UV Magazine Summer 2018

LIFESTYLE MAGAZINE OF THE UMPQUA VALLEY

Summer 2018 • volume 4

SOUNDS OF THE UMPQUA OF GARDENS AND GRILLS READY TO TRY CYCLING?

FROM DRIVE-INS AND GRAFFITI WEEKEND TO MUSIC ON THE HALF SHELL, THERE’S NO SHORTAGE OF FUN UNDER THE UV SUN.

Introducing New Nonstop Flights from Eugene to San Diego!

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FEATURES 42

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CPA PHOTOGRAPHER

GUITAR HERO

HIT THE ROAD

Now that he’s retired, Tom Wicks can focus more time on his photography.

It’s not easy to get to Todd Clinesmith, but it’s easier than getting one of his guitars.

When it comes to summer activities, it’s hard to beat cycling through the Umpqua Valley.

DEPARTMENTS UMPQUA LIFE

FOOD + WINE

CULTURE

10 TAKING HIS SHOW ON THE ROAD

24 NEW FROM THE GRAPEVINE

32 IN A MANNER OF SPEAKING

One-man band Acousta Noir takes a summer tour of the U.S. and Europe.

12 SPEED THRILLS Summer weekends are busy at Douglas County Speedway.

14 ROADSIDE ATTRACTION A stop at K&R Drive Inn can be habit forming.

16 ALL-AMERICAN GRAFFITI

Three new wineries open, and one reopens.

26 FIRE UP THE GRILL Grillmaster Wayne Parker shares some recipes.

28 UMPQUA PICK-A-LICIOUS Your guide to Douglas County’s u-pick sites.

30 HIT THE DECKS Where to dine outside this summer.

Graffiti Weekend fans have the Stray Angels

The origin of many of our region’s colorful names can be found in Chinook Trade Jargon.

34 SOUL MAN Colton Thomas pursues a soulful, and unlikely, passion.

36 THEATER OF THE MIND Sutherlin radio museum provides a fascinating look back at the medium’s golden age.

38 LEGENDS OF THE UMPQUA

to thank for its existence.

Sister Jacquetta Taylor made an indelible

18 UV INTERVIEW

impact on local health care.

The Drive-By Truckers’ co-founder explains the band’s song “Guns of Umpqua.”

HEALTH

BUSINESS

OUTDOORS

58 TAKING CARE OF THE SKIN YOU’RE IN

68 SPIN CITY

74 UV DAY TRIP

How to keep your skin healthy and glowing.

62 THE HEALING POWER OF MUSIC Volunteer musicians provide more than entertainment at Mercy Medical Center.

63 TAKING LIVES TO THE NEXT LEVEL Andrea Bowden brings obstacle course racing to Roseburg and UCC.

66 FANCY FOOTWORK…ANKLES, TOO Moving to Roseburg has done Dr. Brandon Bishop, his family and patients a world of good.

The Record Loft answers the increased demand for vinyl.

70 ALTERNATIVE LEARNING Educators share the unique traits of their preschools.

72 LOCAL LISTENING Check out the latest offerings from local musicians.

Explore Glide, Idleyld and beyond.

78 GARDENING IN EDEN The Umpqua Valley is a little slice of heaven for gardening enthusiasts.

80 SANDTASTIC! DuneFest in Winchester Bay draws ATV enthusiasts from near and far.

ALSO IN THIS ISSUE 06 Editor’s Letter 09 Contributors 22 UV Loves 82 Last Word

SOUNDS OF THE UMPQUA

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E DITOR’ S LETTER

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met my first honest-to-goodness nun 25 years ago at Mercy Medical Center.

I had driven from Portland for a job interview with Sister Jacquetta Taylor, who ran Mercy for 27 years. I had no intention of taking the job, if offered, but agreed to interview as a favor to a friend, who conveniently forgot to tell me about Jacquetta’s powers of persuasion.

I was dreading that meeting. I knew nothing about nuns, and being ignorant always makes me nervous. But Jacquetta turned out to be not scary at all. In place of the habit I had envisioned, she wore plain clothes and a warm smile. She also had a wicked sense of humor, and I liked her immediately. I left that meeting as Mercy’s new marketing director.

