Photos: The portrait of the couple is Daisy Renne and his wife, Mildred. The family photo is of Daisy and Mildred Renne and two of their three children, their sons, Roger and Larry. Their oldest daughter, Dulcy, is taking the picture. Photos courtesy of the Renne family
You may have heard the name Renne (rhymes with Penny). But you may not know the story of a great man who bore that name, including how hard work earned him the nickname he carried all his life. …
Rolla E. Renne always left baseball practice a little early to milk a cow named Daisy. His Newberg High School teammates heard Renne mention Daisy so many times that they started to call him Daisy or Daze. At the time, the high schooler was living on his own and paying for his rent at a teacher’s house by tending to Daisy. However, this hardworking farmhand and student-athlete would later become the School District Superintendent and a Yamhill County judge.
Even if they don’t realize it, Daisy Renne’s name is at the top of many people’s minds again 60 years after his passing. That’s because the School District and Chehalem Park & Recreation District released an initial plan in March to improve Renne Park at South Blaine and East Sixth Streets in 2025. The old track, built with a high school on the site in 1939, will be replaced with an eight-lane synthetic track, and the development will also include two pickleball courts, a concession stand, and more.
Yet why was this park named for Daisy Renne? His son said that it wasn’t just for what his father accomplished but for the good man he was. Coming from difficult circumstances, Daisy Renne worked tirelessly toward his dreams but remained kind, always, to those around him.
Growing Up
He was born in 1902 on a Newberg area farm at the foot of Rex Hill, the oldest of six children, and his parents were Hugh and Dora (née Parrish) Renne. One of his brothers contracted polio and the family was running out of food, so when he completed grade school, his father told him that he would have to make his own way, said Rolla Renne’s youngest son, Roger Renne (NHS, Class of 1958). Rolla (also called Rollie) Renne was 14 years old, and for four years, he toiled as a farmhand near Pendleton in Eastern Oregon, standing on his own two feet.
At age 18, he realized that he needed an education to pursue his dreams, so he returned to his hometown and enrolled in Newberg High School. This was long before the GREs, so he started over, enrolling as a freshman. But he didn’t let his age make things awkward. He made it work, joining the baseball team to stay active and paying rent by milking Daisy the cow. After graduating from NHS, he went on to Linfield College (now Linfield University) to earn a degree in education.
Building a Family
On campus, he also found a wife, Mildred née Streeter. The couple both graduated from Linfield. The two returned to the area where they had grown up. They found a home near his new job at the K-12 school in the Dundee School District (previously separate). At Dundee, he worked his way up from teacher and coach to principal before shifting to the Newberg School District to become the Superintendent.
Daisy Renne served as Newberg’s Superintendent from 1936 to 1944. After leaving his Superintendent position, he bought a hardware store at the corner of First and College Streets, Renne Hardware, which he ran for five years before selling it to buy a farm on Chehalem Mountain. In 1954, he was elected County Judge of Yamhill County, specializing in juvenile work, until his death in 1964. He was 61, and his death from a heart attack was sudden and overwhelming for Mildred Renne.
“She was a left a young widow and didn’t even know how to drive but had to take driving lessons and get a car and be on her own,” said Alice Kaye Renne (NHS, Class of 1958), Roger Renne’s wife.
Mildred, already known for being an active volunteer at several community organizations, stepped back into the workforce at Newberg Public Library and later worked in the hospital auxiliary thrift shop. She died in 1996.
Creating a Legacy
Besides a legacy of hard work and devotion to the community, the couple left the legacy of family. They had three children: two sons and a daughter. Roger Renne is his last living child, but those three children had eight grandchildren, and there are great- and great-great-grandchildren with the Renne name all over Newberg (and the Northwest!), some from Daisy and Rolla and some from his siblings.
Renne Park (and Renne Road off NE Wilsonville Road) are named for the one-time student-athlete. The park was once home to Newberg Union High School, a building project he led to completion in 1939. The building later became a junior high, and then an intermediate school before it closed in 1995. The track and field at the park are original, and that is where the NHS football team used to practice when it served as a high school. The name of the park honors the high school building that was once there, and there’s a memorial plaque atop a boulder at the intersection of South College and Sixth Streets.
Roger Renne said that his father was an amazing man who was memorialized not only for his accomplishments but for his big heart.
“What he taught me was by example,” Roger Renne recalled. “He treated people with kindness. He taught me how to live my life. I got brought up with the idea that you don’t pick fights and you try to get along with people. He was nice to everybody. He was responsible for many teachers and staff, and he treated them all with respect. He treated the students with respect too. He was remembered for that. He was a good guy.”
Although Daisy Renne is long gone, his kindness created a tangible legacy that he would have been proud of, said his son. He also added that his father would have been happy to see upgrades at the park that bears his name.
“He would have been all for it, anything like that helps young people be entertained,” Roger Renne said.