Oral History Program Eldon Penhorwood Interviewed by Chelsee Boehm 27 March 2018 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Eldon Penhorwood Interviewed by Chelsee Boehm 27 March 2018 Copyright © 2018 by Weber State University, Stewart Library iii Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. The working files, original recording, and archival copies are housed in the University Archives. Project Description The First-Generation Oral History Project began in 2018 in collaboration with Weber State’s First- Generation Club. The commonly accepted definition of a first-generation student is one whose parents/guardians did not earn a bachelor’s degree. This project was created to capture the experiences of active first-generation students and alumni in an attempt to better understand the challenges that first-gen students face. These interviews explore the difficulties of navigating college, including scholastic and financial hurdles, as well as highlight current students’ future goals and alumni successes. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management This work is the property of the Weber State University, Stewart Library Oral History Program. It may be used freely by individuals for research, teaching and personal use as long as this statement of availability is included in the text. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Penhorwood, Eldon, an oral history by Chelsee Boehm, 27 March 2018, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. Eldon Penhorwood in his college days Circa 1960 Eldon and his daughter Sara at her graduation in 2000 Eldon Penhorwood and his dog Ruby Circa 2010 1 Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Eldon Penhorwood, conducted on March 27, 2018 in the Stewart Library’s Archives Conference Room, by Chelsee Boehm. Eldon discusses his life and his experiences as a first-generation college student at Weber State University. Alexis Stokes, the video technician, is also present during this interview. CB: Okay, so my name is Chelsee Boehm, today is March 27th? EP: 27th according to my watch. CB: Okay, March 27th and I’m here with Eldon Penhorwood, we are going to talk with him about his experiences at Weber State University. So, to begin, can you tell me when and where you were born? EP: January 19, ‘42. Independence, Kansas. CB: How did you end up in Ogden? EP: I was the youngest in the family. My father, he was too old for World War II and in 1948 the sent him to Hill Air Force Base because, he was a reciprocating engine mechanic. Then, because they had so many veterans they had preference from World War II, I had the lucky privilege of going with him and my mom—I was the youngest—so I got to go down to… I’m having a mental block. The big, town in Nevada. CB: Was it Las Vegas? 2 EP: Las Vegas, yes. Thank you. I spent a year there. I went to the first grade in Las Vegas. The population then—I can still remember it. It was about 3,500 in 1948. CB: Wow. EP: After that, he was called to go to Hill Air Force Base. We lived in Sunset for a year and then we went over to what was then a big government housing project for all of the military members in Verdland Park that was in Layton. I was in Verdland Park and went through sixth grade at Verdland Park. Then, we moved to Roy and that was South Junior High. I graduated from the old Weber High School—it was the last year. It was 1961 and then Bonneville was established. I went to college for two years and I didn’t have too good of a grade point average. Then, the best thing that ever happened to me probably was when I went into sixth months into Air Force Reserves. After I completed that, I waited for about three months, I got back home and I decided to go back to Weber State. That kind of matured me a lot, going into the military. I went on to graduating from Weber State in ’67. CB: Okay. EP: From that time on, what happened was, I was looking at getting positions and I was offered what I thought was a pretty good job in New York City. I went to work in New York City in June of 1967 as a Federal Bank Examiner Trainee for the FDIC. I spent two years there and I lived in one of the boroughs of New York— Stanton Island, you’ve probably heard of it. I used to catch the ferryboat when I was working in there. The other thing being, you know, growing up in Utah—one 3 big thing that was just kind of my personality I wanted to do, I’d go to the Yankee baseball games on 161st Street. I still remember that. Yankee Stadium. I had two years left on my military right of reserve obligation—you had to go. You didn’t want to miss one. You missed two and then they would draft you because you were deferred. So, back then I would have gone to Vietnam. I decided I didn’t want to live in New York the rest of my life. Growing up in Utah was too much of a change in terms of population, you know? Everything is so congested. I went to work for the FDIC, I got transferred to Los Angeles office and I spent eight years in Los Angeles. That’s how I met my wife, Judy. She lived in Orange County. Then, what was really interesting, was they asked me if I would interested in considering a promotion to go to the Salt Lake City office of the FDIC and I said, “Sure.” So, we went to the Salt Lake City office. I worked at the office, I think, approximately, oh gosh, seven or eight years. I enjoyed it. By that time, of course, I was married. Salt Lake City is considered in the San Francisco region, it is one of the field offices of San Francisco, and LA. One of the things that was really nice, they would ask for volunteers to go to Honolulu for three weeks and I would always volunteer because my wife told me, “If you didn’t volunteer, I will be very unhappy.” She loved Hawaii. I went to Hawaii, I think three or four times during that period. It was nice in Hawaii. I enjoyed it too. But, since that time, you know, I worked with the FDIC for 30 years. I retired in ’01. We decided to stay in Utah because my wife liked the skiing and I grew up in Utah, so I knew what I was getting into. We’ve lived here since. 