Dr. Ogden has been an essential part of Goldendale and this is a letter recognizing his dedication to the community.
Dr. Ogden has served as an outstanding optometrist in Goldendale for 47 years and is a person who really cares about people. He has helped many who have limited income to make sure they had a pair of glasses. He has showed up to his office on week-ends to help people that have gotten a piece of metal or object in their eye and needed immediate attention. Here are a few examples of Dr. Ogden going the extra mile.
He worked to help many through his jail ministry to give them hope and a purpose to start changing their lives and he always made sure when they got out that they had away to get home.
He would go to under developed countries to do eye exams and provide glasses for people who had poor eye sight and no way of getting vision help.
At Christmas time, he and a few others would go and put on a music program for the elderly. Also during the early dreary months of Covid he would go around on Sunday and play his accordion at peoples homes, outside on the lawn, to cheer them up. He would volunteer to play at funerals or weddings if music was needed.
Every summer he would make sure that the kids that wanted to go to camp would have the opportunity. For the ones that couldn’t afford it, he put on a fundraiser and had the children help. He believed that if the children had a hand in the work it would mean more to them. He would take his old John Deere tractor with a trailer that was made for rides to the Head Start just a week before doing eye exams so the children would know him and not be afraid.
As the story goes one of the announcers from the radio station that was blind had never had the chance to ever drive a car so Dr. Ogden took him out to a field and let him drive one of his classic cars. I’m sure that had to be one of the most memorable moments in his life.
His collection of classic cars is a real joy for people to ride in and he still uses them to provide transportation for things like taking some senior citizens to Trout Lake to see the fall leaves and during Christmas time he would take them to see the displays of lites around town. His cars provided transportation at weddings and also at times he would take people to the airport for their anniversary get aways. He just enjoys doing what he can for others.
A lady that had worked for him for over thirty years was wanting to go on a mission trip to Mongolia. Dr. Ogden put on a turkey dinner he paid for all the food, giving 100% of the proceeds for the trip. She ended up having all the money she needed.
Dr. Ogden has been serving Goldendale in so many ways and there’s so much more that could be said. His contributions to the community are many.
I would like to thank Jenelle Lomsdalen for her contribution to this letter of appreciation.
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