M E E T
T H E
J U D G E S
by Lyndsey E. Siara – Thirteenth Judicial Circuit
Continued from page 14
teaches from time to time. Judge Tibbals’ father was an
engineer, working for the U.S. Geological Survey for 25
years before retiring. Judge Tibbals attended the same
high school as his father and grandfather. His younger
brother and parents still live in Umatilla, his parents
residing in the same house he grew up in.
I later learned that Umatilla boasts itself as “Nature’s
Hometown,” which corresponded with Judge Tibbals’
stories of youthful outdoor adventures. With a large lake
in the town, he recalled that almost everyone he knew
had a small Jon boat with a little motor. He started
driving a boat at the age of six. He and his brother loved
to fish, water ski, and hunt. Many days, his school
commute consisted of scooting across the lake in his
boat, parking at a friend’s dock, and then riding his bike
the rest of the way. Characteristic of living in a small
town, Judge Tibbals remembers that as a young boy, he
and his brother would fill up their boat’s gas cans at the
local gas station on the honor system. The owner kept a
tally on the wall, and Judge Tibbals’ dad would pay the
bill whenever he pulled in for some fuel of his own.
Although he still tries to hunt or fish once a year, there
is little time for those hobbies these days.
Judge Tibbals lit up as he shared that his father’s side
of the family owned a gun rental business in California
from the 1920s up until the late 1990s. They owned
historically significant guns that production companies
rented for cinematic use. “Think classic Western television
like Gunsmoke and Bonanza,” he explained. In the late
‘80s and ‘90s, in addition to the influx of computer-
generated images and the use of dummy guns, production
companies also began taking this business in-house. But
most interestingly, as part of the shutdown of the gun
rental business, Judge Tibbals and his brother inherited
a number of the historically significant guns. To ensure
others could enjoy the antiquity, their collection is
currently on loan to the Cody Firearms Museum at the
Buffalo Bill Center of the West in Cody, Wyoming.
Continued on page 16
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