4 I have three children. Two of them are college graduates of Weber State. One that’s a graduate of Weber State, she became a physician. She was very highly ranked at Weber State, particularly with the aspect of getting into medical school. It’s pretty competitive to get into medical school. She’s an OBGYN now and her office is at McKay-Dee. So that’s kind of the early years of my life. Then when I worked here I had to travel quite a bit because we were responsible for Idaho. There was quite a bit of a work up in Idaho. I liked Idaho. In fact, one of the most tremendous cities in Idaho is Boise. It’s a tremendous place. I love Boise, Idaho. I’d stay there. Judy liked Utah so much because of the skiing and the outdoor things. I’ve been here since I’ve retired. I retired ’01 as I’ve probably mentioned. CB: What made decide that you wanted to go to college? EP: That’s a good question. One of the driving points, I had an uncle in Independence, Kansas. He was pretty prominent in the town as he was on the Independence Junior College Board of Trustees. It’s really interesting, I’m glad you brought that up, because one of the things that happened, when I graduated from Weber State and they played Independence Junior College when they were a Junior College. And that year, I believe, it was ’61 or ’62, I think Weber State’s Junior Basketball team had a perfect record. CB: Wow. EP: Except for one. I sent my uncle a little thing that said that the Wildcats are going to play Independence Junior College on such and such a day. And he wrote me 5 back and he said, “Well I notified Independence to be ready for that time.” And low and behold that was the only time that they lost a game that season. They lost by about, I think it was by one point. I listened to it on a radio. CB: Oh goodness. EP: They were Junior College National Champions that year. CB: What did you study at Weber State? EP: I had a minor in economics and my major was— think it was called then, business management. I think that’s what it was. CB: Did you do any extracurricular things while you were here? Like were you on any teams or in any clubs or anything like that? EP: No, I didn’t. Because I still worked some. CB: Oh, of course. EP: And that kind of took me out of it. One of the things that I learned from that was at the last quarter, I decided I wanted to graduate that year. I had to take 19 credit hours and that’s a pretty heavy load and I couldn’t work. Interestingly enough, I was at the Methodist Church and I was talking to my minister about it, he says, “Well, if you want to go, we will lend you the money. We have a good interest rate.” So I did that, and that was the smartest thing I ever did. That quarter, I think I would have had 17 or 18 credit hours to graduate. My grade point average for that quarter was 3.99 and I wish that I would have done that sooner. 6 CB: That’s great. EP: I think that a lot of kids don’t realize how much you miss if you are not on campus a long time. I used to do all of my studying on campus. The library used to be on the other side and the beauty of it was, after I got done with my classes, I’d go right over to the Weber State library and do all of my work and I could do it easily, you know? Even with the fairly good load, I could do it in easily two hours. And then, I’d go home. It was so nice, you know? That was the only quarter that I didn’t work. I’ve always said, that I kind of regretted that I didn’t change that, because when you interview—and I don’t know how it is nowadays, but it was pretty intense at the time I was interviewing for jobs. They would say, “You didn’t have a great grade point average in your first two years.” And I’d say, “Well, I was working at that time.” I said, “Look at it at that time.” I was averaging probably about 3.4 or 3.5 before that. My last quarter was the best quarter I ever had. I was at 17 hours and I had a 3.99. CB: That’s great. EP: So, I wanted to do that because you know, a lot of employers, particularly in private industries, they looked at the grade point pretty closely back then and they probably still do. They’d bring that up to me. “How come your grade point is low?” I think it was about 2.3 or something because I think I had about a 1.6 my first two years. I was just honest with them, you know? “I worked too much and I 7 wasn’t mature enough.” Then I went in the military and came back out. After I did that, I knew I needed to get back to school. CB: So, what kind of work were you doing while going to the university? Were you working at a bank? EP: No, I wasn’t. Most of the time I worked for Richard Tubs Auto and Service garage and that was in Roy that was where my parents lived. I learned a lot from that. I did well there and I went to General Motors training center and learned how to do carburation there and electrical and that stuff. The owner of the garage, he paid for it. He said, “If you want to go, I’ll send you and give you the time off.” It was really interesting and I liked it. But after I decided I wanted to get my degree so I didn’t work my last quarter of college and