Merle Pence as Grand Marshal
memorable impact on us with his commanding appearance and unforgettable voice.
Many do not know Merle is a two tour Vietnam Combat Veteran who served in the Navy from 1969 to 1973 as a Minesweeper Electrician. Merle continues to serve our community in many ways.
the tour guides for ShoeString Community Players “Haunted Tours” in historical downtown St. Helens. Since then Merle has spoke with many long-time residents and researched much of the Columbia County and Columbia River history. For the last decade many of us
have come to know Merle as Santa Claus! The unwavering belief in Santa children and grownups cherish is certainly validated with Merle’s persona as Santa Claus. With the beautiful creation of “The Wisdom of Columbia County” and Merle’s gifted talents is lending his rich and colorful voice of expression in narrating the performance of this musical composition. The inaugural presentation to our community is on June 16th at Scappoose High School. St. Helens Kiwanis Community Parade is honored and pleased to honor Merle Pence as our 2023 Grand Marshal. Merle will not be driving his reindeer sleigh in the parade, however, Merle will be a passenger in Lorene Skyes’s 1967 Ford Galaxy convertible. Merle will be delivering waves and lots of smiles to all the parade goers!
2023 Theme
What is “The Wisdom of Columbia County?” An original full-length musical composition, that is written and sung by The Columbia Chorale, which in eight movements of prose and poetry that tells the history of the county through a series of characters—a Chi -
nook mother and daughter, naval explorers, a frontiersman, a pioneer and settler, a logger, farmers, and a newcomer—who impart their ‘wisdom’ (sometimes ironically or tragically overturned) through song. It aims to unite us all in our shared history and
humanity. The Columbia Chorale will perform on June 16th at the Scappoose High School and in 2024 will perform at Carnegie Hall in New York. This is a special honor for our local Columbia Chorale to be recognized and invited to the prestigious Carnegie Hall in New York.
St. Helens Kiwanis Club would like our community to be in the know of this and the parade theme was a wonderful way to highlight “The Wisdom of Columbia County” We are looking to parade participants to embrace and create entries that reflect the past peoples of Columbia County.
We are grateful for the generous Sponsors, community partners, and You! St. Helens Kiwanis Community Parade takes a lot of work!
Please Think Safety and Courtesy!
Thank you & Enjoy!
2023 Kiwanis Community Parade 4
unitedwayofcolumbiacounty.com 971-225-0402 United Way of Columbia County Introducing the 2023 My Fair Lady and Gentleman Court Come and support them on July 19th, 1:00pm at the Columbia County Fairgrounds.
“The Wisdom of Columbia County”
Serving Columbia County for 63 years.
Exploring the music behind the theme
WILL LOHRE
Country Media, Inc.
The theme for this year’s St Helens Kiwanis Community Parade is “The Wisdom of Columbia County,” it seeks to pay tribute to the county’s storied past and the people who have and will continue to shape its past and future.
The parade will take place at noon on Saturday, June 17. It is a family event that will feature floats, vintage cars, and local sports and youth organizations. The theme is based on Columbia Chorale of Oregon’s original full-length musical composition, “The Wisdom of Columbia County.”
“This tells the history of the county through a series of characters—a Chinook mother and daughter, naval explorers, a frontiersman, a pioneer and settler, a logger, farmers, and a newcomer— who impart their ‘wisdom’ through song. It aims to unite us all in our shared history and humanity,” said parade committee member Judy Thompson in a Facebook post.
The musical composition, which is the theme, has been years in the making and is the result of collaboration between local poet and songwriter Margaret Trenchard-Smith, composer Kevin Bryant Lay, and Alice Rice Boyer, who is the Artistic Director for the Columbia Chorale of Oregon.
The Chronicle sat down with the artists behind the
original work, which presents a history of the county in a full-length cantata through narrative and choral music. The piece will be performed for the first time on June 16 at 6:30 p.m. at Scappoose High School.