About a month later, during my first senior management team meeting, I reintroduced myself to my new boss by spilling my coffee all over a folder that apparently held every single important document she had ever possessed. An inauspicious start, but it got better.

CONTACT ME editor@TheUVlife.com

It got better, in part, because I soon learned the Mercy culture mirrored its leader – kind, compassionate, respectful of all. It was the dream organization to market because I always knew whatever I promoted in words would be backed in action.

Jacquetta was smart and kind, but also tough when she needed to be. Funny, too. I once told her the results of some brilliant strategy I had would “kill two birds with one stone” to which she replied sadly, “Dick, why would you want to kill one bird, let alone two?”

Her being a nun and all, I wasn’t entirely sure she was joking until she burst out laughing, not at her joke, but at my semistupefied reaction.

All this is by way of introducing a new UV feature called “Legends of the Umpqua.” In this and future issues, we plan to highlight people from our area who have had positive impact on the lives of those around them. And we’re starting with one who had an immeasurable impact on mine.

Dick Baltus Editor in Chief

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Sounds of the Umpqua

PAGE 18 I encourage you to read my interview with the co-founder of one of my favorite bands about the song he wrote inspired by the 2015 UCC tragedy.

PAGE 42 If you’ve been buying the stereotype that accountants can’t be creative, the photography of longtime CPA Tom Wicks will change your mind.

Page 52 When it comes to great cycling destinations, the Umpqua Valley is a hidden treasure.

Writer Jenny Wood and some friends share some of their favorite routes.

Community Banking for Local Professionals growth and economic development, and to the people who make our town feel like home.

• • • We’ve been proudly serving our Oregon communities since 1979.

Contact your local banker today to experience the value of community banking!

2555 NW Edenbower • Roseburg • (541) 677-9454 • www.opbc.com

SUMMER 2018

EDITOR IN CHIEF

Dick Baltus

CREATIVE DIRECTOR

Tyler James

CHIEF PHOTOGRAPHER

DESIGNERS

CONTRIBUTING EDITOR

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS

ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES

PUBLISHED BY

OWNED AND OPERATED BY

LIFESTYLE + TRAVEL MAGAZINE OF THE UMPQUA VALLEY TheUVlife.com

Thomas Boyd

Kylee Lee, Michael Williamson, Elissa Stratton Smith Jim Hays

Jennifer D. Coalwell, Jennifer Grafiada, Nate Hansen, Robert Leo Heilman, Brandon Johns, Vicki Menard, Doug Pedersen, Becky Radliff, Nancy Rodriguez, David Shroyer, Jenny Wood Nicole Galster, Tristin Godsey, Chris Pietsch, Tim Stephanos, Tom Wicks

Misty Ross, Nicole Galster

ADAMS, HULL + MACCLUER, INC. 603 S.E. Jackson St., Roseburg, OR 97470 ahmbrands.com

UV is owned and operated by The Umpqua Life LLC, a partnership of AHM Brands, CHI Mercy Health and Derek A. Adams

UV Magazine copyright 2018 by The Umpqua Life LLC. All rights reserved. No part of the publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information storage and retrieval system without the express written consent of The Umpqua Life LLC. The views and opinions expressed within UV magazine are the authors’ and do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of The Umpqua Life LLC, its employees, staff or management.

SOUNDS OF THE UMPQUA

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TAKING HIS SHOW ON THE ROAD / SPEED THRILLS / ALL-AMERICAN GRAFFITI / THE UV INTERVIEW: PATTERSON HOOD / UV LOVES

TAKING HIS SHOW ON THE ROAD Josh Esterline has parlayed success with his one-man band, Acousta Noir, into a lengthy summer tour of the U.S. and Europe.

Story by Nate Hansen Photo by Thomas Boyd

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UMPQUA LIFE

J

osh Esterline is a musician of many talents and, if you attend one of his gigs, you’re likely to see most of them on display during a single song.

After years of playing with various regional bands, the Roseburg resident has found success with his solo project Acousta Noir — solo being the operative word here. A true one-man band, Acousta Noir is all Esterline — singing, playing guitar and keeping a drum beat with his feet.

But those interested in catching one of the multi-talented musician’s

Esterline guesses his first Acousta Noir show was in August 2013 at Draper’s Draft House in downtown Roseburg. “I played there a few times in place of ChampionSHIP, to a good response. The name came from a buddy of mine saying my music sounded dark, like noir.

