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AUGUST // SEPTEMBER 2018 • IDAHO SENIOR INDEPENDENT PAGE 29
All About Idaho

LOCAL PEOPLE•LOCAL STORIES•LOCAL FUN•LOCAL BUSINESSES

Joe Willes, Retiree with Many Interests

BY ALICE H. DUNN

Eighty-seven-year-old Pocatellan Joe Willes is no man to rest on his
laurels. He has formally retired twice and still pursues many interests.
His energetic habits developed as he grew up during WWII on a
two-and-one-half acre farm within city limits.
Willes’s father was away much of the time, working for Union
Pacific Railroad while his stay-at-home mom kept the house and
looked after their five children. He had chickens to tend and a cow to
milk before riding his bicycle several miles to school plus a garden to
hoe when he got home.
Willes still rides bicycles often. He has five times completed the Los
Angeles Bike Tour, which runs in conjunction with their Marathon.
In one of the two sheds in his backyard, he keeps his bicycles in
perfect running condition. In the other he builds curio cabinets and
creates conductor’s batons and pens, using wood and acrylic material
to shape his Bolt Action—the bolt extends the pen point the way a
rifle ejects a bullet casing.
He makes other pens as well: a red, white, and blue Civil War with PHOTO BY ALICE H. DUNN
bullet-like tip and cap, a Wall Street-style business pen, a European
Apprentice pen topped with a cap like an old-fashioned fountain pen, He was selected as the municipal band’s third conductor in 1965.
and a sleek Long Pen with a short rubber grip. Fashioned to look like The band responded to Willes’s final directing performance in
its name, his Cigar Pen is actually made of wood. August, 2015, with an exhilarating concert. He resumed his seat in
Willes chooses beautiful, fine-grained woods for his baton grips. the trombone section. He has been a member for 71 years.
He exercises several mornings a week with a senior group at a local No martyr, Willes has always found the time and energy to
gym and organizes activities for his 1949 high school graduating class. participate in fun and creative activities that give him pleasure
Most retired folks would consider that enough activity, but Willes also and fulfillment.
maintains an active interest in music. His high school dance band usually played for the school dances,
Willes’s father introduced his children to music by playing har- but he always managed to break away for a couple of spins around
monica at home as evening entertainment, but it was his older son, the floor with his sweetheart, Isobel.
already in the high school band, who inspired the younger Willes to Married to Isabel and beginning his third year of college, Willes was
sign up for band at Irving Junior High. “He always looked after me,” devastated by a draft notice during the Korean War. He was already
said Willes. enrolled in the college National Guard program and expected it to
Trumpet, the “spotlight instrument,” was Willes’s first choice, but fulfill his military obligation.
he switched to trombone “because it was the instrument I played best.”
He eventually got his bachelor’s degree in music, from Idaho State CONTINUED ON PAGE 30
University, and was adept at playing any instrument well enough to
teach it.
Willes first retired in 1996 from District Coordinator of Pocatello- Ellen Weissman
Chubbuck School District’s music programs. Previously, he had taught
band and orchestra for 13 years at Pocatello’s Highland High School,
following a stint at Alameda Junior High School. He also taught at Thank you for your vote!
Marsh Valley High School as well as Filer High School, teaching both
band and choir.
Willes’s proficiency on the trombone earned him a seat in IDAHO HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, DISTRICT 1A
(Bonner and Boundary Counties)
the 45-member Pocatello Municipal Band while still in high
school. Seats in that band, which was organized in 1934, are EDUCATION, EQUALITY, ENVIRONMENT, ELDERS, ENGAGEMENT
rarely vacant. “We can disagree without being disagreeable.” Ruth Weissman

Paid for by the Committee to Elect Ellen Weissman, Laine Johnson, Treasurer 190138

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