Bob Thomas, retired attorney for Bay Area Health District and Oregon International Port of Coos Bay, sits in his Coos Bay home with his Chinese pug, Buckley, on Jan. 12. - World Photo by Madeline Steege

COOS BAY — When 27-year-old Bob Thomas first came to Oregon in 1950 during his last year of law school, he became enamored with two cities — North Bend and Newport.

Planning to establish a private practice somewhere on the Oregon Coast, by 1951 the young man found himself instead practicing municipal law for the city of Empire.

“I can’t remember if I flipped a nickel between the both of those, but I ended up in North Bend,” Thomas said.

Now 84, Thomas is retiring from his role as the attorney for the Bay Area Health District and the Oregon International Port of Coos Bay. He will continue to serve both agencies as a consultant but is waiting for the port to find a replacement.

A municipal and governmental attorney for about 56 years, Thomas worked as the North Bend city attorney from 1957 to 1999, and represented the South Coast Education Service District, the Coos-Curry Housing authority, and the port for a  number of years, as well as other entities on the South Coast.

“I was able to be innovative and do new things,” Thomas said of his career, as he sat inside a warm kitchen at his Coos Bay home.

Dressed in a gray sweater and red turtleneck, Thomas happily spoke of his work, including his many trips to Salem to change laws that impacted his clients.

On one occasion, while he served as the North Bend city attorney, Thomas went to Salem in hopes of getting a law altered that would force other public bodies to comply with city building codes. At the time there was no state building code, he said. His move was driven by a conflict between the city and a former North Bend School District superintendent, who, Thomas said, refused to comply with city building codes during the construction of Bangor School. Now, the state has a building code, which supersedes all others, he noted.

“I felt the law was such that they would have to comply,” but the School District got a ruling from the Oregon Attorney General that it didn’t have to comply, Thomas said. But the law was soon changed in his favor. “I felt that I did a good deed for the state, getting that.”

Being an attorney seems to have come naturally to Thomas. Since he was in grammar school he knew he wanted to become a lawyer.

“Math and science were too easy for me,” Thomas said, recalling how his teachers would let him read during math lessons. “It seemed like it would be more challenging to get into something like law.”

Growing up during the Depression, Thomas and his family moved often so that his father, a painting and decorating contractor, could find work.

“I was never in the same school more than two years at a time,” Thomas said.

He started college in Greeley, Colo., to study pre-law, but was drafted into the Army, and served during World War II in the Pacific theater from 1943-45. He left the military on full disability after contracting infectious hepatitis in the South Pacific.

“It damn near killed me,” Thomas said.

With money from his GI Bill in hand, Thomas was able to resume college in Greeley. He went on to the University of Colorado in Boulder to earn his law degree. Then, during spring break of his senior year, a former classmate who had moved to Oregon suggested that he check out the state, especially because it had fewer lawyers than Colorado.

These days, Thomas said he’s finding it somewhat difficult to retire. After whittling down his clientele to the hospital and the port, he told officials from both agencies to find replacements by the end of the year. But only the hospital has fulfilled its task by hiring attorney Jerry Lesan as its legal counsel. He said he is somewhat reluctant to leave his position with the port because it has a great deal of work ahead of it, including a proposed marine cargo and liquified natural gas terminals.

Thomas’s wife of 10 years, Stephanie Thomas, 57, said she is happy that her husband will have more time for trips overseas and for one of their favorite activities  — sailing.

“I think he’s worked really hard all his life and he’s at that point where he is ready to have some fun,” she said of her husband.

On Jan. 8, during a meeting of the Bay Area Health District Board, Thomas was honored for his work at the hospital since 1965.

Past and present board members described his work and described the attorney as an encyclopedia of institutional history, and as a “lawyer’s lawyer.”

“He fights for truth, justice and the American way, and the Bay Area Hospital. Even if something isn’t true, he makes it true,” said board member H. Michael McIntyre.

Board member John Whitty, who works as an attorney, said he’s known Thomas since 1956 and has found him to be fair and ethical. During the consolidation elections in 1962, Whitty said, Thomas showed those traits well.

“I always thought Bob was extremely fair in the way he handled the issues that came up during that time,” Whitty said. “As time went on, I learned he was really a very good municipal lawyer. He knows more about municipal law than any lawyer I’ve ever dealt with. And that’s a lot of lawyers in 51 years.”