Mike Timmons remembered

Woodruff town chairman and Oneida County board supervisor Mike Timmons died suddenly on Saturday, March 22, 2025. 

He was 66.

Timmons’ resumé of public service to the Woodruff community and Oneida County is extensive; he was a member of the Woodruff fire department for 49 years, its chief for 28 of those years; he was first elected to the Woodruff town board in 1993 and became town chairman in April, 2007, when he was elected to that position; he was a Brandy Park commissioner since the late 1980s; he was appointed to the Oneida County board in October of 2010 after the death of Larry Greschner that August and then won his first election as a county board member in April of 2012. 

For those who worked with Timmons on any of those entities The Lakeland Times spoke to, whether or not there may not have always been agreement on various issues, there was a common theme and that was he cared greatly for the community. 

Woodruff town supervisor Corky Sheppard, elected in 2017, is now, with the passing of Timmons, the “senior” member of the town board.

“For me, as a town supervisor, he was the easiest man to work with,” Sheppard said of Timmons. “People didn’t see that sometimes because he got kind of rough but even with your disagreements, you could work through them. He’d never shut you down completely.”

Julie Huotari, Woodruff town clerk since 2019, told the Times Monday “it was a little weird coming to work this morning.”

She had spent part of the day Sunday with the Timmons family, helping write Mike’s obituary. 

“We’re going to be hard-pressed to find anyone who knew as much about the town of Woodruff as Mike did,” Huotari said. “Mike was determined to make sure that things ran smoothly. He did everything by the book and taught me a lot that way. Ninety-nine percent of the time we got along great and worked together and then there were times where we’d butt heads but we’d always work through it and did what we could that was in the best interest of the town.”

Arbor Vitae town chairman Frank Bauers served on his town’s fire department nearly as long as Timmons was a member of Woodruff’s. 

They also served together on the Brandy Lake Park commission for decades, Bauers since 1978. 

The park is owned jointly by Arbor Vitae and Woodruff. 

“I’ve known Mike a long time,” Bauers said. “We were both fire chiefs for our towns at the same time, we were both town chairmen for our towns at the same time. He was a very dedicated individual.”

Hazelhurst town chairman Ted Cushing served with Timmons on the Oneida County board and said he was in “absolute shock” when he got the text notifying Cushing Timmons had died.

It was Cushing, county board chairman at the time, who recommended Timmons as a candidate to take Greschner’s county board seat in 2010. 

Over the years since, they were on county board committees such as the planning and development committee, land information committee and the public works committee. 

“I was at a land information committee meeting with Mike last week and he seemed fine,” Cushing said. “Mike and I had a lot in common because we were both town chairs and we would get involved in issues for the towns and all I can say is he cared for his town greatly as well as his constituents. A great guy. He cared about everybody personally. I’m going to miss him greatly.”

“I keep thinking it’s not real,” Lavonne Timmons, Mike’s wife of 47 years, told the Times through a few tears Monday. “He was a very dedicated person. You put him on a mission and he got through until he got answers. He thought everything in the world of his family, always very proud of them.” 

Selflessness by his father was something stressed by one of Lavonne and Mike Timmons’s four sons, Steven. 

“He would never ask you to do something that he wouldn’t do himself,” Steven said. “He was a hero.” 

Brian Jopek may be reached via email at [email protected].