A former Terrace mayor has passed away.
Gordon Rowland died Feb. 13 in Vernon. He was 86.
He became an alderman in 1971, resigning in 1973 to successfully run to be the mayor and was sworn in to that position on Jan. 7, 1974. Rowland served three years before leaving for Vernon in 1977.
One of the highlights of Rowland’s local political career was his participation in the construction of the Terrace pool.
A Facebook posting from the family indicates Rowland worked for the provincial forest service around the north, eventually moving to Terrace where he met his wife Anita Wahl, a public health nurse. They were married at the Sacred Heart Catholic Church in 1960 and had four children.
Rowland’s working career in Terrace included time with the lumber company LH&K (Little, Haugland and Kerr). He also owned the wire rope shop Rowford Splice Rite with partner Bill Ford and was a partner in West Point Rentals.
After leaving Terrace Rowland worked as a logging superintendent for Riverside Forest Products in Lumby before starting Critical Site Logging with his sons in 1985.
Although Rowland retired from that business in 1997 he did timber cruise consulting work for the Gorman Brothers mill in West Kelowna.
Rowland was predeceased by his first wife in 2009 and remarried in 2011.
Rowland St. in the Horseshoe residential neighbourhood is named after him.
The March 30, 1977 edition of The Terrace Herald featured a front page photo of Rowland being presented with his mayor’s chair as a parting gift, complete with a plaque affixed to its back.