I’m sure glad I didn’t. CB: You said that campus has changed a lot since you went here. What are some of the biggest changes that you’ve noticed just being here this morning? EP: There are so many additional things that have been added to it, you know? They have revised the parking lot and everything. So, it’s a lot different from what it was. I can just remember, I’d go up this one road and make one left and I’d park the car when I was going here, you know? And you know the traffic is much worse now than it was when I was going to Weber State. I would imagine during prime time—I don’t’ know if the parking is any problem at all during prime time for people. CB: It can be. Was parking ever a problem when you went here? 8 EP: And the library used to be on the other end—the other side. Down at the south side. CB: And the union building, that was here when you went here, wasn’t it? EP: Yeah. I think it was just near the library over there. And you go in there and they would have nice good sandwiches you could buy at a reasonable rate and everything. CB: Do you remember having any favorite classes or favorite professors? EP: Yes. CB: Do you remember any of their names? EP: I remember one real well. He was really well known and he died at a young age. I think he died at 53. Dello Dayton.1 He was an outstanding history professor. He got his Ph.D. at one of the big schools and I forget which one it was, it might have been Columbia. He was the most outstanding professor I’ve ever met and it was really interesting, he was always a fast walker. You always wanted to get to his class before he got there because he was never late. I forget, we’d be in there waiting for him, and he’d walk in the door and he was so respected. As soon as he would walk in that door, everybody would just stop talking. CB: Wow. 1 Dello G. Dayton died in 1981 at 65. He received his Ph.D. from University of California, Berkeley. 9 EP: Yeah. You wouldn’t say anything. He’d open his book and he would start talking. The other professor—I had his name in mind. The economics professor I had, I know his name I just can’t say it right now. CB: That’s okay. EP: He was econ and he was really good. I’ll tell you that in a minute. CB: So, you said you went to work for the FDIC. What did you do there? EP: I was a federal bank examiner. The way it works in banking—state non-member banks—that means banks that are not members of the Fed. Those are the state non-member banks, they are under the supervision of Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation—FDIC. It was really an interesting job. I liked it. It was a pretty tough job. They had a pretty strict criteria for you. You start out as, what they call it, an assistant examiner or trainee. Then you become an assistant examiner. Then you had to become a commission bank examiner where you are in charge of examinations. You had to take a week-long test. A one-week test. One of the tougher parts about it is they would have a three-person panel back in Washington D.C., where you took the test, and the panel had this list of things that they would ask you questions about and they were pretty intense questions. I was in that for four days. It was the happiest day of my life after I got out of there because you really are under a lot of stress. CB: I can imagine. EP: Taking tests for three and a half days. 10 CB: Holy cow. EP: Then if you passed that okay, you become what they call a commission bank examiner. That’s the term that they use because only commission bank examiners can be in charge of an exam of a bank. I was in Los Angeles at that time and that’s how I met Judy, my wife now. She was a schoolteacher in Orange County. After I had been there. I posted for a position in Utah, and it was pretty interesting. One of the people in my office, he was key in my career, my field office supervisor. His name was Richard E. Condo, I remember like it was yesterday and that’s been over 30 years ago. He said, “You ought to post for that opening in Salt Lake City.” I said, “Okay.” And he said, “Well, one of the reasons you ought to post for it is that our regional director, you know how he is. He won’t promote within. He wants outsiders to come in to Utah.” So, I posted and I got the position. It’s pretty competitive because quite a few people wanted to come to Utah. They had heard quite a bit about Utah. I came here and finished out my career in Salt Lake City. I worked two years for a bank and my good friend works for the OCC, he called me up one day and he said, “How do you like your job at a bank?” I said, “Oh, I don’t like it as well as working for the FDIC because we did more interesting things.” I said, “We just do the same thing everyday.” You know? He said, “Well, the OCC is looking for people like you.” He worked for the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, who examines the national banks. He said, “I can set you an appointment.” So, I went over there and talked to him and they had three senior examiners interview me—you know, the three of them would 11 ask me a question. It was interesting, after I got through with the exam, they asked me when I wanted to come to work. They said, “Well, we got pretty good benefits here.” I said, “When do you want me to come?” And so, I went to go work for them and about—I worked for them for about four years. A gentleman that I worked with in Los Angeles became what they call the field office supervisor. He was put in charge of the FDIC in Salt Lake City. He called me up one day, and he said, “How do you like working for the OCC?” I said, “Oh, it’s