Friends recall Dean's calm

HOPE — Calm. The lake was calm, the winds were calm, and calm was the word that family, friends, co-workers and fellow members of Hope’s city council used to describe the man at the memorial held for Mayor Joe Dean on Friday.

Happy-go-lucky, generous, a wonderful example of fatherhood, a get-the-job-done kind of guy, Dean was portrayed as the man everyone could turn to and depend on.

“No matter what the problem, he had the ability to know and to recognize that everything would work out,” son Mike Dean wrote for the memorial service. “A solution did exist. He said it so many times, ‘what are you afraid of? Anything I was nervous about or questioned whether I told him or he just knew, my dad would ask, ‘what are you afraid of?’ All these things always worked out, maybe not in the best way possible but, I never ended up in the hospital or in jail!”

Dean was known for seeing a need and filling it. He would stay on the job, whether it be running the city or driving an excavator until it was done to his satisfaction. He held is standards very high. The man was a perfectionist, but he never sought the limelight. Dean was the man who simply got the job done because it needed doing. He didn’t need praise for it.

“He was the kind of mayor that made you feel like everything was under control,” council member Carolyn Guldberg said. “He did a lot for the community that no one ever knew about. At our last council meeting we passed a couple of resolutions we’d been working on for a long time. I had a really good feeling Joe was on top of things. He died the next day. It was shocking. I was surprised at how emotionally I reacted. It’s like we’re now rudderless.”

Davey Randolph who worked for Dean at Peak Sand and Gravel driving dump truck said that often you wouldn’t know if Dean was joking or serious, “He had a hidden sense of humor, and was a lot of fun to work with. I’ll miss him.”

Larry Peak echoed the others and said that Dean was one of those men that people like to be around. “He was a good mentor, a good friend, a great manager and good leader. He often brought a different perspective to how to do things. You don’t replace people like him.”

That sentiment was repeated often. You don’t replace people like Joe Dean.

The Hope council president, Bill Breen, will fulfill Dean’s term as mayor.