LeRoy Cammack wasn’t sure what the caller was referring to when he answered the phone recently.
On the line was John Breidenbach, CEO of the Ontario Area Chamber of Commerce.
“We forgot about you,” Breidenbach said.
Cammack thought he had missed something.
“What are you talking about?”
Turns out the chamber board had been considering a list of candidates to be grand marshal for the 2024 edition of the Winter Wonderland Parade. Someone brought up Cammack’s name, and not only was he added to the list, but the group selected him to be grand marshal.
The annual chamber holiday parade starts at 1 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 7, and courses east on Southwest Fourth Avenue from Alameda Drive into downtown.
Cammack, 84, has been a part of many elements of Ontario life. He’s served city government, including time as mayor. He’s twice served on the board of what is now Saint Alphonsus Medical Center-Ontario. And he was an early curator for the museum at Four Rivers Cultural Center.
The grand marshal has been in only one parade before, in an event and year lost to history. He does recall he rode in a stage coach.
“That sure made me glad I wasn’t a pioneer,” said Cammack during an interview at his Ontario home.
He chuckled when asked whether he was practicing his parade wave.
“I’m not really into that,” he said.
Cammack was born in Idaho, living with his family on a cattle ranch with no electricity or water.
His parents moved to Ontario three years later but not deliberately. Cammack tells the story of how they drove to Ontario at a time of gas rationing in World War II and ran out of gas.
The family stayed put.
Cammack said his father worked first for an Ontario dairy, then made soda at an Ontario bottling plant and spent years at Farmers Supply Co-op.
Volunteering wasn’t part of family life. Cammack thinks his first volunteer service came as a project when he was in Boy Scouts.
He has been an example of volunteering ever since.
He ran for Ontario City Council and was elected – without having ever attended a council meeting.
“I had to learn a lot. I never did learn enough,” he said with a laugh.
He said he realized soon how complicated city government could be. He was surprised at the amount of oversight of city functions.
He served as mayor from 1999 to 2007 and again from 2013 to 2015.
“I made a goal from the very first that no matter who was involved, I was going to do the right thing,” he said.
Along the way, he worked 26 years for Ore-Ida, including as factory manager in Ontario until he retired in 1991.
He advises others volunteering to be mindful of that principle of making choices for the general good.
“You have to be willing to make a decision for the betterment of the community, not for your brother-in-law down the street,” he said.
He stepped down from a seat on the hospital board when he became mayor.
“I didn’t want any problems with appearances,” he said.
In his city roles, he said, he was driven to see that citizens received services they were entitled to, such as good streets and functioning sewers.
He recognizes that fewer people are volunteering these days. That’s a concern.
“If good people don’t volunteer, the job will be taken by people who are not qualified. And that happens,” Cammack said.
He said people seem to have less time because life’s demands have increased. That wasn’t always so.
“They had the freedom to do these things,” he said.
He said some take seats on a volunteer board or committee simply to say they hold such a seat.
A good volunteer is “somebody who is ambitious enough to do the work,” he said, including learning enough about an issue or project to “know what you’re talking about, to make the right decision.”
He said a good volunteer needs to be willing to invest the time and “be willing to take the heat” for tough choices.
Cammack said people need to be encouraged to volunteer.
“They’ve got to feel that need” for the community, he said. “And then you’ve got to make them feel they can do it. And they can.”
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