She and her husband Sherm, who died in 2019, were incomparable in their work to donate to and support Rogue Valley causes

By Buffy Pollock, Rogue Valley Times

Wanda Petzold Olsrud, known for her quiet but steadfast generosity and the decades she and her late husband Sherm spent supporting community organizations from medical facilities to youth programs, died on Monday at the age of 100.

News of her death made the rounds early this week to friends and community members in every corner of life in the Rogue Valley, from food pantry operators to long-time ag industry leaders and local educators. Most who remembered Olsrud, born Oct. 25, 1925, and raised in Crow, Oregon, were hard-pressed to tell stories in which she and her late husband were not side-by-side addressing the needs of their community during 72 years of marriage and decades of building a successful grocery store chain.

Olsrud met Sherm, who died in 2019, while working in a restaurant owned by his parents in the late 1940s after the North Dakota native returned from serving in the South Pacific as a Marine in World War II. The couple married in 1947 and ventured into the grocery business a decade later when they bought Wilson’s Sausage Kitchen in Eugene.

A move to the Rogue Valley came in 1967 when they purchased a then-6-year-old Thunderbird Market in Medford. Unable to afford a new sign, they kept the name of the store but added the Sherm’s name.

Sherm Olsrud is quoted as saying on the company website that the switch was made to not “be stuck with other people’s bills.”

The couple worked 15 to 16 hours a day, seven days per week at the store, with Sherm stocking shelves and Wanda working in the office. The company expanded into Klamath Falls, purchasing a former Mayfair Market in 1974, and they opened a Biddle Road store in 1977, originally operated as a Sherm’s Thunderbird but later transitioned to a 24-hour Food4Less store. A fourth location came with the purchase of a struggling Food World store in Roseburg in April 2000.

Steve Olsrud, Sherm’s Markets owner and one of the couple’s two sons, confirmed Wanda Olsrud died peacefully on Monday. Olsrud declined to provide an extended comment other than to say his mother “lived a good life” and cared deeply for her community.

So many stories

For those who knew her over the more than six decades she and her late husband spent in the Rogue Valley, stories were hardly in short supply. Longtime community advocate and former Medford Mayor and Oregon state Rep. Al Densmore recalled the kindness of the couple during construction of the original Bear Creek Park playground in Medford in the 1980s, and its replacement in 2018, which bears the couple’s name and photo.

“Wanda and Sherm were two of the most consequential citizens of our valley, and my work on the Olsrud Family Playground was one of the most meaningful experiences of my life. I think everyone who knew of them just had a tremendous respect for everything they’ve done for our community,” Densmore told the Rogue Valley Times on Tuesday.

“When we came up with the idea of the rebuild for the playground, and it being a testimonial to the work of Sherm and Wanda, I said from the beginning, ‘We don’t want any money,” Densmore said. “We want this to inspire the community to come forward the way they always have. … I kept with that position nearly to the end, until I got a call from Steve (Olsrud) and he said, ‘My mother wants to know where to write the check to.’

“I walked back to my original position and said, ‘Bless her, bless you, but we’re not looking for that.’ He said, ‘You don’t understand my mother.’”

Densmore said there was “no way to talk her out of helping,” adding, “She was a woman of action. If she saw a need, she was going to help.”

John Dimick, longtime former ag advisor for Crater High and local FFA programs, recounted a friendship dating back nearly a half-century. Dimick remembered the Olsruds living in a modest home in East Medford — despite their business success — and driving around in “a beat up old red and white pickup truck with worn-out tires.”

Dimick remembered decades of livestock auctions at the Jackson County fairgrounds in Central Point, where he served as the couple’s “bid spotter” beginning around 1979. The couple was known for purchasing an extensive amount of livestock and displaying photos in their grocery stores of the animals and the FFA and 4H students who raised them.

