HUCKLEBERRIES: Keeping us on our toes

Valleda Woodhall learned to golf and didn’t quit the stage, after all.

Valleda is the prima ballerina featured in Huckleberries (April 7) who quit the London stage, flew to the West Coast on March 2, 1959, and married British golfer John Woodhall 11 days later.

After their honeymoon, the two settled in Coeur d’Alene, where John, as the golf pro, helped develop the second nine holes of the Coeur d’Alene Public Golf Course.

John was teaching Valleda how to golf when a Coeur d’Alene Press reporter interviewed the couple for a story published April 8, 1959. Said Valleda, who performed professionally in England from age 18 to 24: “I have no intention of giving up my career altogether, dancing is too much a part of me.”

True to her word, Valleda later opened a ballerina school below the old Hart’s Drug at Fourth and Sherman and choreographed and performed in plays for the Coeur d’Alene Summer Theater during the couple’s three-plus decades (1959-95) in the Lake City.

She played Maria in “The Sound of Music,” Auntie Mame in “Mame” and Anna in “The King and I.”

Under John’s tutelage, she also became such a skilled golfer that she won the Coeur d’Alene women’s club championship nine times. She hit thousands of golf balls for three months before John turned her loose to compete with others.

“My mother became a golf force,” daughter Tava Udall of Mesa, Ariz., said in an interview last week.

On Valleda’s 90th birthday three weeks ago — Memorial Day, May 27 — Tava and her twin brother, Ty, who were born in Coeur d’Alene in 1965, hosted a family celebration. Steve and Kathy LaTourrette, longtime friends from Coeur d’Alene, delighted the Woodhalls by joining the party.

John, who turned 88 on Feb. 11, still teaches golf lessons at Royal Palms Golf Course in Mesa, although he semi-retired three years ago. During his long, successful career, John mentored several golf pros, including new Coeur d’Alene Golf Course GM Mike Elmore. And he managed and/or helped develop seven courses, including four in Arizona and Black Rock on Lake Coeur d’Alene.

At 90, Valleda is a supervisor for J. Jill women’s apparel in Mesa, where she has worked for six years. She receives up to five job offers each month from other retail stores.

“They’re always trying to take her away from J. Jill,” said daughter Tava.

Valleda was the fashion buyer for her husband’s pro shops. Also, she was the buyer for a shop collective at The Coeur d’Alene Resort and worked for Marie’s Boutique. And she helped manage the Coldwater Creek retail store in Mesa, which once had headquarters in Sandpoint.

“Fashion and retail have been her life,” daughter Tava said.

The Woodhalls, who have eight grandchildren, as well as eight great-grandchildren, under the age of 5, were married March 13, 1959. They didn’t hesitate to wed on that Friday the 13th.

Valleda views Friday the 13th as “the best day of my life. It’s lasted me 65 years.”

Cuts like a sword

In the “Don’t Try This at Home” category, a Hayden man landed in the 2005 Guinness World Records by slicing the tops off 20 champagne bottles in 60 seconds.

Dean Opsal performed the feat in 2001. And when the Press asked him about it 2 ½ years later — in June 2004 — he couldn’t recall his triumph. It was a blur.

“It went so fast, and I was whacking so hard,” he said. “I don’t even remember getting hit in the face with glass. I was so mesmerized. It was almost a euphoric state.”

Champagne sabering isn’t for cowards.

During the 2004 interview, Dean displayed tiny scars on his hands, forearms, and face that he earned from mastering his odd hobby.

The practice, started by Napoleon’s soldiers to celebrate victories, is “not just chopping the top off the bottle,” Opsal said. “The bottle has to be hit just right, in the right spot. If it’s too warm, it will explode, and if it’s too cold, you won’t get the right pop.”

In 2007, The Spokesman-Review reported that Dean had helped raise $1 million for local charities over the previous 10 years by exhibiting his expertise.

Where is she now?

Donna Messenger is living in Missoula, Mont., and still competing in distance races — at age 80-plus.

Donna was the wildly popular cross country and track and field coach of, first, Coeur d’Alene High and then Lake City High.

In 2007, she retired. And, 12 years later, attracted a large reunion crowd in her honor at Farragut State Park, organized by former LCHS athlete Charlie Miller.

Charlie told Huckleberries: “She created a community and made everyone feel special.” Above all, Charlie said, Donna taught her charges that running and athletics were a lifestyle: something to enjoy throughout life and to stay healthy.

