Tehachapi won with the Wilsons

When Jim and Cheryl Wilson were ready to retire and leave Anchorage, Alaska to be closer to his children and grandchildren in the Lower 48, they knew the kind of a city in which they wanted to live.

"We wanted a small town with no freeways," Cheryl said. "It would be a town we could embrace and would hopefully embrace us back."

Jim went on a reconnaissance tour.

"I gave it all to Jim," Cheryl said. "He respected the fact that it would be difficult for me to leave Alaska."

Southern California is where two of his three children live. He looked at the Central Coast and at Fillmore. He visited Tehachapi at the suggestion of a friend.

"I remember driving up out of Mojave on 58," Jim said. "It was a foggy day and the windmills came out of the mist."

He liked what he saw. He called Cheryl. "I think I found a place you're going to really like," he said.

Subsequently he and Cheryl explored Tehachapi together for two weeks. They concluded it was the place they wanted to live. They moved here permanently 12 years ago, in 2005.

On Saturday, Jan. 21, 2017, the Greater Tehachapi Chamber of Commerce will honor Jim and Cheryl Wilson as "2017 Citizen of the Year" for their generous volunteer work in the community.

"Never did either of us dream we would be so fulfilled, so blissfully happy in this wonderful town," Cheryl told Forde Files.

The couple has given their time and organizational abilities to Main Street Tehachapi, to administration at the BeeKay Theatre, the Tehachapi Visitor Center, Taste of Tehachapi, the Railroad Depot, Crossroads Art Gallery, the Senior Center, the Tourism Commission, Cheers to Charity, the Wine and Beer Fest, the GranFondo and nearly every civic fundraiser.

Both worked for the Chugach consumer-owned electric cooperative utility, Jim as an electrical engineer and Cheryl as construction coordinator. She is proud to have been part of the creation of the Trans Alaska Pipeline. "It's huge part of history," she said.

At the Chamber fête, they will join John the Plumber as 2017 Small Business of the Year and P-Dubs Grille & Bar as 2017 Large Business of the Year.