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- Tigard-Tualatin-Sherwood Times, Oregon, Tuesday, 23 December 2025
Fred Bass is gone, but his mark on the community will not be soon forgotten
Evanson: Fred Bass is gone, but his mark on the community will not be soon forgotten
Tigard-Tualatin-Sherwood Times (OR) - Tuesday, December 23, 2025
Hillsboro lost a good one recently.
Fred Bass, a former coach, school board member, friend and mentor to many passed away Nov. 12 and, in the wake of his passing, left a void in a community that likely doesn't know what it lost.
Bass was a Hillsboro native who graduated from Hillsboro High School in 1974.
He lived there for the entirety of his life and along the way gave back by way of direct service to the school district, area youth and Glencoe High School track athletes, all with whom he left a mark.
But indirectly he touched many more, and to say he'll be missed is an understatement due not to who will miss him, but rather the ones who don't know what they missed.
If you knew Fred, you knew Fred. But hearing people talk about him gives you an even more profound perspective into who the man was, and how deeply he touched people.
In many ways it's not what people say about someone that best defines them, but rather the manner in which they say it.
The passion, the sincerity and the depth in which they communicate speaks volumes about him or her and, in Fred's case, it's people's inability to find the words that speaks loudest.
Prior to penning this piece, I spoke to a couple handful of friends, family members, colleagues, former athletes and even acquaintances of the man, and while all willingly spoke to his virtuous, friendly and sincere demeanor, all had trouble defining the person as a whole.
"Wow," his son Aaron Bass said when asked how he'd describe his dad. "That's a hard one. I just don't think he had a mean bone in his body."
You wouldn't get much of an argument there.
Glencoe alumnus Kristin (Mellum) Williamson ran track and cross country under Fred and spoke to his passion for the sport and investment in the kids he mentored. But beyond that, she said his interest in his kids and their endeavors went beyond the field of play.
"He was such a great coach, but he was an even better human being," Williamson said. "He really wanted you to be the best you could be, and he showed that in himself. He always wanted to better himself, but he wanted that for everyone else too, and he did it in such a great way."
Former Glencoe head track and field coach and present day Wilsonville head football coach Adam Guenther echoed Williamson's sentiments, but added that his investment in his kids and the sport was unmatched.
"Watching him coach was amazing," Guenther said. "When you see somebody do something they have such a passion for, it's incredible. Ask any kids he coached day in and day out, he was always in the thick of it. There's no place he'd rather have been. The track community took a big hit with Fred's passing."
Jim Smith also coached with Fred, but said that while he was one of his biggest coaching fans, it was who he was as a friend and mentor he'll remember.
Smith spent the bulk of his career as a teacher, coach and administrator in the Hillsboro and Banks school districts, and while too dedicated to kids and their development, in a tough moment or two it was Fred who listened to, and ultimately reminded, Smith what his job was all about.
"Fred was about being in service to others," Smith said. "He was such an inspiration. He helped me change my perspective of what my job and my career was about. He always said, 'Jimmy, who are you serving?' And that was really powerful."
Listening was one of Fred's superpowers. While a seemingly easy thing to do, many aren't willing to genuinely do so. That wasn't Fred. In fact, per Smith, he did so with vigor.
"Fred was the greatest listener in the world," Smith said. "I used to call Freddie when I had problems. I leaned on Freddie.
"He would always say, 'just listen, be patient and don't judge.' He said he got that from his career doing tombstones for people, and when they were grieving, you had to become a listener. Also, as a youth pastor, he just wanted to listen to what kids were going through and help them the best he could."
Subtlety was one of Fred's gifts. He was an opinionated man but, unlike many, he was always willing to hear your perspective. He wasn't about winning an argument, but rather helping you come to the best, if not a better conclusion -- with a little help.
"The one thing I appreciated about Fred, was that he always stayed calm and would take in all the information," Fred's brother Joe Bass said. "Then he would explain to you why maybe his way was better. He was just really good at smoothing the waters."
And Fred's waters weren't always smooth. He lost two kids to a genetic disorder in their teens and, as you would expect, those were difficult times. But rather than lash out in the wake of such a heavy loss, Fred worked through it by way of a belief in something bigger. A faith beyond religion, and based in a desire to make a difference if and when he could.
"It (losing his kids) was very hard on him and it remained difficult throughout his whole life," Aaron Bass said. "But I think it sort of showed him things were beyond his control, so he's got to find that greater purpose, and I think that's maybe what drove him."
That drive pushed him not only to serve, but to endeavor.
He blogged; made movies; learned to fly; officiated weddings; played guitar; taught Nia; never failing to scratch any itch.
"He didn't seem to have that fear of failure," Aaron Bass said. "He was sort of always putting himself out there, challenging himself."
And he didn't always win, nor was he perfect. But his gift was not in winning, but rather in trying to help others to.
Williamson talked about motivational letters he used to slip into her bag the day of races; encouraging words; runs he'd make with her when no one else was around to do so; and the confidence he gave her by way of the confidence he had in her.
"It was just kind of the guy he was," Williamson said. "He just always wanted to make everybody else better and make you feel good about yourself and feel confident. I really appreciated that about Fred."
And there was a lot to appreciate about him. In addition to his creativity, passion, intense desire to serve and yearning to improve in every sense of the word, he was also simply kind.
