Not often enough does one realize how high Bill Wheeler once leaped. He’s shown here in the Chuck Smith gym 55 years ago during a game his Enumclaw Hornets basketball team lost to Fife.
But Wheels as he later came to be known kept winning the hearts of those who knew him well. Following graduation, Bill’s talents were bigger than his hometown’s needs and first landed at Big Bend C.C. where he was going to learn to fly, then to Ellensburg to further ground his education. At Central Washington College he studied how to become a wild cat, and succeeded wildly. There he gained the nickname Wheels in a story so fantastic that it can only be told over a cold beer as he brings a smile to your face.
After schooling, ranching, and the passage of time, Wheels returned to his home town to mold the life he sought to build. There in the seat of every imaginable piece of heavy mobile equipment, Bill sculpted the earth, buried utilities, excavated customer’s dreams, and thrived. He soon became the second letter of S & W Construction, learning much from his first letter partner, Sam Schaafsma. But a first-rate man demands his own dominion, and it wasn’t long before Wheeler Construction was born.
Requiring further refinement in the finer arts of life, Bill placed a ring on the finger of a fiery, red-haired, Scots-Irish lass of clever tongue and semi-sweet disposition. Children were born and a fine home built. In time the wheeling wild cat was tamed, but how long it took no one has yet stated with certainty. What skills he lacked on the golf links he more than made up for at job sites moving enough dirt with backhoes, bulldozers, graders, and dumptrucks to build a dozen golf courses. At the poker tables, he’s always a threat, but mostly to his own wallet.
Throughout it all, Bill Wheeler has remained as devoted to friends as he is to his adopted hometown of Enumclaw where he arrived in the 7th grade. Legions number the good deeds and generous gifts of time, labor, equipment, and materials that Bill has donated to his community. Of late he’s even found a new girl in his life and spends hours playing handsome prince to a charming Princess Lucy.
So in a Leap of Faith with hopes that others second this emotion, I hereby declare February 29th as International* Bill Wheeler Appreciation Day, to be celebrated once every four years by people just like you and me who appreciate the finest things in life. As for the other 365 days . . . may God bless Bill Eugene Wheeler.
* International due to his mother, Pat Wheeler’s Canadian heritage.
