Mayor Barbara Harrer, 91, retiring after 56 years of public service in WA

HARRAH — She’s among the longest-serving mayors in Washington and had the longest tenure in the state on a health board.

Now, at age 91, Harrah Mayor Barbara Harrer is ready to call it a career. She plans to step down from her mayoral duties at the end of the month, capping 56 years in public service.

Harrer said she began rethinking her position as mayor after turning 91 in July.

“I noticed a difference,” she said one recent morning at her Harrah home. “My memory is poor, and I said I just can’t keep doing this.”

Harrer has done more than most over the past half-century. She initially served as Harrah’s town clerk-treasurer in 1967, then was elected to the town council in 1971 before becoming mayor in 1977.

But that’s not all. For nearly as long, she’s also been heavily involved with 4-H, and served on boards with Association of Washington Cities and Municipal Research. She sat on the Yakima Health District Board of Health from 1976 to 2021.

She also serves on the Harrah Community Christian School Board.

She's been a longtime organizer of the Harrah Fall Festival, a town celebration featuring a parade, food vendors and more. This past fall, she was selected grand marshal of the parade.

Although she's saying farewell to the mayoral post, she plans to continue serving on the Community Christian School Board and participating in 4-H.

“We’re proud of her longstanding service and we believe that it takes leaders to get things done at the local level and she’s done that,” said Emma Shepard, AWC communications manager in Olympia.

How it began

Barbara Harrer moved from Wisdom, Mont., to Harrah in 1966 with her late husband, John, who opened a veterinarian clinic in town. They had two small children, Bruce and Susan.

Harrer and her husband were raised on cattle ranches and were attracted to the rural life amid sprawling vineyards and hop fields Harrah had to offer.

Harrah, which is on the Yakama Reservation, boasted a population of about 300 at the time.

Harrer’s plunge into public service began just days after moving to town.

A man knocked on her door to ask if she’d take over as the town’s clerk-treasurer. A woman who previously held the position left abruptly to work for the school district.

“So then he gave me a key to get in the next morning,” Harrer said.

She went inside town hall, where a man was sitting at a table. Harrer said she asked if he was the town’s judge.

“And he said ‘no, I’m the state auditor.’ I didn’t know enough to ask him a lot of questions, that’s for sure,” Harrer recalled. “That’s how I got started.”

She was paid $34.50 a month.

There was no public well for the town. Residents were on individual private wells, with many of them contaminated, Harrer said.

She helped guide a project that installed a public well in 1984.

“It was a big job alright,” she said. “But it’s been a good well. Water always tests OK.”

Harrer also guided the city through a sewer plant and water system upgrades.

But she’s quick not to take full credit for those efforts. She applauds staff and area agencies, such as AWC and the Yakima Valley Conference of Governments, which provides municipalities with planning and technical support.

“Couldn’t have done it without them,” she said.

Today, the town has about doubled in size and needs a second well.

Harrer said Sen. Patty Murray had called her at home to inform her the town would receive $2 million in funding to drill a second well.

The project is still in the planning stages, Harrer said.

Community

Harrer doesn’t run short of colorful stories about her life in Harrah.

She recalled the town briefly being without a town marshal before hiring Dave Johnson for the job.

“He could spot a DUI at the drop of a hat,” Harrer said. “His first six months, he had issued 10 DUI tickets.”

But not everyone was happy with that kind of enforcement, Harrer said.

Harrer once received a call alleging Johnson was stopping people on U.S. Highway 97 south of Union Gap. The caller said he couldn’t do that because it was out of his patrol area.

Turned out the driver was having car trouble and Johnson — who happened to be in the area — stopped to help.

“I had to call Dave to find out what was happening,” Harrer said. “He said: ‘Well, I just helped those people.’ ”

Harrer also recalled a week she spent teaching kindergarten through third-graders at Harrah Community Christian School for free.

At that time, the school was housed in the basement of the church in town. She handed students papers to draw on. One student, Peter, wrote Peter Mark on his paper.

Harrer asked him if he was going to write about Peter and Mark in the Bible.

“He said no, sharply,” Harrer said.

About a half-hour later, he presented his paper, neatly folded with the story of space flight. He drew a spaceship on the cover and a man in a space suit inside, she said.

Harrer said she told him how his focus on one topic was good, but then noticed on the back was written Peter Mark. She asked him to explain.

“He didn’t want to look me in the eyes,” Harrer said. “He kind of messed around a little bit and then said: ‘well, you know, Hallmark.’ ”

Harrer got involved in 4-H right away. She went to the extension service office in Yakima to sign up her children. Harrer was a 4-H leader in Montana, and the man at the extension service was more interested in that than signing up her children, she said.

At that time, the 4-H club in Harrah was named the Happy Hustlers. Harrer said the club took a parade float to a Wapato festival, and the young girls were hit with a barrage of cat-calls from young men.

“It was embarrassing,” she said. “I was driving the pickup — of course it was my pickup — and I was embarrassed.”

A club member said the name needed to be changed. A girl suggested the Harrah Humdingers.

“And I had to look up what a humdinger was in the dictionary,” Harrer said. “But they’re a person who does a good job, so that girl picked up a very good name.”

She was honored by the 4-H last year for her lifelong dedication to a local 4-H program.

Longstanding service

Harrer cannot say what’s kept her in the mayoral seat so long.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I never thought about quitting until I just found out I wasn’t capable enough to do it anymore.”

Harrer said she was contested a few time in elections over the years but the town has largely seemed happy with her service.

Council member Kathy Henry said Harrer boasts a wealth of knowledge when it comes to municipal government.

"At her age, she deserves all the recognition she can get because she has done so much in this community for a long time,” she said.

Henry pointed to a time when a dog got into another yard and killed chickens. Harrer pulled the town’s ordinance, which said dogs need to be confined to their yards in town or on a leash.

Harrer knows right where to look in the town’s ordinance when addressing issues that arise, Henry said.

“I’ve learned a lot from her about that,” Henry said. “I’m just impressed with the fact that she has all this knowledge.”

Council member Pat Krueger was elected this fall as mayor, and will take over in January.

She said she looks forward to following Harrer.

“One thing about Barbera is she covers all of her bases; she dots all her Is and crosses all her Ts,” Krueger said. “She’s done a wonderful job with our town. She’s kept our financial status at a wonderful status – we do not spend money we do not have. I feel real comfortable about what I’m going to inherit from her.”