Wilbur Ternyik

Wilbur E. Ternyik (January 26, 1926 – April 2, 2018) was an American civic leader who has been characterized as a founding father of coastal planning, a coastal advocate, and a guardian of the Oregon Coast. News coverage of his work has described him as an international expert on sand dunes, and has noted his "decades of work to protect the environment that draws thousands to the Oregon coast." Ternyik's outreach to skeptical local officials in the early 1970s, persuading them to engage with then-Governor Tom McCall's call for land use planning in advance of the state's landmark land use legislation, has been identified as his most significant achievement.

He served multiple terms as the mayor of Florence, Oregon (from 1985 to 1988 and again from 1991 to 1992), as well as 16 years on the Florence City Council and 29 years as a commissioner on the Port of Siuslaw.

Personal life and military service

Wilbur Ternyik was a descendant of Clatsop leader Chief Coboway, who met the Lewis and Clark expedition in 1804 when they arrived at the Pacific Coast near Astoria, Oregon. His father was a Hungarian immigrant. His father moved back to the east coast prior to Ternyik's birth, and his mother suffered from alcoholism; he was mostly raised by his grandparents. Ternyik was born in Astoria and grew up in Warrenton, Oregon, graduating from Warrenton High School. He often wore a tan buckskin jacket and used what he called his "tomahawk peace pipe" as a gavel in meetings.

Ternyik, a U.S. Marine, was awarded a Purple Heart award after an injury on May 10, 1945, during his World War II service in Okinawa. He spent eight months recovering in the hospital from machine gun wounds to his leg.