Donna is practicing what she preached.

Last fall, she won the senior division of the grueling Pikes Peak Ascent, a race of 13.3 miles up the mountain’s summit of 14,115 feet.

In the 1970s, she was the overall winner of the race four times.

The Colorado media noted that a doctor began the race in 1956 to prove his point that smoking is harmful. He invited smokers to join in the first race. Two did. Neither of them completed the race.

After the race last fall, KRDO-TV of Colorado Springs asked: “Do you know who has finished the race?" And then answered its own question: 80-year-old Donna Messenger.

Point taken.

Fan mail

Reader Ed Hatter emails: “Always enjoy your columns, but I take some exception with your comment about ‘rich downtown condo dwellers’ (Huckleberries, June 9).” The noise ordinance also helps people trying to enjoy an outside meal at one of our fine downtown restaurants, or just attempting to cross the street with inattentive drivers. Passing this ordinance was as much about creating a safe downtown environment as it was about pleasing rich downtown folks.”

Huckleberries

• Poet’s Corner: Once he felt quite indecisive/so that fault he tried to cure;/once he felt quite indecisive/but these days he’s not so sure — Bard of Sheman Avenue (“Self-Improvement”).

• Old Feud: You think this war between mainstream and Hard Right Republicans in North Idaho is something new? Here’s the banner headline from the Coeur d’Alene Press on June 16, 1984: “’Goons,’ ‘crazies’ wrestle for control of local Republican Party.” In the story, moderate legislator Dean Haagenson exchanged jabs with ultraconservative Ron Rankin.

• Dead Eyes: In 1964, the Coeur d’Alene PD was loaded with straight shooters. Literally. In the marksman class of the annual state police pistol shoot, local coppers won first (Con Gissell), second (Clint Merrick), fourth (Bob Nuttleman), and sixth (Steve Schauer). Overall, the CPD team finished third. Nuttleman later served as police chief from 1972 until 1978.

• It was Kootenai Memorial Hospital before it was Kootenai Health. And, in nominating that name in 1964, Eugene Ingalls proposed that the hospital be a “living and working memorial to longtime residents of the county who have spent years in community service.” We should always celebrate such people.

• Safety First: Potlatch’s Rutledge Mill on the edge of town (now site of The Coeur d’Alene Resort Golf Course), took safety seriously — so seriously that it offered a $10 reward to employees who answered three questions on safety correctly. On June 11, 1964, the mill had operated 126 days without a lost-time accident. And that fact was touted on a large sign at the main gate.

Parting shot

Honesty, they say, is the best policy — and sometimes it pays off in a lifetime supply of lattes.

In mid-June 1994, the brothers Windju, John and Greg, were frantic after a day’s bank deposit, $800, went missing from their business: The Latte Chalet. That was big money for a new coffee shop in those days.

Try as they might, the brothers couldn’t fathom what happened. Then, Mary Spray of Coeur d’Alene called and asked: “Gentlemen, were you going to make a bank deposit?” She’d found the blue vinyl bag with the company’s money in the middle of Government Way.

Seems John Windju had placed the bank bag on his car roof before buckling his two daughters, then 5 and 3, in their car seats.

The Windjus were so impressed with Mary’s good deed that they gave her a lifetime supply of free lattes and a $20 gift card for a dinner for two.

It’s hard to say how long the Latte Chalet stayed in business. But Mary Spray’s honesty lives on as an example for Coeur d’Alene today.

• • •

D.F. (Dave) Oliveria can be contacted at dfo@cdapress.com.

    Valleda Woodhall steps on Doug Ward, left, and Bob McLeod in April 1969 while choreographing dance steps for the play, “The Fighting '40s.”
  

    Coeur d’Alene friends Steve and Kathy LaTourrette pay a surprise visit on Valleda Woodhall’s 90th birthday.
  

    Dean Opsal displays his champagne bottle sabering skill.
  

    Donna Messenger (67) won the women’s 50-54 category at the Post Falls Biathlon in June 1994. She’s still running 30 years later.
  

    The Coeur d’Alene PD team finished third at the 1964 state police shoot competition. Pictured from left: Robert Nuttleman, Con Gissel, Sgt. Roy Gant, Steve Schauer and Clint Merrick.
  

    Safety director Gene Jolie touts Potlatch’s Rutledge Mill record.
  

    Mary Spray receives her first free latte from Greg Windju of Latte Chalet.