For Bloem, retail and teaching blend well

COEUR d’ALENE — When a young Sandi Bloem wasn’t skating on or swimming in Lake Coeur d’Alene, she was “running the log booms.”

“We’d go down (to the Potlatch lumber mill) and see if we could run across the boom without falling between the logs,” she said with a glint in her eye. “We weren’t supposed to do it but we did.”

Bloem was only 5 when she moved with her family to a house her great-grandfather built at Sanders Beach, but she wasn’t too young to realize that she had landed in childhood heaven.

“It was the best place in the world to grow up. And how fortunate we were to grow up at Sanders Beach. It was so active and full and exciting,” she said. “On top of that, Coeur d’Alene was just a safe place to live. A wonderful mix of people.

“Coeur d’Alene always had a sense of place. I feel strongly about that,” she said. “There’s just a sense about this place that doesn’t exist in other places.”

The 74-year-old mother of three eventually became the first and only female mayor in that special place as well as a successful business owner and a teacher; forever a teacher.

She attended Coeur d’Alene’s public schools, usually getting to classrooms far flung from Sanders Beach at all times of year on Sandi power.

“Life was a little different then,” she said. “If we wanted to go somewhere we walked or hopped on our bicycles.”

She described her experience at Coeur d’Alene High School as “great.” Bloem participated in pep club and debate, but regrets there were no competitive sports opportunities for girls back then.

Bloem graduated in 1960 with more than respectable grades and enrolled at the University of Idaho to study business, where she met her teacher/basketball coach husband Dean Lundblad. After two years at the U of I, they moved to the Yakima Indian Reservation in Washington where he was hired to teach.

“It was a great experience, a truly great experience,” she said. “I learned so much about the culture. They have such a strong sense of pride and of their history.”

Bloem packed her first child, DJ, on an Indian backboard the tribe had given her and took him to Yakima’s farm fields to pick grapes and harvest other fruit.

“I grew up then. I did a lot of growing,” she said. “When I first got there I had no idea it would affect me that way. But it did.”

Her affection for the Yakima Tribe would ultimately carry over to the Coeur d’Alene Tribe during her tenure as mayor. But first she had some important ground to cover back in the Lake City.

Bloem returned to college and then back home with a degree in elementary education. In 1969, she went to work at Hayden Elementary as a fourth-grade teacher for eight years, then helped open the new Ramsey Elementary as a sixth-grade teacher.

Her father, Carter Crimp, owner of Dingle’s Hardware, died in 1979. It was decision time for Bloem and her brother, Greg, who also was involved in education locally. They decided to switch gears and take ownership of the business and three-story building at Fourth Street and Sherman Avenue which already had been in the family for two generations.

A decade later, Bloem bought Johannes & Co. Jewelers on Sherman and moved it to the Dingle’s building.

She learned early on that retail, like education, was in her blood.

“I loved to sell, whether it was a Pulaski or a hammer. If I believe it’s a good product, I like the interaction of selling,” she said. “In Johannes, I enjoy not only that but the design work and creating things that people want that are really unique.”

Dingle’s Hardware vanished for practical reasons during Coeur d’Alene’s revitalization and became the Sports Cellar, which had been in the basement for years.

In 2001, Bloem, who had served on the city’s planning and zoning commission, was encouraged to run for mayor.

“I had always said I might consider it when my kids grow up. But your kids never grow up completely, so I said, ‘I will.‘ It just felt like the right thing to do,” she said. “My family always emphasized giving back to the community that’s good to you. So that’s part of who I was — wanting to give back,”

She served for 12 years in the longest tenure for a mayor in the city’s history. It was a time of significant progress for Coeur d’Alene but also great turmoil.

She is especially proud of the conversion of McEuen Field to a multi-use McEuen Park, an issue that split the community and nearly led to the recall of Bloem and two city council members.

“Connected to Tubbs Hill, those are two of the most precious properties we own. I never felt McEuen was given the value it deserved,” she said. “When I go down there now there are three generations of people that are enjoying the park together. It’s active. It’s happy. It’s beautiful. I’m ecstatic about it.”

She also is pleased with the relationship she and Councilman Woody McEvers fostered with the Coeur d’Alene Tribe.

And among many other things, the experience gave her a chance to serve as a role model to young women.

“My family always told me that I had the same opportunities as everyone — male or female. I never felt that bias. I never felt a difference there. I didn’t think about that part of it when I chose to run,” she said.

“When you’re in a position like that, whether you want to or not, you model your behavior.” she said. “You teach, teach, teach every day. You can’t be in that focus and not be teaching.”

Bloem said she plans to stay involved in community projects, but never again at the level of the mayor’s office though “those were the best 12 years of my life.”

And she and her two brothers have arrived at a crossroads. The historic Dingle’s building is up for sale, which means retirement may be a prospect.

“If it sells, we will have some decisions to make,” Bloem said.