Snohomish County deputy honored for 35 years of service

Published 10:32 pm Tuesday, February 26, 2008

STANWOOD — Sometimes, life moves too fast.

Wynn Holdal, a longtime sheriff’s deputy, often felt time flying by as he chased crime in south Snohomish County.

His farm in Stanwood allowed him to slow down.

“Farming is good therapy; I’m going to call it constructive therapy,” said Holdal, 60. “You feel like you’re accomplishing something. When you’re at work, you’re so busy, you don’t have time to think about your home life hardly.”

Holdal, who is stationed at the Stanwood Police Department, was honored at a recent Stanwood City Council meeting for serving 35 years with the sheriff’s office. He’s patrolled the streets of Stanwood for the past eight years; the city contracts with the sheriff’s office for police services.

He’s also spent more than three decades tending to his 15-acre farm, where he raises cattle and grows vegetables and berries with help from his wife, Pam, and two of their four children, Erik, 27, and Kara, 23.

“One of the reasons I really like the Stanwood area is I like farming, and I like farming communities,” Holdal said.

Born in north Seattle and raised in the Edmonds area, Holdal worked at a sawmill in Everett until he decided to pursue a career in law enforcement.

At the age of 25, he graduated from the police academy in Everett. Former Snohomish County Sheriff Rick Bart and Everett Police Chief Jim Scharf were in his graduating class. Holdal was on patrol by the end of the year.

“They gave me a set of car keys, and I promptly got lost and I found myself down in the city of Bothell,” he said.

Working in south county was difficult, Holdal said. In seven years on the night shift, he came across many people who had overdosed on LSD or PCP. He frequently broke up parties of hundreds of people with booze, drugs and bands in the farm fields outside the cities.

Holdal later transferred to work in the north precinct in Marysville. In 2000, he was stationed in Stanwood, where he had lived on his farm since the 1970s.

Even the crooks in town were on a first-name basis with Wynn Holdal, sheriff’s detective Dave Zander said.

“He’d been around so long, everybody knew him,” said Zander, who is stationed in Marysville and has responded to several calls with Holdal. “He’s just been a great guy to work with for all the years that I’ve worked with him.”

In 2006, the sheriff’s office honored Holdal for helping to save an elderly man’s life. The man, who lived east of the city, was on the phone with his granddaughter in Alaska when he was incapacitated by a medical condition. His granddaughter called the Stanwood Police Department, where Holdal picked up the phone and talked with her. The deputy jumped in his car, drove to the grandfather’s house and called for medical aid along the way. He found the elderly man lying on the floor of his home. Doctors credited Holdal’s quick response for saving the man’s life.

Next year, Holdal plans to retire from law enforcement.

That means more time for the longtime deputy to ride his four-wheeler along his fence lines, or to eat fresh steaks off the grill, or to snack on his wife’s homemade marionberry pies.

“I think I could spend all my time just on the farm, pruning trees and growing things, just doing the things I really don’t have time to do now,” Holdal said.

Reporter Scott Pesznecker: 425-339-3436 or spesznecker@heraldnet.com.