So I ran with it.”

Acousta Noir found success quickly. Esterline embarked on his first national tour in October 2013, and since then has spent a lot of time on the road. Acousta Noir has made three U.S. tours in addition to three previous European trips.

Esterline’s travels abroad sound like something out of a rock ‘n’ roll storybook. “Every musician dreams of touring in another country,” he says. “You always hear success stories about acts getting huge in Europe.”

How Esterline found his way to Europe in the first place is pretty fantastical as well.

“In 2014, two couples from France were traveling the United States when their RV broke down in Roseburg,” he says. “They wandered into Draper’s while I was playing a set and we all hit it off. They told me I should come to Europe sometime. A few months later I contacted them about doing a tour, and almost a year to the day after I first met them I landed in France.”

Before returning to Europe this summer, Esterline will be touring the U.S. with the punk-bluegrass band Larry and his Flask. He also plans to release a new Acousta Noir album, which he describes as “darker and heavier” than its predecessors.

Photo by Tim Stephanos

shows will have to wait until he returns from an extended tour of the U.S. and Europe this summer.

Esterline spent five years in Portland, playing with the band Blackout Radio, before returning to Roseburg in 2010 and performing with the folk-rock trio ChampionSHIP. That’s when he began playing drums with his feet, a tricky feat he kept in his act when he became Acousta Noir.

Despite Acousta Noir’s long and at times exotic travel schedule, Esterline says there’s no chance he’ll lose touch with his hometown.

He has a special affinity for the people who live in the area, including the business owners who give him a chance to play as well as those who have given him temporary jobs when he’s not touring.

“I’ve been a lot of places, and there’s a reason I still call Roseburg home,” he says. “This area is full of good people, and I’d really like to thank the small-business owners. If it wasn’t for them, I wouldn’t be able to do what I do.”

SOUNDS OF THE UMPQUA

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UMPQUA LIFE

SPEED THRILLS From sprint cars to NASCAR, there’s something going on every summer weekend at Douglas County Speedway.

Story by Doug Pedersen Photos by Thomas Boyd

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othing is simple about a left turn at high speed.

Watching a skilled NASCAR driver barrel toward those oncoming corners, just inches from an unforgiving wall and six other drivers, can turn anyone into a racing fan.

At least that’s what Rob Thomas is hoping as he and his crew of volunteers get the Douglas County Speedway ready for another season of close calls and high-speed finishes.

The speedway at Douglas County Fairgrounds is a paved, slightly banked oval four-tenths of a mile around. During the spring and summer, it hosts everything from go-karts to a NASCAR Pro Series West race among its weekly Saturday events.

And a full racing calendar is just what Thomas likes.

“There’s a race of some kind every weekend all summer long, including sprint cars and fun events like the boat and trailer races,” Thomas says. “Plus, NASCAR comes to our oval every year with the K&N Pro Series West.”

Thomas is the guy who coordinates everything at the speedway.

He’s currently the president of the Pacific Racing Association, which operates the oval. He’s also pit boss at every speedway event.

That’s when he’s not at his day job as program director and morning host on 101 KSKR-FM. Thomas is the heart, mind and soul of Douglas County Speedway.

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The NASCAR K&N Pro Series West has raced at the Douglas County Speedway off and on since 1968. Originally known as Winston West, and later the Camping World series, it’s a regional tour of smaller tracks in the western U.S. Speeds can reach more than 100 mph, and several NASCAR drivers, including Kevin Harvick, are veterans of the circuit.

The 2018 event is scheduled for Saturday, June 30, and will feature Derek Kraus, the series’ Rookie of the Year last year and a fan favorite. Only 16, Kraus started racing NASCAR before he could legally drive a car.

“My dad took me to try go-karts when I was 9,” he says. “That’s when I got into racing.”

According to the National Speedway Directory, Oregon is home to eight oval tracks. But Douglas County Speedway is the state’s only paved oval and the only track to host an annual NASCAR event.

Racing at Douglas County Speedway has produced some local celebrities and stories. “‘Grandpa’ Roy Harvey is one of our longtime local racers who crashed a few years back,” Thomas says. “He flipped his car over the wall and into the parking lot. Everyone thought he died.”

