Life in reverse: Gary Wilhelms' career in politics started as an Oregon lawmaker and is winding up as a college intern.

• Author: Wong, Peter
• Position: ONE OF OUR OWN

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When Representative Karen Minnis stood up to introduce the guest seated beside her in the Oregon House of Representatives during a special session in February 2008, no one noticed anything unusual about him at first.

Gary Wilhelms has been a state representative, a Republican leader in the chamber, a lobbyist for 17 years, and a top legislative staffer, spending more than three years as chief of staff for Minnis while she was speaker of the House.

But then Minnis introduced Wilhelms as her college intern.

"It does raise eyebrows when you tell people you are a 70-year-old intern," Wilhelms said at the time.

Wilhelms was gathering information for a paper he was writing for an Eastern Oregon University class about the 2008 session. The 19-day session was regarded as Oregon's tryout of annual legislative sessions--something he recommended as co-chair of a citizen panel reviewing legislative operations.

Wilhelms was not at the Capitol for show. As part of his college assignment, he was at Minnis' work station at the Capitol three days a week during the short session. "If I can help accommodate his goal and he can get a few college credits from his involvement here, I'm happy to do it," says Minnis, who left the Legislative Assembly in January after 10 years.

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"People ask me all the time if my career is going backward," Wilhelms said later. "But I tell them I love it."

Wilhelms would have earned his college degree decades ago, but illness forced him to leave Oregon State University and abandon his plans to study forestry. Instead, he went to work for the telephone company, where he would spend the next four decades, aside from a stint in the Army.

FIRST STEPS

In 1968, while working in Baker City, east of the Cascade Mountains, Wilhelms first got involved in politics. He led the local campaign for Bob Packwood, then a 36-year-old Republican state representative who was a long shot for the U.S. Senate.

"That's when I decided to become a Republican," he says.

In 1972, Oregon switched from multimember legislative districts based on counties to single-member districts and the House seat in Klamath Falls, where Wilhelms was working, had no incumbent. Three Republican representatives came to town to urge him to run.

"But I had three little kids running around then," Wilhelms says. "My wife said if I wanted to run, it was OK with her, but on one condition: lfI was going to Salem, all of them would come with...