Bringing history to life
The project began in January 2018 when TrenchardSmith and Rice Boyer discussed commissioning an original work about the history of Columbia County for the choir.
Trenchard-Smith, who came to the county in 2015, joined the board soon after this conversation and was charged with finding a poet to write the lyrics for the piece. Trenchard-Smith has always written poetry, and she presented some of her poetry to the board in May of 2018 and was selected to complete the work.
Upon being selected, Rice Boyer “shaped it,” saying that Trenchard-Smith should write five songs from the Native American past through the present.
“I just let it stew for about six weeks, and then one afternoon, I was thinking about characters and the wisdom of characters, and the wisdom, which was the concept I had come up with,” Trenchard-Smith said. “I’m thinking of it within that shaping from the board; from Alice. One afternoon, five of the songs, you know, all of these characters just started spilling
out, so five of the verses were written in a single afternoon.”
While searching for a composer in 2019, a fortuitous connection was made when Rice Boyer’s son put Bryant Lay in contact with Trenchard-Smith and Rice Boyer. Bryant Lay did much of his work on Light Opera of Portland’s We Met in Moscow musical at the Cathedral Coffee Shop, where Rice Boyer’s son Joshua was the manager. Joshua got Bryant Lay’s business card and made the connection; the rest is history.
“I gave him my card, and it was just within a day or two that I was meeting Alice and Margaret and talking about this, and it was astonishing at that point how the chemistries were just ready for this to happen,” Bryant Lay said. “We all fell in love with eachother, the three of us.”
Trenchard-Smith’s husband Brian commissioned the original score from Bryant Lay to shelter the Columbia Chorale from the financial risk of the commission.
The eight songs in the composition illustrate different periods and perspectives through Columbia County’s history. The eight songs are:
• Mother and Child (Spring)
• The Sea Captain (1792)
• The Frontiersman (1827)
• The Pioneer and Settler (1852)
• The Logger (1918)
• The Stewards (1958)
• The Newcomer (Autumn)
• Postlude
Bryant Lay composed the music to fit with the lyrics that Trenchard-Smith provided. His aim with each piece was to match the score to the messages and stories the words told.
Bryant Lay began seri-
ously composing the piece in late 2020 and early 2021. Bryant Lay completed Mother and Child in January 2021, and the full composition began to take shape. The full score was completed in January 2022.
“Margaret’s writing is very easy in a lot of ways, especially with a big thing like this. There were seven poems, and they had very similar forms. It’s almost Haiku like. Two lines, and then two more lines, there’s a rhyming scheme, and it was like, ‘Oh, OK,” Bryant Lay said. “The way I work is I let it cook, I let it cook, and let it cook.”
Currently, the choir that will perform at the inaugural concert at Scappoose High School will be made up of around 70 people, but when they perform at Carnegie Hall, they hope to have 125 members in their chorus.
A large component of the piece is the acknowledgment of the role of Native
peoples in the formation of Columbia County and their continued existence and contribution to history. The Columbia Chorale is now in partnership with the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation, and the cantata and Native American culture will be interwoven in the presentation, according to Trenchard-Smith.
In August of 2022, MidAmerica Productions called Rice Boyer about a guest conductorship to perform at Carnegie Hall in New York. Rice Boyer took a risk and asked if she could perform “The Wisdom of Columbia County” in concert. While ordinarily, Carnegie Hall does not allow original productions, James Redcay of MidAmerica Productions played through some of the pieces and OK’d its use for Rice Boyers guest conductorship.
“I’m so happy that Kevin’s work will be on that august stage and so happy
that Alice will be conducting there,” Trenchard-Smith said.
Trenchard-Smith, Rice Boyer, and Bryant Lay hope this piece will be “a legacy to the county.” On May 27, 2024, “The Wisdom of Columbia County” will be performed at Carnegie Hall. Wisdom of Columbia County and the Kiwanis Parade
For Trenchard-Smith, the selection of “The Wisdom of Columbia County” as the theme for the parade was a special moment. Holding with the theme, many of the floats in the parade will be historical in some sense.
