PORT ANGELES — More than 40 colleagues of Linda Owings-Rosenburgh gathered on Monday for a brief memorial to the Clallam County assessor who died early Sunday of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
“It’s the worst of the worst when somebody gets to the place where she perceives that the only answer is to take her own life,” said Pastor Gary Smith of the Open Bible Church.
“A situation like this really calls us all to consider what we are living for.”
Smith started the noon assembly of county employees in the Clallam County Courthouse with a moment of silence.
Then he spoke of Owings-Rosenburgh, who was 59, and about people’s need for hope, and concluded with a short prayer.
He had been invited to conduct the gathering by county Administrator Dan Engelbertson.
“I wanted to give everyone a chance to meet,” Engelbertson said.
The county commissioners’ hearing room, site of the service, had been decorated with fresh flowers.
Engelbertson said that Owings-Rosenburgh’s wishes had been to have no funeral, according to her husband, Jim Rosenburgh.
Rosenburgh could not be reached for comment.
Clallam County Treasurer Judith Scott told the group that Owings-Rosenburgh will be remembered for her professionalism and the standards she set.
Gary Wilgocki, a former accountant with the Clallam County Sheriff’s Department, said, “She was always very open and very available” to co-workers and citizens.
“No one knows, other than Linda, what the circumstances were to make her do what she did,” Wilgocki said.