chose not to run. That was probably the biggest deciding factor,” he said. “I am deeply embedded in our community. I love where I live.”
Born in the Pullman area, Hunt moved to Palouse as a teenager and graduated as a Palouse Falcon from Palouse High School in 1976.
He started his own business, Palouse Hills Lawn and Shrub, in 1987 and served as superintendent of the Whitman County Weed Control board from 1979-87. For this role, he also served on the Washington State Weed Control Board Association and the Tri-State Weed Control Board Association for Washington, Oregon and Idaho.
“Probably my biggest education in politics was with the county,” Hunt said. He decided to run for Garfield City Council in 2006.
“I have deep feelings for our community and it just seemed important,” he said.
He and his wife Dawn have five children.
If elected mayor, Hunt said he would like to continue to work on city issues such as an aging water and sewer system and the effort to bring a restaurant back to town.
“Our heart of the town was that restaurant,” Hunt said. “For years and years. It’s really being missed.”
While a city councilman now, Hunt also serves as a Garfield firefighter and is on the Garfield joint fire board with Rural Fire District 3.
He just put up campaign signs for mayor this weekend.
“I’ve been shaking hands and kissing babies,” he said. “And enjoying every minute of it.”
Hunt is not a member of a political party.
“I am firmly not a member of a party,” he said. “I am a member of the Garfield party.”
Ray McCown
Former Garfield mayor and retired contractor, Ray McCown said his launch in local politics dates back to a town flood in 1972.
He had acquired the old Carter Hotel and water from the flood damaged the property, along with others in town. McCown said he went down to city hall to ask the mayor about dredging the creek.
“He leaned back at the table and said, ‘Well I live on a hill,’” McCown recalled.
So he ran for mayor and won. He served for 16 years.
“The first thing we did was dredge the creek,” he said.
That was the first time McCown was mayor of Garfield. Another term followed in the early 2000s. Now, at age 80, McCown would like to do it again.
Earlier this year, he saw that city Councilman Larry Hunt had filed to succeed Jarrod Pfaff.
“I decided I didn’t totally agree with him, and I can’t do anything about it standing on the street,” he said. “We just need to work on the very few assets we have here, and make it as good-looking a town as we can. We lost the restaurant, lost the grocery store, but it’s still a great place to raise kids.”
He said he would like to bring a mini-mart type of business to Garfield.
“You can’t buy a green onion in Garfield,” he said. “I’d like to bring in some combination of something… We do have a great medical facility, attorney, banker, assisted living. State National Bank’s been here a hundred years. The J.E. Love Company.”
“I’m not a campaigner,” he said. “I’ve got friends who are passing the word around. I expect the election to be quite close.”
He said his main intention is apparent.
“I’d just like to get the town spruced up a little. If you’ve got junk every place, and people drive through here they’re not going to want to buy here. They don’t want to buy in a dogpatch.
“If every other house has got 14 cars parked next to it, who wants to be a neighbor to that? It hurts the aesthetics and the property value.”
Nonetheless, he said it can be hard to enforce ordinances on such things.
“You cannot legislate pride,” he said. “You just keep pushing the junk car ordinances and encourage people to clean stuff up.”
McCown was born in Garfield and graduated from high school with the class of 1951.
Soon after he went to Spokane to work for a roofing contractor, putting shingles on a house near Fairchild Air Force Base.
“Maybe I made it into the second week,” he said. “I wore out a pair of shoes every day and a pair of jeans.”
He then drove a laundry truck for Crystal Laundry and Dry Cleaning in Spokane, then located on the island which was later dedicated for Expo ’74 and the subsequent Riverfront Park.
After an invitation to take on a different route, he decided to return to Garfield where he started work for Dave Neal Manufacturing, which built levelers for John Deere combines.
Neal got him to join the Garfield Fire Department. Two years later McCown became the fire chief and served as chief for 25 years.
When Neal Manufac-turing shut down, McCown became a general contractor in 1957.
“Anything to make a buck,” he said.
He retired for the most part in 2004 and now plays golf three or four days a week at Colfax Golf Course.
McCown’s original term as mayor ended after 16 years when he was beat by the city clerk by less than 10 votes.
He ran again 12 years later, in 2002, serving four years before current mayor Jarrod Pfaff beat him.
McCown and wife Jean have four children, all WSU graduates.
“Eleven grandkids and about that many great grandkids,” he said.
Garth Meyer is a former Whitman County Gazette reporter.
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