Harvey was 83 at the time, but it was only after that crash that he decided to stop racing. He’s become one of the speedway’s active volunteers and its go-to historian with 45 years’ experience on the oval.

A current driver is Monte Cox, owner of Oakland Auto.

“The first time I ever raced was in a sprint car,” Cox says. “I was hooked.”

Along with his automotive career, Cox is a past president of Pacific Racing Association and knows what fans want to see at the speedway.

“People want to see something new every weekend,” he says.

“That’s what brings them out.”

This season’s program includes fundraisers for local charities.

“The racing community is amazing,” Thomas says. “One of our longtime volunteers is currently dying of cancer. We’re going to be raising money for her family to help pay some of the bills.

Race for a Cause will be here to help out, too.”

While they might be adversaries on the track, it’s clear that members of the racing community come together to help one another.

“A local racing family lost most of their cars, trophies, tools and a lot more to a fire last year,” Thomas says. “The community came together, helped them clean up and urged them to get back into the race.”

The Douglas County Speedway is part of the fairgrounds complex off Interstate 5. The racing schedule and more information are available online at douglascountyspeedway.com.

SOUNDS OF THE UMPQUA

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UMPQUA LIFE

I ROADSIDE ATTRACTION For nearly a half-century, K&R Drive Inn at Rice Hill has been a can’t-miss stop on the I-5 corridor for ice cream lovers of all ages.

Story by David Shroyer Photos by Thomas Boyd

t started back in 1970 as the wild-hare idea of Ruth Emery, who thought she could build a restaurant business at the Rice Hill exit off Interstate 5 selling burgers, fries and, especially, ice cream

With help from her husband, Ben, and brother-in-law, Cliff, the K&R Drive Inn opened a week before Christmas of that year, operating out of a converted, single-wide trailer at Exit 148.

It was not an instant success. That first day, total sales were less than $30 and didn’t get much better through that first winter. But Emery kept it going.

And just look at it now.

K&R is in its 48th year of operation, and the Emerys have passed away, but not before expanding the business to three times its original size and making it a can’t-miss destination for many travelers on the I-5 corridor. Those $30 days in the beginning have become a half-million in annual sales. And much of that revenue goes back into the community, both in supply purchases and in payroll to the many workers who have served customers over the years.

Current owner Becky Bender, a former K&R manager and employee since 1984, has seen a lot of changes, not the least of which was the addition of a walk-in freezer to store the up to 1,000 gallons of Umpqua Dairy ice cream kept on hand during peak season. And K&R also built and maintains a separate

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UMPQUA LIFE

warehouse to store everything from hot fudge toppings to pickles.

Not to mention the cups, cones, straws and napkins it goes through by the case.

On a typical day, K&R might sell as much as 400 gallons of ice cream, the equivalent of more than 3,500 individual cones. Its ice cream options come in the form of a single scoop — which still weighs in at 5.5 ounces — a nine-ounce double scoop, a 12-ounce triple scoop and a “Colossal” sixscoop cone that sometimes requires a balancing act to eat.

Then there’s the group-sized “Pig Out Bowl,” which includes as many of the Drive Inn’s 30 ice-cream flavors as will fit into a 32-ounce dish.

K&R sells so much Umpqua Dairy ice cream that the two companies have enjoyed a decades-long, mutually beneficial relationship.

(Left) Don’t be fooled by K&R’s unassuming facade. It’s hiding tasty treasures.

(Below) Bailey Nixon tackles the Colossal featuring six different flavors of Umpqua Ice Cream.

“They really helped put us on the map,” says Steve Feldkamp, Umpqua Dairy’s chief operations officer and a member of its founding family.

“They sell a lot of our ice cream.”

When Feldkamp joined the family business in the 1980s and moved back to Roseburg from Santa Cruz, Calif., he discovered Umpqua Dairy and the K&R were well-known to many of his California neighbors.

“They were saying things like, ‘That’s the ice cream you can get at that drive-in off the interstate,’” Feldkamp recalls. “I’ll bet we got more marketing value out of K&R Drive Inn back in the day than we spent in marketing dollars.”

Katie Decker, a manager at K&R and an employee of 15 years, says that K&R’s ice cream reputation and prime location are the main reasons for the Drive Inn’s diverse and loyal following.

