Editor’s note: This is the second in a series profiling our finalists in the third annual Butte County Heroes series. We will continue to profile our finalists every Sunday until announcing our winner March 29.

CHICO — Light rain pattered on the roof of the Honey Run Covered Bridge as Walt Schafer sat in a camping chair, reflecting on the rebuilding of the bridge.

Only a few years ago, the place where Schafer sat didn’t exist. The bridge was destroyed in the 2018 Camp Fire. Schafer and other community members felt that the bridge needed to be rebuilt, and two months after the fire in January 2019, a meeting was called, and around 25 politicians, contractors and county officials gathered to figure out the next steps.

“I’ve lived here for 48 years, about six miles up the road (from the bridge),” he said. “It’s part of our world, not only for us in the canyon, but it’s truly an iconic structure in this county, in this region, and so there were a lot of emotions, a lot of feelings about wanting to restore it.”

Schafer, a Chico resident of 50 years, had been on the board of directors of the Honey Run Covered Bridge Association since 2006, serving as vice president until 2023, when he became president. He led the rebuilding effort, and said he was the “point person” to coordinate with the contractors.

Once the rebuild began in 2019, years of work began, from fundraising to planning to construction. Schafer said the fundraising was a lot of the work, and said by the time the project was completed, the group had raised around $1.5 million from ornament and t-shirt sales and donations from local residents, businesses, families and foundations. The project also received funding from an insurance settlement from the PG&E fire victim trust of $2.1 million.

Now, sitting in the fully completed bridge, a place he drives by almost daily, Schafer said he is “heartwarmed.”

“I’m not proud personally so much as I’m proud of how we came together as a community,” he said. “When I drive down into town, I come over the hill up there, and there’s the bridge. It just warms my heart.”

Schafer said the effort he and the community put in can be put into three categories: resilience, persistence and unity.

“Number one, resilience, we bounce back, we work. We didn’t let the fire take us away, we didn’t let it stop us,” he said. “And persistence, it took months and months and years and years of hanging with it and doing each step. And third, unity. It really brought together the canyon community, our Chico-Paradise community, the entire north state. It brought us together across all kinds of lines and divisions and we worked together to make it happen.”

Throughout the building process, Schafer said he was at the site “almost every day” watching the construction process and helping where he could. He recalled one day, when the construction crew was finishing laying down the large wood planks that created the walkway for the bridge. When the last bolts were being put in, the construction crew asked Schafer if he wanted to pound in the final one.

“We had our hammers and our vests and our hard hats,” he said. “It was pretty cool.”

After years of work, the bridge structure was completed in early 2025, with a grand reopening in June.

While Schafer played a large role in its rebuilding, he stressed that the entire association and the surrounding community made it possible to reopen the bridge.

While Schafer made his mark on the community this past year when the Honey Run Covered Bridge officially reopened to the public, he has been a staple in the community for many years. He was a professor at Chico State for 31 years before retiring 22 years ago, as well as founding both Enloe Health’s Stress and Health Center and Cardiac Rehabilitation Program in 1979. He now serves on Enloe’s Board of Trustees. He was also a member of the Chico Rotary Club for 32 years, and led the Chico Rotary Club, as well as 19 other rotary clubs, in a partnership in Tanzania, helping with water projects, improvements to the schools and health clinic and much more in the area. He also co-founded the Chico Running Club 50 years ago.

Schafer said the Chico and Butte County community is important to him, adding that it’s a “great community to work and live in,” and said giving back to it is big for him.

“I have an ethic, and one of my core values is personal fulfillment through promoting the well-being of others, and then in Rotary, we have our motto, which is ‘service above self,’” he said. “This community offers all kinds of opportunities for that, and just to be able to serve the well-being of others here, I’m grateful.”