Thomas 60th

THOMAS 60th

Griffith Lloyd Thomas arrived at Walla Walla College (WWC, now Walla Walla University) from Prentice, Wis., as a freshman engineering student. Griffith became a Seventh-day Adventist during high school when his mother and his brother, James, also joined the church. During his sophomore year of college, he ran out of money and dropped out to work. Then he was drafted into the Army. It would be December 1954 before he could return and continue his engineering education.

In January 1955 he met Shirley Anita Brane, a freshman pre-nursing major from Indiana. They were married on Aug. 26, 1956, in the Walla Walla (Wash.) City Church by Paul Heubach. Griffith graduated from WWC in June 1957 and began his first engineering job at Hyster Company, which had never heard of Walla Walla College. After nine months of employment, Hyster Company wanted to recruit more WWC engineering students.

Griffith started night graduate school while Shirley finished her nurses training at Portland Sanitarium and Hospital (now Adventist Medical Center). Griffith graduated from the Loma Linda School of Medicine in California in 1964. He set up his family practice office in his hometown of Prentice. The nearest hospital was 31 miles away, and the nearest pharmacy was 13 miles away. He made house calls, sometimes took patients to the hospital himself and carried snowshoes in his trunk.

When the children were ready for school, the family decided to move to Forest Grove, Ore., in 1968. After three and a half years, Griffith returned to Loma Linda for a residency in diagnostic radiology. Griffith returned to Oregon as a radiologist in 1976. He became the first full-time radiologist at Tillamook County General Hospital on the Oregon coast in 1981 and retired in 1996.

Shirley graduated from Walla Walla College in June 1960. She has worked predominately in labor and delivery in hospitals in Oregon and California.

The Thomas family includes six children: Marcene of Keizer, Ore.; Delbe Meelhuysen of Clebourne, Texas; Lloyd Thomas of Keene, Texas; Jill Walcker of Spokane, Wash.; Joseph Thomas of Lake Jackson, Texas; and Hugh Thomas of Moses Lake, Wash. Delbe took them to Japan to celebrate their anniversary.