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| A well loved and respected local couple, Larry and Leila Houser were selected to ride as Grand Marshals during the 2013 Payson Onion Days Parade. |
One hundred entries are expected to
ride in Monday's parade. Riding in the most honored seat in the
lineup will be Larry and Leila Houser. The couple have been chosen
as Grand Marshals for the 2013 Payson Onion Days Parade.
The honor came as a surprise to Larry
and Leila. They were attending a Father’s Day celebration in
Payson Canyon in June when their granddaughter, Nicole Kunzler,
shared a nomination letter she had composed in their honor, which
spoke heartfelt words on the couple's behalf. She wanted permission
from them before submitting it to the Onion Days Celebration
committee.
“It was such a neat tribute- it was
awesome,” said Leila. “Before she got through [reading it], we
were crying. So Larry says, ‘Yeah, go ahead [and submit it], if you
want to'.”
“They’ll never pick us for it
anyway,” Larry added, recalling his thoughts at the time. “When
they called us, I’ve got to admit, I was quite surprised.”
But they were called. It arrived in
the form of a mysterious invitation to have dinner with Mayor Rick
Moore. Though they wondered why he wanted to dine with them, they
agreed to join him. Once seated to share a meal with Payson's mayor,
he told them they had been selected as Grand Marshals of the Onion
Days Parade.
Having a deep connection to the
community, the Housers were honored.
Payson has everything one needs,
according to Larry, a lifelong Payson resident: Scenic mountains,
wildlife for fishing and hunting, and no shortage of wonderful people
that he and Leila have been proud to call friends.
Larry, whose parents are the late Don
and Shirley Carter Houser, is a Paysonite through and through. “I
was born and raised here and never left,” he said. “Worked here
all my life and went to school here.”
While a student at Payson High School,
he was employed at a nearby ranch. “Then I went into the grocery
business,” he said. It is from his long career as a butcher in a
local grocery market that a great many people came to know and
respect him.
After forty-eight years in the
business, Larry retired from Payson Market in 2010. “When I
started, it was Roy’s Market, run by Roy Rogers- not the cowboy,”
he said, smiling. “I worked for him, then worked for six different
companies and never left that building.” The grocery store was
located at 190 East 100 North, in the building now occupied by the
NAPA Payson Auto Supply. “I stayed there all those years, until
they built Payson Market, and then I went down there. I was there
fifteen years before I retired.”
Leila is a Santaquin native, raised
there throughout her youth by her parents, late James Eldon (“Chick”)
and Wanda Jensen Greenhalgh. “I went to school there,” she said.
“At that time, we graduated from junior high, and then went over
to Payson High School.”
“When I was growing up, I worked at
the canyon,” she said. “I would go down to Cedar Breaks and work
there in the summertime.”
She also worked for her uncle, Roe
Wilde, at his Payson Main Street bakery, Roe’s Bake Shoppe. “I’d
walk down from the high school and then I’d clean up the bakery,”
she said. “There were some ladies who worked in Forsey’s. I’d
ride home with them, rather than ride the bus, because I didn’t
have a car.
“[Larry’s] mom worked at the bakery
and that’s how we met. She introduced me to him and I thought,
‘Hmm. He’s tall and good looking.’ He’d come and get me on
my breaks and we’d go up to Milt’s [diner] up on the hill. I
think my breaks were longer than ten minutes. More like a half hour,
but that was okay, because his mother covered!”
Larry and Leila were married in the
Manti LDS Temple in 1963- in fact, they will celebrate their golden
anniversary just days after riding in the Payson Onion Days Parade,
on September 6. After their marriage, Leila took time off to help
raise the couple’s three daughters. She returned to work outside
the home later, first in the local school lunch program, then back at
Roe's Bake Shoppe, the bakery at Ream’s grocery store in
Springville, and later as bus tech for Nebo School District, “I
enjoyed that,” she said. “I had a lot of fun.”
She retired a year before Larry, in
2009. The Housers settled easily into a life well spent with
children and grandchildren who reside close by.
“We enjoy going and following our
grandkids with sports,” said Larry.
“Football, basketball,” Leila
noted.
“We try to make it to all their
events and we enjoy doing it,” Larry said. “It’s a lot of fun
to go to all
their games and be with our
grandchildren.”
Their children, Brenda Mangelson, JoAnn
Kunzler (and the late Rick Kunzler), and Julie Christensen, reside in
Payson with children—and a few grandchildren, of their own. Some
of the Houser grandkids have attended and continue to study at their
alma mater, Payson High, while some have gone to Salem Hills High
School.
Their grandchildren are: Megan (Jordan)
DeGraw, Karlie, Derek, and Kyle Mangelson; Jessica, Nicole, and
Braden Kunzler; Krista (Chad) Moore, Kaitlyn (Dallen) Fiscus, Kenzie,
and Dalton Christensen. They have two great-grandsons, Kason and
Briggs DeGraw, and a great-granddaughter Moore expected in October.
The Housers have fond memories of Onion
Days celebrations throughout years. “I remember when I was a
younger boy,” Larry recalled, “I used to love to go down to the
carnival and ride the rides. They had horse races on Labor Day and
we’d do that. Then when we met, we’d go to the carnival and the
band concerts.”
“We used to always come over to the
parade,” said Leila. “If I had girlfriends who had cars, we’d
make it over to the band concerts. And we’d come over to the
carnival.” The latter marred by a sickly spin on the Tilt-A-Whirl,
Leila has not liked carnival rides ever since. She prefers the band
concert, the flower and art shows with the community’s talent on
display.
“I’ve been here all my life, so
it’s just part of my life,” Larry added.
Seated as Grand Marshals at this year's
festivities, they will travel along Monday's parade route in an
antique convertible. The ride will no doubt create new memories for
the respected Payson couple to cherish, as they join the celebration
among family and friends in a community they love.
“We really feel honored and
appreciate it very much,” said Larry.
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