Never too late: Tale of Granville Plass

Eastern Oregon University President Bob Davies congrates Leo Plass during the June 11 commencement, when the 99-year-old finally earned his college diploma. (submitted photo)

Leo Plass was almost late for his own graduation.
On the way out of Redmond his family stopped to take photos of Leo in front of a “Congratulations Leo” sign outside Terrebonne’s Sunspot Drive-in.
“So many people came out to say hi and talk to Leo I thought ‘Good grief, if this keeps up we’re not going to make it’,” recalled Greg Plass.
Every family is proud of its college graduate but in Leo’s case – the diploma coming 80 years after he attended the university – it’s a bit special.
It’s not often a nearly 100-year old earns a college degree and now that the Redmond man has a diploma from Eastern Oregon University tucked under his arm, the whole world seems to know it.
“Man who quit college in 1932 graduates at 99” touted the Huffington Post. “Oregon man, 99, gets college degree,” said Reuters. “Never too old to wear a cap and gown,” was broadcast on National Public Radio.
After a modest newspaper story was printed in La Grande, home of EOU, just prior to the June 11 ceremony – then picked up internationally – Leo was a star.
Plass’ road to fame began inauspicely enough, high in the Wallowas where his parents ran a mill, then later a 480-acre ranch.
The fifth child in the homesteading family, Plass – whose given name is Granville –  entered LaGrande’s Eastern Oregon Normal School in 1930, its second year, thinking to follow an older sister into teaching.
While there Plass worked numerous jobs to pay for school, including working at Foster Sim’s Texaco station in exchange for room and board. He joined the football and basketball squad (“never cared for baseball much”) and took his college friends into the mountains for fishing expeditions on weekends.
“I grew up taking pack horses into the mountains, hunting and fishing,” Plass said. His family’s ranch was largely self-sustaining, raising cattle, hogs, sheep, wheat and other grains. It had a five-acre vegetable garden that felt like 20 acres when the children had to work in it, Plass said with a laugh.
“We’d work all summer to fill our cellar for winter then in the spring it seemed like we’d pack a third of that out again to plow under in the garden.”
In his last year at Eastern Plass secured a job after graduation, teaching at a 20-student school near tiny Elgin. But the Depression had taken its toll on the LaGrande bank where he kept his savings, gleaned from his summer and school-year jobs.
“I lost nearly $400 when it closed and didn’t have money for tuition,” Plass said. “But I was offered $150 a month from a logging outfit – I was only going to make $80 teaching – so I quit school a semester before graduation.”
The next 12 years took Plass all over the West – Utah, Colorado, numerous places in Idaho and Oregon. He picked tomatoes, drove truck, ran a logging skidder, repossessed cars, ran a credit agency, and owned a gas station and parking lot.
Around 1945 he and his wife Wanda – they married in 1938 during his time in Eugene – moved to Redmond, tired of the Willamette Valley rain.
Originally Plass did more logging, this time in the Sisters area. He bought 55 just west of Redmond’s borders  – which would later become Operation Santa Claus (aka “the Reindeer Ranch”) – where he built a simple cement block home for the couple, who never had children.
They did have horses, however, as many as six at a time, and it was the horses, and Plass’ burgeoning career as a contractor, that kept them busy.

Leo and Wanda Plass (center foreground) riding with the Redmond Saddle Club in the Deschutes County Fair, circa 1950s.

For the next 40-some years Plass built and remodeled homes, starting out modestly by buying a home in need of repair, moving into it with his wife, then making the upgrades himself and reselling, before moving onto the next project.
“I think I remodeled half the homes in Redmond before I was done,” he said. “No one else wanted that kind of work.” He eventually built new homes, even complete subdivisions, but always kept the small remodeling jobs on the side.
Finally about 10 years ago Plass – who celebrates 100 years Aug. 3 – called it quits on contracting work but he can hardly be called retired. He works every day in his impossibly tidy shop, building whimsical bird houses and other woodworking projects – for sale, not for fun.
When he can be persuaded to sit still he works on his photo projects: photos he took of his travels, landscape photos he admires and clips from calendars and magazines, historical photos he comes across in area publications. He frames them (in frames he built, of course) or files them in orderly albums, all notated and titled.
“He has a remarkable memory and such a rich life history,” said Greg Plass, Leo’s nephew. It was Greg who found out his uncle had never gotten his diploma and contacted Eastern.
“I thought maybe they’d look at his employment history and give him credit for his experiences so he could get his degree.”
When the news hit the world after graduation the phone would not stop ringing. BBC radio was initially unable to reach Plass because his message machine was full. His landlady Judy Servo said Leo seemed pleased with the attention but was a bit overwhelmed – and more than a bit annoyed to have to wait by the phone for interviews when he had work to do.
Linda McCarthy from Sunspot Drive-in, Plass’ favorite hangout, even brought her laptop out to show him how many times he was mentioned on the Internet.
“The commencement was great,” said Greg Plass. “Leo got his diploma first then stood in the receiving line with the university president; all the students shook his hand or hugged him. He got a standing ovation and was very gracious about it. Said it was the best vacation he ever had.”

-- story by Leslie Pugmire Hole