Thompson and Trenchard-Smith are on the Kiwanis board, and the theme came about organically when Thompson heard that the inaugural concert would be the night before the parade.
The theme and the parade will celebrate the county’s rich and diverse history.
2023 Kiwanis Community Parade 5
Courtesy photo from Margaret Trenchard-Smith
From left to right: Lyricist Margaret Trenchard-Smith, Composer Kevin Bryant Lay, Artistic Director of the Columbia Chorale of Oregon Alice Rice Boyer, and Chair of the Board of the Columbia Chorale of Oregon Marilyn Allen.
2023 Kiwanis Community Parade 6 Proudly serving Columbia County since 1970 Hudson Portable Toilet Service “We go where you go” 800-422-9998 503-397-1534 See you at the parade!
[[[ [[[[[[[[ [[[[[[[[[[[[[[[ [[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[ [[[[[[ [[[[ [[[[ [[[[ [[[[ [[[[ [[[[ [[[[ [[[[ [[[[ [[[[ [[ [[[[[ [[ [[[[[[[[ [[ [[[[[[[[[ [[ [[[[[[[[[[ [[ [[[[[[[[[ [[[[[ l Registration Area Staging Area A Staging Area B l l l [[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[ [[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[ [[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[ [ [[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[ [ [[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[ [ [[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[ [ [[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[ [[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[ Kiwanis Parade Route l l Start End COLUMBIABOULEVARD ST. HELENS STREET PITTSBURG ROAD HANKYROAD N 6TH STREET S 18TH STREET COLUMBIARIVERHIGHWAY N 2ND STREET S 14TH STREET COLUMBIABOULEVARD DUBOISLANE N 15THSTREET PORTAVENUE WEST STREET PLYMOUTH STREET S 4TH STREET S 15TH STREET M A T Z E N S T R E E T OLD PORTLANDROAD KASTERROAD OREGON STREET S 1ST STREET N 10TH S T REET S 10TH STREET S 7TH STREET GABLEROAD S 6TH STREET COWLITZ STREET S 19TH STREET NORTHVERNONIA ROAD S 8TH STREET LEMONT STREET T I CE ROAD N 8TH STREET CLARKSTREET MCBR DE STREET S 11TH STREET N 11TH STREET S 17TH STREET S 13TH STREET SEAL ROAD KASTERROAD SPUR MAC ARTHURDRIV E S 12TH STREET P A R K W A Y (PRIVAT E ROAD) N 1 8 T H S T R E E T S 9TH STREET B O N N E Y L A N E N 7THSTREET TUALATIN STREET S 20TH STREET S 3RD STREET N 1ST STREE T W A I P I T D R I V E N VERNONIA ROAD N 3RD STREET VALLEYVIEWDRIVE S 2ND STREET ALDERWOOD DR I VE HANKINSDRIVE JAKOB STREET S 16TH STREET M CCORMICK PARK H L L T O P D R V E IRIS WAY LEE STREET N 9TH STREET SKYLINE DRIVE N MITZ STREET STEINKE DRIVE HALSEY STREET STRAND STREET AVA COURT JOHN GUMM WAY OLDPORTLANDROAD S 12TH STREET S14TH STREET N 7TH STREET (PRIVATE ROAD) S 13 T H S T RE E T N 8THSTREET N 1ST STREET S 11TH STREET S 1ST STREET P TTSBURG ROAD S 15TH STREET OLDPORTLANDROAD S 6TH STREET S 12TH STREET Map Provided by City of St. Helens Public Works Department Engineering Division 265 Strand Street St. Helens, OR 97051 503.397.6272 DISCLAIMER: This map has been provided for reference only. The City of St. Helens makes no warranty, representation, or guarantee of any kind regarding the use of this product. The Requestor/User assumes all responsibility for the use of this product and agrees to hold harmless the City of St. Helens against any loss or damage arising from any error, omission, or positional inaccuracy of this product. The City of St. Helens assumes no responsibility for the validity of any information presented herein, nor any responsibility for the use or misuse of this data. It is the requestor's responsibility to verify any information derived from the GIS data before making any decisions or taking any actions based on the information. 0 1,000 500 Feet Print Date: 4/17/2023 N 2023 NEW Registration Area, Staging Area, & End Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) of St. Helens makes many events possible and safer. CERT will be on traffic duty for the St. Helens Kiwanis Community Parade. CERT is a volunteer organization within the Columbia County Sheriff’s Department. CERT is serving the greater good of Columbia County.
