June Sell-Sherer
Term Start: 9/2007
Term End: 9/2010
June Sell-Sherer was raised in Grand Ronde and currently serves on the Grand Ronde Tribal Council.
Her past and current community service work includes serving several years on the Portland Art Museum Board of Trustees and Spirit Mountain Community Fund Board of Trustees, and on the Tribe’s Elder, Culture, Education and Veterans committees.
First elected in September 1999, she has served more than eight years on Tribal Council.
Born June 3, 1948, Mrs. Sell-Sherer was raised in Grand Ronde until her family relocated after 1954’s Termination. Her family left Grand Ronde after her father was injured and could no longer work in the timber industry as a choke setter.
During the summer months, June, her parents and siblings worked throughout the Willamette Valley, picking summer crops, but each fall the family returned to Grand Ronde, where they lived during the school year so that the children could have a consistent education and be with family and friends.
As a teenager, her family moved to Turner and she graduated from Cascade High School there. She joined the Army and reported for basic training. After basic and specialized training, she applied for and received an overseas assignment in Frankfurt, Germany. She worked in the Personnel Division for the 513th Military Intelligence Group at Camp King near Oberursel, Germany.
In February 1969, she was nominated for and honored as WAC of the Month for USAREUR (U.S. Army Europe). After serving three years, she was honorably discharged from the Army.
Following marriage and the birth of her two children, Naomi and Nick, she worked for 18 years on the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in eastern Washington state, first working in security and then later moving to the hot zones as a reactor fuels technician. During her tenure at Hanford, she completed an associate degree in Science from Columbia Basin College.
“The pull of home and family grew strong,” she said of living in eastern Washington.
In 1995, she returned to Grand Ronde and began working as administrative assistant to the Marketing Director at Spirit Mountain Casino. She ran for and was elected to Tribal Council in 1999 and 2002, serving as Tribal Council secretary for several years.
In April 2005, her mother passed away and during that campaign year she was torn between grieving over her mother’s passing and running for Tribal Council. When she decided to run again for Tribal Council in 2007, the Tribal membership re-elected to a three-year term.
June and her husband, Mike, are proud parents and beam over their three grandchildren.