Tom McDonnell met Fred when he transferred to Hillsboro High School prior to his senior year. A runner himself, McDonnell joined Fred on the cross country and track teams, and quickly became and since remained good friends.
It was that deep-rooted friendship, along with a genuine admiration for what Fred represented that prompted McDonnell -- who lives out of state -- to travel to Portland to see his friend before he passed.
"Fred was probably one of the warmest, most genuine, truly welcoming people I've ever known," McDonnell said. "What you saw was what you got. Just truly a good soul. We lost a good one for sure."
It's easy to say good things about people when they're gone, and often we're all guilty of waiting until it's too late to do just that. But Fred frequently made it a point to express those good things, and did so in a purposeful way.
Aaron Bass fondly remembered such an instance, and used the opportunity to return the favor.
"'I just want you to know how great you are with Waylon (Aaron's son) and the other boys, and how great a father you've become,'" Aaron said his dad had recently told him in the wake of one of his son's Little League games. "When you hear your dad say that, it's a pretty profound and incredible thing to hear. That was extra special to me, and I told him that I'm doing this because you taught me how to do this. You taught me how to be a good father, so thank you."
Aaron hopes to proudly follow in his father's footsteps in an effort to mentor his kids in a similar vein.
"I never felt judged," Bass said. "I always came out of every interaction feeling supported, and that's exactly what you hope for in a father, and is exactly what I hope to be to my kids."
We're in the thick of the holidays, and while Fred won't be here for his daughter Jess, son Aaron and his family, Joe and the rest of his surviving siblings, his former athletes like Kristin Williamson, friends like Tom McConnell and Jim Smith, and colleagues like Adam Guenther, he won't be alone.
Fred had a clear vision of his afterlife and wasn't afraid to paint that picture for people. And while he won't be with us for the holidays, he won't be alone.
He'll be on a dock overlooking a lake and under a clear blue sky, smiling and laughing with the kids who've been deprived of the man they didn't get their fair share of, and with the same man who didn't get his fair share of them.
There's a sadness to him being gone, but a happy aspect to where he believed he'd be and what he'd be doing.
That should make us all happy and, after all -- that's what Fred wanted most.
The Daily News, Oregon, 27 May 2002
Tombstone carver handles memorial for his children
HILLSBORO, Ore. ? It took Fred Bass more than two years to finish his children's tombstone. He didn't want to rush it.
Over the years, the father of four and owner of Bass Memorials and Stone Art had counseled hundreds of grieving families. Often, they wanted to order a gravestone the same day they picked a casket.
Come back when you've had time to think about it, he would tell them. The stone can wait.
For parents, like him, who have held and bathed their babies only to lose them, speaking for the dead can be even more painful.
Bass's memories call daily.
Jaime and Joel, two of his four children, were born seven years apart, suffering from the same never-diagnosed, degenerative genetic condition.
Bass and his wife attended their every need, feeding them, cradling them, carrying them, comforting them during seizures that wracked their slender bodies.
Jaime, a brown-haired, sweet-faced girl, died in 1997 when she was 19.
By that time, his son had started to fade.
"We knew what was going to happen with Joel," Bass says. "It was just a matter of time."
Long before the boy died two years ago at 15, Bass considered his marker.
"I remember picking out the color of the stone, the design of the stone," he says. "During times of quiet, those things would come to me."
Bass has engraved headstones, pavers and memorial benches for 16 years. Working with stones and the families who need them is not his job, he says, but his ministry. The 46-year-old is a community stalwart: former school board member, part-time librarian and Glencoe High School track and cross-country coach.
Bass engraves 50 gravestones each year and estimates about 20 belong to children. But for months after his daughter died, Bass carved no stones for the young.
Customers weren't calling, something Bass considered "a reprieve from God."
"I didn't want to be around anything that had anything to do with death and dying," Bass says. "There was a time when I didn't want to do this anymore. I didn't think I could do it anymore."
One day, a couple about Bass's age entered his office. They discussed the business of tombstones: the prices and quality of granite, which cemeteries accept raised monuments, which require flat stones.
"You could tell the pain they were in," Bass says. "This was a couple that was in a great amount of pain, just as I was. It just sort of hit me, and without thinking I asked them how old he was."
The couple wanted the stone for their 7-year-old son. The boy had drowned.
Bass thought of Jaime, dead six months. And the business of tombstones became personal.
"I just said, you know, we lost our daughter recently."
Crying, Bass took the job.
His marriage ended in 2000.
He moved to Cornelius, where half-done markers and tombstones lean against his porch and in his living room, beside the piano.
He designs stones on a computer, printing out stencils that he applies to the granite, each precut stone weighing about 250 pounds. In the evenings, he works in his shop.
Fathers show their love by building, their rough hands fashioning fine things for their children: bikes, bunkbeds, a miniature Statue of Liberty handcrafted for a class project.
Fred Bass carved a tombstone.
Leaning over the workbench, standing in the garnet dust from his sandblaster, he taped down the plastic stencil, and began to etch lyrics from a well-known song:
"Our prayers have all been answered, we've finally arrived. The healing that had been delayed, has now been realized."
A year ago, he drove to the cemetery to install the stone.
"What else do you get to do in the grieving process for a child?" Bass asks. "You don't get to put them in the casket. I remember feeling really good that I got to do this.
"I wish other dads could do this and feel that."
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Bassett Family Association Database
- 2025
(Age 56 years)