2023 Kiwanis Community Parade route map
something for every one, Showing all The Wisdom of Columbia County.
1). Parade Marching Bands and Walking Groups need to have water, provide assistance to their members.
2). All parade group entries need to have basic first aid kits accessible.
3). Parade Standards to be enforced are:
• No Firearms, No Smoking, No Alcohol
• No Water Balloons or Sprayed Water on Community Watching the Parade
• No Exposed Wheels on Float Trailers
4). Unregistered Parade entries and unable to comply with parade rule will be removed.
5). In the event of any high risk motorized demonstration that participants may want to exhibit, that will require permission, signed waivers of liability.
NOTE: Your signature on Registration will confirm you have read and will comply will Rules and Liability Checklist. Be Safe! Have Fun! Thank You for Participating!
2023 Kiwanis Community Parade 7 sthelens@groceryoutlet.com • 205 Brayden St, St. Helens, OR 97051 503-410-5533 • groceryoutlet.com/circulars/storeid/471 Kiwanis Parade Columbia County Rodeo & Fair Queen Savannah Moore
2023 St. Helens High School Drumline & Color Guard
Here comes St. Helens High School Drumline & Color Guard! Their lively marching performance will have one dancing to their beat!
Dee Vandnais
The Columbia Chorale of Oregon selected landscape painting by Dee Vandnais as the visual representation to compliment their composition of “The Wisdom of Columbia County”
From Artist Dee Vandnais:
I am a working artist, living in Columbia County Oregon. I have a painting and printmaking studio. My main interest is in painting landscapes on site. I work in acrylic, watercolor and drawing mediums and create images for my paintings from direct observation, sketches,and compositions consisting of my interaction and response to the natural environment.
I also make images for printmaking,, monoprints and linocuts, using my original onsite work as a primary source. My work expresses my love of nature, while also exploring aspects of art, composition, materials, and work of other artists that I find exciting. I am largely
influenced by the disciplines and training I gained while earning a BFA at The Museum Art School in Portland in the 70’s (currently PNCA). My list of influences is long but includes contemporary professional artists, friends and others, and the historical record of work we are able to view in collections. The joy of studying new artists and ideas is neverending.
I have lived in Columbia County for over 50 years, am married, and raised our
two sons here in the Rainier area. I feel strongly about the lifestyle enjoyed by the people who have chosen to live here, and am enriched by the diversity of opinions and occupations. I have worked as a house designer, paper mill draftsperson, volunteered on many committees and been active in trying to serve our community. I have the privilege of being able to pursue my passions of landscape painting, gardening, tree farming, and community action.
Introducing Student Volunteer Entrepreneur Ellie Camille of St. Helens Kids
Clean-Up Group (SHKCG)
Ellie’s desire to have representation with the local youth of St. Helens by joining them together and making friends to help better our beautiful city feel clean. They plan on meeting weekly in the evening to bond and clean!
St. Helens Kiwanis welcomes SHKCG to their very first event in the very important task of following pa-rade with picking up candy and miscellaneous debris left behind from the parade. One can find SHKCG on Face Book.
2023 Kiwanis Community Parade 8
SINGING EAGLES OF MODOC OF MEDICINE CREEK
David Thornberry
Publisher
Jeremy C. Ruark
Regional Executive Editor
