Praying for Those in Authority: Lane County

Franklin Church, Lane County, OR

And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them. Ephesians 5:11

Lane County, just below Linn, Benton, and Lincoln to the north, stretches all the way from Deschutes County in the east to the Pacific Ocean on the west. It is the fourth most populous county in Oregon at 379,611 population in an area of 4,620 square miles. It was established in 1851 and named after Joseph Lane, the first governor of Oregon Territory, appointed by President James K. Polk. Most of the population is around Eugene, the county seat, located in the mid-northern portion of the county. A large expanse of the eastern portion of the county is the Willamette National Forest, a part of the Cascade Mountain range.  Agricultural lands dominate the middle portion with the Eugene-Springfield area being one of the largest urban areas in the state, after Portland and Salem. About an hour to the west of Eugene is the coast with tourist destinations such as Florence. In Lane County you have vast tracts of wilderness and mountains, a busy urban area and university (University of Oregon) town, and the beautiful beaches of the mid-coast.

In other county posts we’ve talked about the Christian Church/Reformation group, which also  had a large and early presence in Lane County, but other denominations were there as well. The Methodists, known for their circuit riders, had a Circuit established in early Lane County by 1868. The Springfield Circuit, a vast area for the horseback preachers to cover, was centered around Springfield, where the services were held in a small schoolhouse. As early as 1882 they began holding annual revival or tent meetings with guest speakers. By then they had acquired a store building on Main Street. According to the Lane County Historian, one time the special speaker for the revival meeting was the evangelist and author of the hymn The Old Rugged Cross, Rev. George Bennard. He gave away signed copies of the hymn after the services, it is said. He had originally been converted in a Salvation Army meeting, then later went over to the Methodists. He wrote the hymn in 1912 in response to being harassed in a revival meeting. In 1885 the Springfield Methodist church had continued to grow and so built a church building with a parsonage. At that time, they became self-supporting and were no longer part of the Circuit, having a full-time pastor. In 1916 there was another turning point when a young woman gave a substantial sum for a new building to be named after her uncle, James Armstrong Ebbert. The church became the Ebbert Memorial United Methodist Church, now in existence for over 150 years.

The Sheriff of Lane County is currently Cliff Harrold, who has been involved with the Sheriff’s Office since 1990 as a teen and was hired for his first job there shortly after his 21^st birthday. He became Sheriff in 2019, having worked his way up through the ranks.

Recently the Office coordinated with other local and federal law enforcement officials in a raid following a year-long investigation into a criminal marijuana operation. The raid targeted seven locations and confiscated 16,000 plants in one place; 12,000 in another. They also took in vehicles, firearms, and growing equipment, and hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash. Some of the suspects were found to have been related to an international drug trafficking ring out of King County, Washington that was raided in 2017 and had ties to China.

Keep law enforcement in prayer, and the drug/marijuana growing and trafficking situation in prayer.

Like Benton, Lane County is one of the Home Rule counties. Their County Commissioner Board is full-time and paid. The Board members are each assigned a district in Lane County. Currently, the Board is made up of Ryan Ceniga, Pat Farr, David Loveall, Laurie Trieger, and Heather Buch.

The County Clerk is Dena Dawson, and the District Attorney is Patricia W. Perlow.