Valley Mourns “Music Man”

Working as an aide in a nursing home over 20 years ago, Steve Edwards met a pastor who changed his life. He wore blue jeans and had a guitar hanging from his shoulder.

"That was Steve," said wife Roslyn Edwards, or the man Steve would become. Growing from a man who once complained that Roslyn, "sure talked about God a lot," to being baptized by that same nursing home pastor to becoming a pastor himself at Dayton's First Congregational Church 17 years ago, Edwards matured from a wild musician of the '70s into a giving, community-minded soul who helped develop live theater productions at the Liberty, served as a city council member, counseled and mentored in the community, and used music and drama to bring people from all over the Touchet Valley closer together.

"From day one, Steve would calmly and firmly stand up and say, 'People, we are one family, and family comes first. We treat each other with love and respect,'" Roslyn said. "I think Steve's efforts in this and at the the­ater are what's bonded Day­ton and Waitsburg as a larger community."

Now the community Ed­wards has nurtured and the theater family he helped build mourn the loss of this great man. On Saturday evening, after several months fighting liver cancer, Steve Edwards, age 59, passed away. "He was a great guy. He was a human being who never pretended to be any­thing else, an honest and real person," said friend and col­league Pastor Mike Ferrians of the Waitsburg Christian Church. "We're very thank­ful for everything he did for the community." The Dayton Chamber of Commerce honored Edwards on Saturday night by award­ing him Citizen of the Year at its annual awards banquet. And this Friday night's opening performance of "The Music Man," the 10-year anniversary of the Lib­erty Theater's grand re-open­ing, will be a tribute to the man who dedicated so much of his life to the theater and the community.

"Steve's main love was his congregation at the church and his theater family here," said Bill Graham, pastor emeritus at Dayton's First Congregational Church and a fellow thespian at the Liberty Theater. "He touched many people in Dayton. He was a loving, supportive person."

Edwards was born in the Los Angeles area on Sep­tember 12, 1951. In Good­ing High School, Gooding, Idaho, he showed his skill as a "music man," picking up instruments and making music the center of his life. He was also president of the drama club.

After high school, Ed­wards tried out college at Boise State, but he dropped out and entered the life of a full-time musician, immers­ing

himself in that culture along with the drugs and alcohol he discovered there. But that life took its toll. He finally gave it up and went to school to become a nurse. That's when he met "Roz," as nearly everyone calls his tall, bright, spirited wife and best friend, Roslyn. She was working as a nurse as well. Roslyn and Edwards were married. And when Edwards felt the call to the ministry in the late 1980s, he and his fam­ily, which now included Ros­lyn's two boys, their son and daughter and a niece, moved to Portland so he could get his masters degree in divinity from George-Fox University.

The family moved to Day­ton in the early 1990s. "And we just love it here and have no intention of ever leaving," Roslyn said Tuesday. Memorial services for Edwards will be Saturday, Nov. 20, at the First Congre­gational Church in Dayton. Pastors Mike Ferrians and Bill Graham will officiate.