Russ Wilson found out that he was to be named the Honored Veteran for the 4th of July Parade at the last meeting of the Legion, when he was nominated by the leadership. “They said,  ‘I’m nominating Russ Wilson for the Honored Veteran and I’m not hearing anything else,’” Wilson laughs, before adding  “I’m going to get even with them.”

Wilson has been and continues to be an active presence with the American Legion, both as an officer as well as the manager of the bar alongside his wife Chey.  Over the last twenty years, he has also been an active participant in the parade on behalf of the Legion.  “Oh yeah—I’m always there.  Last year was the first year I was too old to march—my knees are giving out.  That last climb up the hill back to the school…” he laughs. 

Russ was born in the fall of 1946, right at the leading edge of the much-maligned Baby Boomer generation, as he explains it. He was raised in Ogden, Utah and graduated high school in 1965. After high school he attended Utah State University for two years. He makes the interesting and wistful observation that tuition at that time was about 85 dollars per quarter. In 1967 he married his first wife and joined the Navy. 

Russ and his first wife were later divorced after having two children. A boy, Evan, and a girl, Heather.

Russ joined the Navy under the Navy Nuclear Power program and was sent to two years of training all around the country, culminating at the Navy Reactor training center at the site west of Idaho Falls. After qualification as a Mechanical Operator and Engineering Lab Technician he was retained as a staff instructor at the site for two more years.

After prototype training he was sent to Submarine School in Groton, Connecticut. And then on to serve aboard USS Seawolf SSN 575 at Mare Island Naval Shipyard located at Vallejo, California.

After discharge from the Navy, Russ moved back to Ogden and took a job as a Building maintenance man for Weber County, Utah. It was at this time that he met Chey.       (Someone known to a lot of you, Russ adds.)  They were later married in June of 1975 and just celebrated their 49th wedding anniversary.

Soon after they were married Russ was contacted by some friends at the Navy Reserve Center in Ogden and asked if he would consider joining the Reserves and going back on active duty as a Recruiter. It was an opportunity, so he did. Russ and Chey had a son, Dustin, who also lives in Malad.

He stayed on recruiting duty for several years and recruited both for the Reserves and the Regular Navy. 

In 1982 Russ got out of the Navy and took a job as a contract operator helping the startup of Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station in the desert west of Phoenix, Arizona. In 1984 he was offered a job as an in-house operator and went to work for Arizona Public Service Company. He worked his way up and earned his Reactor Operator license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.  He held this license for 17 years before retiring in 2004.

After retirement they built their home in Pleasant View and moved here.  They are happy to live here in this valley and have never regretted coming here. Russ has been a member of the American Legion for over 50 years and holds the office of Adjutant with Post 65 here in Malad. Russ appreciates being honored for his service even though he considers it unremarkable.    

“We love it here,” Wilson says.  “Absolutely have no regrets moving here.  We thought a lot about it before I retired, about where we wanted to go.  We grew up in Ogden, both of us,” Wilson explains, including his wife Chey.  “And we came through this area a lot.  And later on we’d come through on our way to Yellowstone and places like that.  When I knew I was going to retire, both of our parents were still alive, and we wanted to be somewhere close enough that we could run down to help them when they needed.”

“We lived in the country down in Arizona—we had two acres that we lived on, and we couldn’t see moving back into a city anywhere, so we moved out to a six acre place in Pleasantview.  We love it out there.  She wouldn’t even let me plant any trees, so we could still see the mountains,” Wilson says, talking about the area.  More or less as soon as he moved in, he became active in the Legion, where he continues to be a fixture.

“I’m an officer, and now that we’ve got this little bar started back up last summer, Chey and I kind of run it. So, every weekend we’re involved with that.  And as an officer in the post, I get involved in a lot of aspects of charity events, and so on.  I do all the finances for the post, so it’s a lot of responsibility,” Wilson says.

“People maybe don’t realize some of the things we are involved in, and we’re always trying to get more and more involved with the community.  For instance, we sponsor the Legion baseball team.  We support the Car Show, all of the military funerals for any veterans who is buried here and requests it.  We recently joined the Chamber of Commerce so we’re involved in community events through them.  We support the cornhole league that is run out of the post by Doug Williams.  Lots of things pop up and people ask—and if we can do it, we do it.”

There are many services that the Legion provides that people may not always consider.  “We get asked to do things like train the scouts on flag etiquette.  Last year we did that flag retirement ceremony,” Wilson says.  When flags are deemed to be too unpresentable to continue to fly, they are given an honorary send off and military honors.  The Legion retired a number of flags last year with the Boy Scouts on hand.    

“One of the things I am happiest about is getting American Legion baseball going again in Malad after being gone for about 25 years when we finally got it going.”

“It’s good to let people know that we’re here, and not just some good old boys club.  I think that was the reputation in the past, but we’re here to be a part of the community.”

“I do appreciate the fact that they’re honoring me for my service, but lucky for me I never got shot at.  I was proud to serve.”