“I’ll always remember watching them interact with all those kids, and it was just like they were their grandparents. That was kind of the way they approached it. They were so protective of them and just wanted all those kids to be taken care of,” Dimick told the Times. “They were always together and always sat in the same spot during the auctions. Wanda had polio when she was younger and she had a hard time with the heat — and we know the kind of summers we get here — but it didn’t stop her from showing up and sitting right next to Sherm. She had a clipboard to keep track of all the animals they bought,” Dimick added. “They would always say they wouldn’t bid on a kid unless he had sent them a buyer’s letter ahead of time, but I know that was BS. Some little kid would come along and things were not going well… Wanda would always elbow Sherm and next thing he’d raise his hand to bid.”

Dimick recalled the couple funding construction of their namesake 12,000-square-foot Olsrud Arena at The Expo fairgrounds in 1999 and Wanda Olsrud, a few years later, insisting the facility needed additional restrooms and showers “for the kids.”

“She said, ‘I want you to get a bid on adding on to that building. … I remember I got a quote and it was pretty high, and I told her we would get it down some, but she had already got her checkbook out and was going to just write me a check for like $200,000,” Dimick said. “I said, ‘Wanda, slow down.’ But that was the way she was, the way they both were. If they wanted to support you, they were going to do it. And they weren’t ones to mess around and waste any time doing it.”

Dimick said the couple’s modest nature and behind-the-scenes approach was refreshing. “It’s funny, you got all the politician types running around babbling about all they do for the community, when really they don’t do too much, and then you had these two that would just as soon prefer people not know,” Dimick said. “They were content with the satisfaction they got from seeing the community be a better place, and they contributed mightily to making that happen.”

Southern Oregon University President Rick Bailey sent a statement earlier this week marking Wanda Olsrud’s death, which said, “All of us at Southern Oregon University are deeply saddened by the passing of Sherm’s Thunderbird Markets co-founder Wanda Olsrud. The success of Sherm’s Thunderbird is matched only by their commitment to give back to the Southern Oregon region.”

“Their generous and unwavering support reached nearly every corner of our community — from Southern Oregon University and Asante to ACCESS and 4H. We are grateful for their support and honored to be a part of their community. We send our deepest condolences to Steve, Melanie and the entire Olsrud family,” Bailey wrote.

The couple’s philanthropy

On non-ag related pursuits, the couple donated extensively to local medical entities, including a $12 million donation in 2022 to the Asante Foundation, the largest single gift in the foundation’s history, to fund programs to support women and children, cancer and cardiac care, mental health and other services.

In honor of the support, the top two floors of the hospital’s new pavilion were named the Olsrud Family Women’s and Children’s Hospital at Asante Rogue Regional Medical Center in Medford.

Kellie Battaglia, interim co-executive director and chief advancement officer for ACCESS — Jackson County’s community action agency — said contributions by the Olsrud family were too numerous to list.

Battaglia met the couple within a month of her moving to Southern Oregon in 2018.

“They were two of the first people I was introduced to, and they set the tone for how I viewed the community. … They were so warm and generous in sharing their stories with me. I learned so much about their life, their courtship, when they fell in love and how much they cared about helping the community,” Battaglia told the Times. “They were leaders in philanthropy, but to get to know them as people and see their heart and willingness to open up like that was a gift.”

For ACCESS, the Olsruds funded a nearly-12,000-square-foot Olsrud Family Nutrition Center, hosted in-store food drives and delivered countless semi truckloads filled with food over the decades.

“They have made a transformational difference in our organization and in our entire community,” Battaglia said. “Wanda was such a humble human and made such a huge impact that will always stay with me. She was a beautiful person, and her legacy lives on in all the people she touched and the organizations for whom she changed our trajectory.”

Battaglia said both Wanda and Sherm set “an example for all of us to live by.”

“They were never about the show. They were humble, salt of the Earth people,” she said. “They helped feed our community for decades. Whenever there was any kind of call to action, they were there, and both their smiles could light up a room. Everything was just from the heart. … The legacy they left will carry on in perpetuity.”

Reach reporter Buffy Pollock at 458-488-2029 or [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @orwritergal. This story first appeared in the Rogue Valley Times.