'Homegrown' Native To Share Story at UEC Meeting

“Homegrown” is the theme of this year’s Umatilla Electric Annual Meeting on April 18, so a “homegrown” native of Hermiston, Judy (Miller) Hill Lovins, has been invited to share her life story as guest speaker. Here’s where it begins:

Harold Miller and family arrive in the 1950s, like many thousands, to help build McNary Dam. They roll into town in a Spartan Mansion travel trailer, a bit like an Airstream, a silver bullet pulled with their panel truck.

They settle down in Hermiston. Dad starts an insurance business, the Harold H. Miller Agency. He and his wife, Irene, raise three children, including Judy. Momma leads Campfire and 4-H clubs and other activities; Dad helps too.

Judy graduates with the Hermiston Class of 1963 and heads to Oregon State to study clothing and textiles. She switches to marketing and business administration with a textiles minor. “I wanted to be a buyer in a department store because I wanted to travel the world.”

Judy’s first job is with Macy’s downtown San Francisco store in the foundation department – that means bras and girdles. “This was the year of the flower child burning bras, and I was doing my best to sell them.”

She later moves on to Levi Strauss, the first woman hired in its marketing training department with the hopes of being groomed for the International department. She spends her spare time in the Haight Ashbury district.

Long story short – she’s off to Colorado, where she uses her seamstress skills to design and make hand-embroidered shirts and all kinds of beautiful hippie things. John Denver is among those who buy her shirts.

She becomes a nature photographer, opens one of Aspen’s most successful galleries, works with small and large corporations to design their art programs, and later marries Amory Lovins, a MacArthur ‘genius grant’ recipient, co-founder of the Rocky Mountain Institute, and widely considered among the world’s leading authorities on energy, its efficient use and sustainable supply, and an innovator in integrative design and in superefficient buildings, factories and vehicles.

Today, Judy Hill Lovins joins Amory Lovins in his quest to lead the world in advanced energy efficiency and restorative uses of resources. Come hear the details at the Annual Meeting.

All Umatilla Electric members are invited to the Annual Meeting, 5-7 p.m. Saturday, April 18 at the Hermiston Conference Center.