In Memoriam: Chuck McCullum

We were deeply saddened by the recent passing of Chuck McCullum, who since 1936 served multiple generations of customers at his downtown Texaco station and set a standard for service that may never be matched in our community. 

Retired Roseburg High teacher Brad Allen interviewed Chuck for one of our first issues, and I haven’t heard as many positive comments about any feature we have run since, not just from readers but from Chuck himself. 

For months after the interview was published, whenever I ran into Chuck on a downtown sidewalk he would thank me for including him in our “book,” as he called UV. He’d tell me that customers were bringing the article into his station and asking for his autograph. And, he’d sheepishly admit, he was obliging them.

“I never thought something like this would happen to me,” he would say.

In the introduction to his interview, Brad related the story of when he first met Chuck, and the life-altering impact it had on him:

“My first encounter with Chuck was on a warm August afternoon 30 years ago. A newly minted teacher in search of a job, I pulled into his station for gas and was charmed by the easy-going patter he worked up while washing my windows. Imagine my surprise when Chuck opened the passenger door of my dusty Toyota Tercel and bundled in to wash the inside of my windshield with his red cotton rag. I’d never seen that done before and haven’t since. But it left an impression and, I’ll admit, swayed me to take my first teaching job in the Umpqua Valley.”

I had long known who Chuck was (who didn’t around here?) but had never met him until about three years ago when he stopped me in front of the UV office downtown and told me about picking up UV for the first time. “When I saw you were editor, I knew it was in good hands,” he said.

How he had determined that, having never met me, was beyond me. But Chuck left no doubt he was being authentic. And with that single comment, Chuck had left on me the same lasting impression he made on Brad Allen, 60 years’ worth of customers and a lifetime of friends and loved ones. 

- Dick Baltus