SANDPOINT - In just about a week, Marcella Nelson will celebrate her 85th birthday. A quick glance at the calendar shows the date falls on the same day she attends her step aerobics class. Earlier in the week, she will have sweated it out in kick boxing training and other forms of seriously intense exercise - the only kind she enjoys.

Between workouts, this Sandpoint resident finds time to serve on the boards of every major arts organization and the Bonner General Hospital Foundation Advisory Board, as well as attending meetings of the Community Assistance League, Idaho Community Foundation, Bonner County Historical Society, Rotary Club of Ponderay, Greater Sandpoint Chamber of Commerce and the Bonner County Republican Women.

Born and raised in Paradise Valley, she worked for Job Service in Bonners Ferry and Sandpoint before retiring and, until recently, ran the Ponderay Community Development Corporation.

Her list of awards and accomplishments - including being named Woman of Wisdom by the community in 2000 - is long and varied. Tiny in stature with a tidy, little bun always placed just so atop her head, Marcella Nelson is best known as a fundraising powerhouse whose efforts have amassed well over a million dollars for the nonprofits she serves.

In these parts, this uncanny ability to raise money has become legendary. It even has a name: The Power of the Bun.

In the interest of time, can you just list the local boards you haven't served on?

Well, let's see - I haven't done any police work yet. (Laughs) However, I do have a permit to carry a concealed weapon. Does that count as police work?

As a board member, you've been part of a lot of success stories that the public might be aware of. Behind the scenes, were there any close calls that stand out in your mind?

The Festival at Sandpoint has really had some scary times, when we were so far in the hole that some felt we wouldn't get out. We always did, but it took a lot of work.

Are those moments more rewarding than the times when everything is going smoothly?

They are rewarding in this respect - you feel like you've accomplished something very difficult and met the challenge.

Some of the biggest challenges you've faced have been associated with the Panida Theater. When did you first become involved there?

I was asked to join the board in the 1980s to raise money to keep it from being destroyed. I can remember going in there and looking at it back when it was gray and dust-covered and a lot of the seats were missing. It was a mess.

I've been on the board for about 25 years and the Panida is probably in as good a condition as I've ever seen it, financially. It's supporting itself now, but there have been years where there was no money in the bank and we would have to send a letter to the community asking for money. They always came through.

What is it about the theater that has made the public respond with such generosity?

I guess the question is, 'Why do people love the Panida?' Because they do - people love the Panida Theater. It's kind of a home away from home, maybe, to a lot of people.

What's the secret to your fundraising success?

I'm not sure. It may be because I've been in the community for 50 years and people know me. But I suppose there is a specific approach that works for me. I just feel like this community is so generous and, in my asking, I need to be very kind to them, because they have come through so many times with the funds. I really appreciate the fact that people are so supportive of the nonprofits that make this community a very special place.

When did the phrase "The Power of the Bun" come about? And how would you describe that power?

I don't remember who started that. If I could remember, I'd get even with them! What they say it means is that people can't say 'no' to me and that there must be some secret power in my bun that causes that reaction.

The Panida Theater board recently passed a new set of bylaws that impose term limits on board members. As part of that, they're going to be losing the Power of the Bun, aren't they?

Yes, that's what happened. When the vote was taken, I voted against it, because I have learned through the years and from all of these boards that I've served on that, in small towns, term limits are not necessarily a positive thing. The experience and talent of board members is so limited in a small town, so it's always more effective to have more experienced people serving and add new people as they leave.

There were people who worked on the bylaws that come from corporate America and they probably didn't understand the workings of a small town.

Weren't you one of the pioneers in beating the drum to gain national attention for Sandpoint?

Yes. After I finished my career and retired, I spent 20 years with the Chamber of Commerce, where I was active on the tourism committee. In those early years, there was no grant money given for that effort - we had to go out and raise it from the members.

Do you like the direction the community has taken?

Basically. A lot of people felt that they didn't want Sandpoint to grow; they wanted it to stay the way it was. We got a lot of that in the Chamber, especially from the tourism aspect. But we are so lucky that we now have summer tourism and winter tourism. It gives us all these wonderful restaurants and nice motels for when we have special events. So that part of the growth, the progression, has been really good. And I think it's been good for everybody.

You've been recognized as being the only person, locally, to have served as president of three major arts organization boards - the Pend Oreille Arts Council, Panida Theater and The Festival at Sandpoint. Were you always interested in the arts?

I come from a very musical family. My father had no lessons, but he was the best violinist. He played the piano, the accordion, any stringed instrument - just picked them up and played them. He would hear a tune once and he could play it. He also had a sister who could do that and one of my sisters could do that, too.

In the arts, I grew up with music every night. When the farm work was done, they played music. In the early years, it was by lamplight. It was great.

I have another sister who was a very good visual artist. I never went into the arts - I was a bureaucrat (laughs).

During your bureaucratic phase of life, working at Job Service, were your clients mostly timber industry employees during the winter months?

Oh, yes. That was part of their annual income. They would work when the weather was good and everything would shut down in the wintertime. I was in the Bonners Ferry office at that time and there would be lines all the way down the hall. They'd wait in line until I could get to them. Of course, everything was done by pencil, pen and typewriter back then.

But not by lamplight?

No! (Laughs) We had electricity. During that time, we were flooded out a lot, before the Libby Dam was in, so we had to move everything upstairs. And we had to pay even more people, because they were out of work due to the floods.

It was quite a career. I was also involved in what was called the 52-20 Program, where every guy or gal who was discharged after World War II could draw $20 a week for 52 weeks. That bought them groceries back then. Can you imagine what $20 a week would do now?

You later moved to the Job Service office in Sandpoint at a time of cultural change. What was it like to have young people moving up from the city to live on communes at the same time this was mainly a timber town?

It was very interesting. At one time, we thought the lumberjacks were kind of rough around the edges. But when the hippies came in, the lumberjacks suddenly seemed quite ordinary.

Soon after that, in the 1980s, was a time you spent caring for your husband, Bill. Are you OK with talking about that part of your life?

Yes, it's OK. Bill was a very athletic, accomplished person when we were married in 1951. Nobody could out-fish him, out-shoot him, out-climb him or out-ski him in the mountains. He started his career in sawmilling in Porthill at about 14, before people worried about the age of employees.

He became mentally ill in his forties - schizophrenia, paranoia, seizures. The whole bit. When he was a kid he had a really bad injury to his head. He was playing baseball and he was hit with a bat. He was bleeding through the nose, the mouth and the ears and they didn't expect him to live. That probably caught up with him when he got older.

In the progress of the illness, I had to get him on anti-psychotic medicine in order for him to live in society and in order for me to take care of him.

But early on, we had real good times. We fished and we huckleberried and we hunted and skied together.

One side of Marcella Nelson people might not be aware of is that you've always worked out at the gym several times a week.

I still do. I do kick boxing on Monday, Body & Soul on Wednesday and the step class on Friday. I really like the kick boxing class. It's a very intense aerobic workout where you get to use more muscle.

You have a reputation for being very good-natured about short jokes. How tall are you?

I'm four nine. My nickname in grade school was 'Moose.' I get a lot of jokes about being short, but the one that tickles me the most is when, during meetings, they will ask you to stand up. And somebody in the crowd will say, 'Marcella - stand up!'

Of course, I'm already standing when they say it.