05/31/2025
This is the Grand Marshall.
JIM VOSPER NAMED GRAND MARSHAL OF OAKVILLE INDEPENDENCE DAY: The Oakville Chamber of Commerce has announced Jim Vosper as its 2025 Oakville Independence Day grand marshal.
Vosper represents the 2025 theme, “Oakville Community – Celebrating 120 Years,” as his roots in Oakville go back to the late 19th century.
His grandparents, John and Ella Sullivan Vosper, and their sons moved from Pipestone, Minnesota, to Centralia in 1890, and in 1891 came to Oakville.
John Vosper, Jim’s grandfather, had been friends with Thomas Glover, owner of the Glover Hotel in Oakville, back in Minnesota. John had the contract to build the Oakville grade school (now the East Oakville Grange Hall) where Jim’s father, John, uncle, Bill, and aunts, Clara and Ella, all attended school, according to a news release from the chamber.
In 1946, Jim’s father married Esther Ross, Jim’s mother, who had ties to the Oakville area through her half-sister Edith, who taught in the town.
Jim was born to John and Esther Vosper in 1947.
Jim graduated from Oakville High School in 1964 and earned a Daily Olympian scholarship to attend Saint Martin’s College. He worked part-time for the Daily Olympian during college and beyond, and he graduated from Saint Martin’s with a double major in history and secondary education and a teaching minor in social studies in 1968. After graduation, he taught in the Yelm School District and finished a “fifth year” to earn a standard teaching certificate through Pacific Lutheran University.
In the 1970s, Jim left Washington to earn his master’s degree in 1973 and his Ph.D in 1976 from the University of Nebraska in Lincoln. Both degrees were in the fields of history and philosophy of education.
Jim returned to Washington to teach at Centralia College, South Puget Sound Community College and City University of Seattle for many years. During his education work, he also spent 20 years in various roles at the Weyerhaeuser Mima Forest Nursery. He spent 18 years living in Centralia, but in 1994 he came back to live in Oakville, where his “heart always seemed to be.”
Currently, Jim serves as vice chair of the Saint Martin’s University National Alumni Board and as Grand Knight of the Saint John Paul II Council 16176 of the Knights of Columbus in Elma.
He was actively involved in the all-class reunions of Oakville High School in 2005, 2012 and 2017, serving as emcee for the latter two. He is also a regular at the Friday Methodist soup suppers and a customer at Harry’s and the Dollar General. He contributes to the Oakville Food Bank and, at times, to the Oakville Volunteer Fire Department. He sold the property on which he was raised to the Confederated Tribes of the Chehalis Reservation in 2000, and that land has since been developed into a housing development and park.
“I have known Jim Vosper all his life,” Jim’s friend Eldon Lonborg said. “Jim and my younger brother George were close friends, perhaps in part because they could enjoy talking about history, for instance Roman emperors, or kibitzing on baseball history and statistics. When George died, I sort of inherited Jim, which has been a real blessing to me. I, along with many others, enjoy his self-deprecating wit, which teams well with his extraordinary intellect.”
“He’s just an icon in the Oakville community. In high school, he was the one to call in all the sports scores to the newspaper,” James White said. “He’s just been the biggest promoter of everything Oakville.”
As part of his grand marshal duties, Jim will lead the Oakville Independence Day Parade at 11 a.m. July 5 on U.S. Highway 12.
