James "Woody" W. Simmons

James W. "Woody" Simmons, 91, a longtime La Grande resident, died early Saturday morning at a local care center.

A celebration of life service will begin at 10 a.m. Thursday at Loveland Funeral Chapel.

James was born Dec. 11, 1916, in Texas. He grew up in El Paso, Texas. When he was a high school senior in 1934 he left before commencement to attend the World's fair in Chicago.

He married Lois Eileen Hodges in 1939. She died May 2, 1985.

Simmons enlisted in the U.S. Army in the late 1930s and served in its Signal Corps. He was stationed in London in 1944 and 1945 while Allied military forces prepared for D-Day. Simmons was busy during this time helping transmit and receive U.S. Army Morse Code messages.

Following WWII he moved to Salem where he worked for a car dealership owned by Douglas McKay, then Oregon's governor. The young veteran later opened a radio repair shop in Salem.

Simmons changed careers in the early 1950s following an illness. He started a new life by enrolling at Willamette University in Salem with the help of Mark Hatfield, then a dean at Willamette. Simmons needed assistance getting admitted because he had never graduated from high school.

Hatfield took a personal interest in Simmons because he was also a WWII veteran. Hatfield, who later served as Oregon's governor and as a U.S. Senator, remained a friend of Simmons for many years.

After graduating from Willamette Simmons taught high school in Oregon and California, teaching English and Spanish. He continued his education at the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Washington. He received a master's degree in library science from the University of Washington.

He later started libraries at the College of the Siskiyous and Lane Community College in Eugene. He came to La Grande in 1967 to work as a librarian at EOU.

Simmons worked at EOU's Pierce Library for 11 years before retiring in the late 1970s. He served as the library's director for much of that time.

Simmons was a lifelong amateur radio operator who enjoyed communicating with people around the world. He shared messages with radio operators in every country but Libya and had certification cards to prove it.

He is survived by his two daughters, Cheryl Ann Lenz and her husband, Tom of Morage, Calif., and Carol Lynn Bechen and her husband, Robert of Mt. Shasta, Calif.; three grandchildren and several great-grandchildren.

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