'Always back to Moses Lake'

MOSES LAKE - Dona Roe is always interested to learn why people wind up in Moses Lake.

Roe got her real estate license around 1980, just in time for Mount St. Helens to erupt. She's been a real estate agent ever since, save for time helping several friends run a delicatessen. She thinks it was her constant moving about which developed her interest in the business.

She likes it because she likes people, she said.

"I'm really interested in why people end up in Moses Lake," she said. "I find out a lot of people either were here early on when Larson Air Force Base was here, or Boeing was here, and then they come back here. It's been a nice friendly town, a good place to raise a family, lots of friendly people."

Roe enjoys meeting the new residents coming into town.

"There's just so many people coming … just different, interesting people that show up," she said. "I think there's a lot more going on than we actually know about."

Roe loves to go to work every day and said she likes all the real estate agents she works with.

"We all kind of hang in there together, try to support one another and try to support our association and our board," she said. "You certainly work a lot and you don't get a lot of pats on the back sometimes … The president of the board and all the directors and everything, they work hard for what they do. I really support them, admire them and I like them all."

The longtime resident and real estate agent first arrived in the area from Canada in the 1950s.

"Came down from a Catholic girls' school in Calgary to a high school in Moses Lake that had the air base here," she recalled. "I had never even been to high school with boys. That was a big shock, for me. It was a totally different time in Moses Lake."

She graduated from Moses Lake High School, got married and had her children here. She also made many friends.

"I just have some really, really, seriously good friends," she said. "I moved away so many times, I come back to town and they're still really good friends."

When Roe moved away, it was to such locations as Minneapolis, Sioux Falls, Seattle, Portland and Tacoma.

"And always back, between those times, to Moses Lake," she said. "So Moses Lake was kind of home. I had lots of family here, lots of nieces and nephews. So it was a good place for me."

Roe also has been an ambassador for the Moses Lake Chamber of Commerce for about 10 years. She received the Ambassador General Award during the chamber annual meeting in September.

"It was very nice to receive that award," Roe said. "It just means you've participated, showed up and been part of. That's always nice, to be recognized."

Roe has also been on the United Way board, noting she loves it when presenters share where the money is going and who are the different agencies vying for the money.

"You have some big ones who are able to raise a lot of money on their own and then you have the struggling ones that really deserve a lot of money," Roe said. "And it's so good, because all that money stays right here."

Roe has served on the Grant County Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities Board for about 17 years, and noted she was always on special education advisory boards for the state, Grant County and the City of Moses Lake because she has a handicapped son who grew up through the school system and is employed through such boards.

"That's always been important to me," she said.

Roe has five children. One son lives in the Tri-Cities, two daughters and a son live in Moses Lake and one son died last year in Omaha, Neb. She has four grandchildren in Moses Lake, Seattle and Spokane.

Roe used to ski, and decided last fall she should learn to play duplicate bridge.

"For some reason, I thought, 'Well, I'll take a few lessons and then I'll play,'" she said. "A year later, I'm still taking lessons and I still can't play. It's very, very difficult. I try and play once a week, I take lessons once a week, and I feel like after a year, I'm not getting any better at all. But the people are nice, they're very patient, and I've met a lot of people doing that from a lot of different places. So that's been challenging, but fun."

"She's my Nana, so she's very special to me personally, but I think even if she wasn't, she would still be a wonderful friend," granddaughter Erin Lodi said.

Lodi said Roe is everything she strives to be.

"Funny, smart, strong, kind and involved in her community," Lodi said. "No matter what life throws at her, she handles the situation gracefully. She has an effortless way of making those around her feel valued and loved, and I think that holds true even if you're not her granddaughter. She really is an amazing person, and a source of inspiration and a role model to me."

Karen Fancher met Roe through mutual friends about 25 years ago, and they began working together selling real estate.

"She's very genuine and she doesn't really have anything bad to say about anybody," Fancher said. "She's always willing to work, or help or do anything. She would have cooking classes, she would always open up her house to people and was always willing to do anything. I just love that she's so kind and she has a great family and she loves her family. She's a very hard worker."

Friends for more than 30 years, Roe and Cathy Kersey skied together on Mission Ridge as Roe learned to ski and are duplicate bridge partners for the past year.

"We figure we're going to make a world record," Kersey said with a laugh. "I think my favorite thing about Dona is she is compassionate, she's caring, she helps other people and she tolerates my poor bridge playing. Anybody that knows her, likes her. We've spent hours laughing because we went from skiing more than 30 years ago and now we're trying to do bridge and I'm going, 'Maybe we're too old to learn this.' She's just so easy to get to know - when she's a friend, she's a friend forever. We didn't see each other for a year or two, and you just kind of pick up where you left off with her."

'The one who used to ride'

For several years, Dona Roe could be seen riding around town on a motorcycle.

She bought it in Moses Lake about 15 years ago after deciding it was a good place to ride.

After attending a motorcycle show, she purchased a sidecar to fit her son.

For the next few years, Roe had a number of good friends who were riding, and participated in a number of parades.

"On my 40th birthday, we were out having a party at the Hallmark Inn around the pool," Karen Fancher said. "Dona came in her big, black motorcycle that had a sidecar to give me a ride down through town on my birthday. We had a lot of fun. She's a great gal."

Roe sold the motorcycle a few years ago and hasn't ridden since. But she still gets people who come up to her and ask her, "You're the one who used to ride?"