PENDLETON — The oldest living Pendleton Round-Up director and a veteran of World War II is the grand marshal of the 2021 Westward Ho! Parade.

Pendleton native Bob Stangier, a beloved figure in the community, leads the nonmotorized parade that trots and rolls along Pendleton streets on Friday, Sept. 17, starting at 10 a.m. and marks an unofficial start to the Pendleton Round-Up.

The Pendleton Round-Up announced Stangier would serve as the grand marshal in a press release Friday afternoon, May 28.

Stangier was born in 1923, raised in Pendleton and graduated from Pendleton High School in 1942 before enrolling at Oregon State College, now Oregon State University. He married his wife Mary Jane Stangier in 1949. The couple raised four children in Pendleton. She died in 2017 at the age of 90. He now has four grandchildren and several great-grandchildren.

Stangier is a decorated war veteran who served during World War II in the Army Air Corps as a B-25 bomber pilot, flying 70 missions while stationed in Italy. He earned the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Air Medal with seven clusters for his service.

After the war, Stangier attended Oregon State before returning to Pendleton to begin his business career. His businesses included an ice cream manufacturing plant, a children’s clothing store and a Hallmark gift shop.

Stangier has been involved with the Pendleton Round-Up beginning in 1935 when he was 12, according to the press release. He served as a Round-Up director from 1950-57, where he performed as the accommodations director, concessions director and the policing director, as the positions were titled during his years of service. He is credited for establishing the Buckle Club, which is an event past Round-Up and Happy Canyon directors put on for their members and guests each year.

Stangier not only is the oldest living past Round-Up director, according to the press release, but he also likely is the youngest to ever serve on the Round-Up Board of Directors. And he may hold the title for longest-serving volunteer with more than 80 years of committed service.

“Bob doesn’t believe that he has missed a Round-Up, except the four years he spent serving our country during World War II,” the release stated.

Stangier has a history of involvement with other organizations in the community, including the Pendleton Chamber of Commerce, the Pendleton Downtown Association, the Rotary Club and the Umatilla County Historical Society. He also was an ex-officio Pendleton Round-Up director while serving as the Pendleton Chamber of Commerce president in 1975.

Stangier continues to be an active and valuable Round-Up volunteer in the retail store.

Pendleton Round-Up in the press release stated Stangier’s extensive contributions to the Round-Up “allow him to be recognized and honored as the grand marshal for the Westward Ho! Parade this year.”