okay.” He said, “I don’t think you have as good of benefits as we do.” I said, “I don’t think so either.” We talked about them and he said, “When do you want to come to work for me?” I said, “Whenever you want me to.” He said, “How about in two weeks?” And I said, “Okay.” So I ended up going to the FDIC. I felt very good about that because the FDIC generally doesn’t hire people back once they leave, unless they know you real well. So, I ended up going back to Salt Lake City and finished out my career there. And interestingly enough, my wife being a native Californian, she grew up in Orange, California. When we got to Utah, you know, she thinks it’s the only place to live now. She’s a big time skier. Like today she’s going to go skiing. She’s got to get another in. She gets a ski pass every year, I imagine she skis 30, 35 a year. I’ve always liked Utah and of course I’m loyal. Particularly, going to Weber State and everything. You know, for the kids at war whose fathers were skilled people, not college graduates. My dad was born in 1904 and I was the youngest in the class. They didn’t know anything about college. People back in those days, a lot of them didn’t go to college. I was the youngest in the family. I felt really 12 good about it. I was the youngest of four kids and I was the only child that got a college degree. It turned out really good for me because I had a really good job with the FDIC. CB: So, you said your dad worked for Hill Air Force Base, what did your mom do? EP: She was a stay at home mom. She had five children. CB: How many children did you have? Did you say three? EP: Three. CB: And how many of them went to Weber? EP: My son, he’s a graduate of Weber State. Sara, who I think set this up for me, She’s a graduate of Weber State and she’s also a physician. She’s over at McKay-Dee. She’s a OBGYN. Sara went to school over in the Midwest, the Kansas City area for medical school. Her husband, interestingly enough, is from California and he was a football player for Weber State. CB: Very cool. EP: He got a football scholarship and that’s how they met was at Weber State. It was funny, he had a boat—and I have to say this because it’s hilarious. And they got to know each other and he said, “Would you like to go boating with me?” And she said, “Okay.” And he asked her, “Do you waterski?” and she said, “Oh, yes, my dad had a ski boat and I love to waterski.” They went waterskiing, you know, and he wanted to know if she knew how to ride the boat. “Oh yeah, my dad had a boat.” And everything. He says, “Well…” It started off this way, after they got 13 through skiing, he says, “Well, is this alright if I consider this a date with you?” And she said, “Yeah.” CB: That’s cute. EP: So that’s how that turned out. He was a really good guy because, you know, when you go into medical school you can’t hardly work. It’s just too much to do. He graduated from Weber State in I think police science or something like that and they immediately hired him in Missouri and he was police officer in Missouri for the whole time they were going to school. He liked Missouri, it was nice. When they came to Utah, because they offered her a job, she said, “Now, if you still want to work that’s fine with me.” And he said, “Well, I’ll see how it is.” He went to work here and he just didn’t like it as well because they’d send him, he’d have to go from Ogden to Weber Canyon to check out the communities up there and he was on what they call the graveyard shift, you know. So, Sara was smart because she told him, she said, “Now, you work as long as you want to while I have this position over at McKay-Dee.” Finally after a while he says, “You know, for the time I need, and now having two kids, I just soon be a full-time dad and stay at home.” He did that and I was impressed with him because there’s not a lot of guys that would do that. They live just about two miles from here. She’s always been a very loyal Weber State graduate because in Utah it’s really kind of unique. You know, you basically have one medical school—The University of Utah. And they don’t take that many people. It’s a very limited 14 number, I think it’s like 15 or something like that. But, they haven’t increased that in like 30 years and the population has grown so much. So, a lot of kids that want to go to medical school have to go out of state. I always laugh to myself, I say, “Well, I wish I would have been as good of a student as she had because her GPA was 3.99.” But she’s the one that brought up this interview. She says, “You should come to Weber State and do the interview.” I said, “Okay.” And here I am. CB: Here you are. So I’ve asked all of the questions that I had, is there anything that you feel like we missed? Anything that you want to add? EP: The only thing that I would say that I am one of the more unique persons in bank regulation. I’m one of the few that was commissioned as a bank examiner with the FDIC as well as the Comptroller of the Currency, which examines national banks. It was interesting with the OCC, because my buddy went to work with them because they offered him a pretty good deal. And I went over and interviewed with him, you know, and they talked to me a little bit. They brought in three of their senior examiners and they just talked to me to see how my communications skills were and then they said after, “Well, when do you want to come to work?” And I thought that was pretty cool, you know? CB: Yeah, that’s way cool. EP: Yeah, so, I’ve been very fortunate. I happen to be in the right field at the right time. CB: That’s awesome.