By Jan Jackson
Jim Schaecher, a retired partner of Butsch Insurance Agency in Mt. Angel, takes his community as a matter of course. Not so his peers, who considered his efforts worthy of his being chosen Mt. Angel’s 2009 First Citizen.
Schaecher has been a member of the city planning commission, a city councilor (serving many of those eight years as council president) and a 15-year veteran volunteer firefighter. He has served on the boards of the Benedictine Nursing Center and the Silverton Hospital Foundation. As well as currently serving on the board of the Benedictine Foundation of Oregon, he is also very active in the life of his church.
“I am honored to receive such an award though quite frankly I was flabbergasted when I got the call,” Schaecher said from his vacation spot in Maui. “Shortly after landing in Hawaii, my wife, Judy, and I each took our cell phones and called the kids to tell them we had arrived. When my son, Bill, answered, he said, ‘Dad, I have some things I need to talk over with you, could you give me a call again about 7 in the morning?’ I called him only to find that it was the selection committee chair Henri Dill he wanted me to talk to. Though I’m still trying to figure out on what basis I got the award, I can tell you it has been very exciting.”
Schaecher, who was born and raised in Mt. Angel, was a member of the last class to graduate from Mt. Angel Prep School. After graduation, he continued to the University of Seattle for the degree in accounting that would prepare him for a career in banking.
His son, Bill Schaecher, said, “Dad was vice president of auditing until 1973 when his best friend and roommate, Leonard Butsch, called him and asked him if he would consider coming back to Mt. Angel and going into the insurance business with him. He said yes to Leonard and within a month of being back he was volunteering for the fire department, then it was the nursing home board, then the planning commission and so on and he’s never stopped giving to the community.
“Dad has a special talent in that he listens, he understands and then he can problem solve without putting
his own issues into play. Not only that, he does what he does because it needs to be done and not for the praise and the glory. While I was growing up, he never missed going to any of our school events in which my sisters or I were participating in no matter what time of day it was. If other kids at school needed someone to listen to them he was right there for them, too. He’s always been there for us as a very positive influence in a what was often a negative world.”
Henri Dill, who with her committee had the pleasure of going to each winner with the great news, informed Schaecher by phone.
“It is amazing that we could pick up the phone and call Jim in Hawaii and tell him he was just selected First Citizen of Mt. Angel,” Dill said. “We were all gathered around the speaker phone congratulating him and suggesting he and Judy celebrate by taking a Mai Tai down on the beach. We won’t know if they did it until they get home.”
