Chuck Lema

COTTONWOOD, California - Chuck Lema, a prominent Shasta County resident who sold a picturesque chunk of property that’s now one of the Redding’s most prized attractions and which bears his family’s name, died Wednesday at his Cottonwood home. Lema was 82.

It was in 1993 when Lema and his wife of 62 years, Peggy, sold their Lema Ranch property off Shasta View Drive to Leah McConnell, who died in 1995.

Up until then, the property was a multi-generational working mule ranch started by Lema’s father, Joe, who moved to Shasta County in 1957 from Montague in Siskiyou County.

That land is now home to The McConnell Foundation’s headquarters and features 12 trailheads for visitors in a serene and park-like setting.

The 200-acre Lema Ranch property also features five ponds that provide habitat for all sorts of area wildlife, including ducks, geese and snowy egrets.

But Lema, a former road contractor who ran Lema Construction with his father, who was also a contractor, built highways and roads throughout the North State and elsewhere.

“They’ve been all over Northern California,” said Lema’s daughter, Deborah Addison of Lawrenceville, Georgia, adding that father and son built the access way to the Bay Bridge in San Francisco.

He also left his mark in many other ways.

A longtime member of the Redding Rodeo Association, Lema took unbridled delight in providing wagon rides pulled by mules during Redding Rodeo Week to children with disabilities during its annual Special Kids Day.

“That’s one of the things he was extremely proud of,” said longtime friend, Rudy Balma. “He did that right up until last year.”

The 85-year-old Balma, who said he had been friends with Lema for more years than he can remember, said he was a special man.

“If he was your friend, he was your friend for life,” he said.

Lema, who also played the role of the Lone Stranger during the 1992 Redding Rodeo Week, raised Texas longhorn cattle at his Cottonwood home and was the first to enroll in an innovative conservation program designed to benefit landowners and wildlife alike in the Cottonwood Creek watershed.

Known as the Safe Harbor Agreements, the program enables landowners to restore habitat for a variety of endangered and threatened wildlife species without risking future regulatory action under the Endangered Species Act.

A graveside service is set for 11 a.m. Monday at Cottonwood Cemetery, followed by a 1 p.m. celebration of life at the McConnell Foundation’s headquarters at Lema Ranch in Redding.

Lema is survived by his wife, Peggy, two daughters, Deborah Addison of Lawrenceville, Georgia, and Liz Camarillo of Oakdale, and two grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren.