Good Neighbors: Cheney’s Chet Bettcher ready to help others

When it’s late on a cold winter night and you are far from home having car trouble, it pays to have a good neighbor.

That’s what happened to Paul Nelson, who awhile back was driving from Nevada to his home in Cheney when his pickup starting acting up.

For nine months he had been living in Nevada and working as a plumber, and it was time to come home. His pickup, loaded with his belongings and equipment, started having engine problems as he was driving through the Tri-Cities.

It was 10 p.m., and Nelson’s wife, Helen Bannerman, called her neighbor, Chet Bettcher.

“He just jumped in and took off,” Bannerman said. Bettcher drove his own pickup and met Nelson past Ritzville, almost to the Tri-Cities, ready to load Nelson’s stuff into his own truck at a moment’s notice. He followed Nelson’s truck back to Cheney at 30 miles an hour and didn’t make it home until 1 or 2 a.m.

It turned out that Nelson’s truck was having spark plug problems.

Bannerman was very thankful for Bettcher’s help, since she just had a little car that couldn’t carry all of her husband’s belongings.

“Bannerman said when she needs help, Bettcher is “the first person I think of.”

“I try to help everyone out,” Bettcher said.

Bettcher, 64, has lived in the neighborhood since around the time he married his wife, Ann, 17 years ago.

He lives by the philosophy that everything that goes around comes around.

“You help people, and they turn around and help you,” he said. “It’s just the way I am.”

Bettcher also helps out with the little things that need to be done. He’ll check mail or pick up newspapers for neighbors on vacation and will feed the birds and squirrels in their backyards.

“He just looks for things that are wrong,” Bannerman said.

Bannerman said in an e-mail that she and her husband replaced their roof. Without being asked, Bettcher came over to help pull old shingles in 90-degree weather.

He shrugged off the praise Bannerman gave him by saying that he was helping his friend who was hired to do the work.

She also mentioned that while her husband was still in Nevada, she had to have surgery.

Bettcher came over often to check on her and also kept her husband updated on her condition.

The two families have been close since Bettcher helped Nelson load a refrigerator onto a truck. Bettcher’s son also once dated Nelson’s daughter.

Bettcher retired two years ago after working at Lakeland Village Nursing Facility in Medical Lake for more than 30 years.

“I’ve enjoyed it ever since,” he joked. He spends his free time camping, hunting and fishing.

He doesn’t limit his neighborliness to just the neighborhood. An avid outdoorsman, he’s been known to visit friends with land to help cut trees and clean up branches.

Bannerman said that he helps throughout the neighborhood, including the retired minister nearby.

“I feel I’m more neighborly because of him,” she said. She’s lived in the Cheney neighborhood for 30 years and feels that it’s a better place because of neighbors like Bettcher.

She and her husband like to tell him that if he ever needs anything, he just needs to ask and they’ll take care of it.

She said that everyone looks out for the others. If there were something suspicious going on, someone would notice.

“(A good neighbor is) somebody who is willing to help at any time who looks out for the neighborhood,” she said. “Not in a nosy way.”

Bettcher’s theory seems to agree.

“Being helpful, vigilant and caring and just getting along with your fellow man” is part of being a good neighbor.

And in return, they’ll do the same for him, no matter what time of the night.