William "Bill" Edwin Wilburn

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Obituary

WILLIAM “BILL” EDWIN WILBURN

Born to Edwin Wilburn and Mildred (Brusch) Wilburn on January 9, 1937 in Wenatchee WA. He was born two months early and was cradled in a shoe box. From childhood, he began a lifetime of work, mowing lawns, delivering newspapers, filling neighbors’ coal bins and earning Eagle Scout status before finding his true calling at 16 fighting forest fires with the Department of Natural Resources.

He graduated Omak H.S. in 1956 and was courting a feisty blonde named Darlene Billups. At Omak H.S. he lettered in three sports and was student body president, discovering that his personality could fill the room, a talent he engaged throughout his life. His marriage to Darlene in 1961 on the hottest day of the summer was followed by service in the U.S. Army, stationed in Alexandria VA (a clerk typist running documents around the Pentagon, he always said, but we believe his prodigious verbosity led to peeling many potatoes and cleaning many latrines). In 1965 he completed a BS in forestry from WSU, which he said was just that, a degree in BS.

Children followed quickly, Paul and Craig born in Omak, then moves to Port Orchard and Sedro-Woolley, where Mary and Scott joined the family. Colville was his last posting with DNR, retiring there in 1993. He served with the Society of American Foresters. After close to 40 years in Colville, Bill and Darlene moved to Spokane in 2015. Bill was always active in his Catholic faith, serving on parish councils and parish school boards, with the Knights of Columbus, and travelling around the country with Darlene for Marriage Encounter/Engaged Encounter. His family relationships were at the core of his life, from 64 years of marriage to four children and four grandchildren. The miles he drove to help move his young adult children from one coast to another, north to south, are uncountable. His generosity to his family often extended to items that his wife didn’t know he was giving away.

He treasured any time he could spend at the family’s cabin at Crawfish Lake which offered a never-ending to-do list: wood to stack, docks to repair, slash to burn. He enjoyed a cold beer and a well-done steak (or carbonized ketchup-drenched ruin of meat), the Seattle Seahawks, Gonzaga basketball.

While some speak of six degrees of separation, for Bill it was never more than two. He never met a stranger with whom he couldn’t quickly find a connection. On a distant road trip you would find him with his arm around someone he’d just met only to learn he’d played basketball against their brother (that one time) or served in uniform with their third cousin. The man had two speeds: full tilt or stop, unless he was eating ice cream. He ate more smoke, felled more snags and had more stories to share about the power of wildfire and the foibles of the government agencies fighting that fire than anyone in the history of the forest service.

He is survived by his beloved wife Darlene, to whom he was utterly devoted; children Paul (Regina) Wilburn of Roslyn PA, Craig (Margi) Wilburn of Snohomish WA, Mary (Scott) Cooper of Spokane, and Scott (Mike Calderon) Wilburn of Palm Springs CA; grandchildren Brooke and Ashley Wilburn, and Aidan and Bennett Cooper.

He passed on January 22, 2026. A rosary will be held Thursday, January 29 at 6 p.m. and a funeral Mass at 11 a.m. on Friday, January 30, both at Sacred Heart Catholic parish, 219 E. Rockwood Blvd.

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