“It’s a nice stop for people to get out, stretch their legs and reboot with ice cream before resuming their travels,” Decker says, adding that she serves people of all kinds and from all over — from sports teams on their way to or from an event to first-time visitors to the U.S. “We have people who make yearly cross-country trips, and we are always one of their stops,” Decker says. “And I have local customers who claim they have no control over their vehicle, that it just simply knows it’s an automatic stop.”

Some don’t have to travel far. K&R’s local following is just as loyal.

And it’s not just the ice cream that brings in customers. K&R serves burgers, hot sandwiches, chili and fries that keep people coming back. All are homemade and made to order.

Some customers are such regulars that K&R workers are already putting their orders together before they get to the counter.

Jim Beattie, a Yoncalla native now living in Sweet Home, says the K&R has always been a destination, even when he was living in Arizona. His trips back to his home state always included Exit 148.

“The burgers are just awesome,” says Beattie, who can remember flipping hundreds of them himself as a young K&R employee more than 30 years ago. He now brings his own kids and grandchildren to the place just off the interstate.

That’s just the way Ruth Emery would have wanted it. Turns out she didn’t just open a restaurant on that December day nearly a halfcentury ago.

She started a phenomenon.

And if you’re an all-around fan of all-American drive-ins, don’t forget to try Johnny’s in Winston (bottom right) and Pete’s in Roseburg (see Page 16).

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UMPQUA LIFE

ALL-AMERICAN GRAFFITI

Graffiti Weekend is one of Douglas County’s favorite annual events, and everyone who gets revved up about it has a group of angels to thank for its existence.

Story by Brandon Johns Photos by Thomas Boyd

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T

he approach of Roseburg Graffiti Weekend always brings back fond memories.

Special Olympics, Muscular Dystrophy Association, American Heart Association, Rotary and Lions Club.

It seems like yesterday the rumble from my new motor-build — financed by my hay-bucking savings — serenaded my ears as my buddies and I drove to River Forks Park for the Show-N-Shine.

These programs have all benefited from the many thousands of dollars the Stray Angels have raised and contributed over the years.

Back then, I hoped for a sighting of a super rare car from my young gearhead dreams — maybe a Plymouth Superbird, Cobra Jet Mustang or Yenko Camaro. With oldies supplying the mood music, everybody was having fun scoping out all the cool rides.

In 1958, a group of five young, local car lovers decided to form a club, one that didn’t require members to own a classic automobile. Simply having a passion for cars would be the only criterion for membership — plus a can-do attitude about community service.

Later, we would head downtown for the big cruise.

With a band rocking on the corner, chromed-out V-8s and custom paint jobs were all over the place and the town was jumping. After the cruise ended, maybe some street drags on the edge of town.

I was confident my recent engine hop-up would someday blow some doors off, but it mostly just made the doors rattle more on my own 1974 Camaro.

This all led up to one of my favorite summer nights every year — the Graffiti Cruise. So with those memories driving me, I decided to learn more about the car club that was instrumental in making all this fun happen — the Stray Angels.

I cruised to Pete’s Drive-In on Harvard Avenue looking for a blue 1939 Ford, the ride of Gordon Boyd, director of the Stray Angels. His car was easy to spot among the dozen or so cherry classics in the parking lot. I hopped out, and we started chatting.

Now a sweet 1948 Plymouth pulls into Pete’s, and Boyd introduces me to the owner, Don Larsen.

The new club needed a name, and Larsen’s mother, unwittingly, had a say in that.

“When we were trying to choose a name for the club, I remember my mom mentioning that we were all angels,” Larsen says. “We just strayed at times.”

The Plymouth that Larsen wheels into Pete’s on this day is a reproduction of the original car he drove when the Stray Angels were founded.

Years later, in 1982, the story goes, the Stray Angels and another car club, the Umpqua Flatheads, were at Pete’s Drive-In when the idea for a cruise was hatched.

The original cruise was on Harvard Avenue between Pete’s, which the Stray Angels staked out, and the old A&W, which the Flatheads claimed. The event was such a hit that the next year Stray Angels members hosted a car show at River Forks Park.

The newly organized Show-NShine provided a spot for cruisers Members of the Stray Angels gather at Roseburg’s Pete’s Drive-In, the same place they hung out when the group formed 60 years ago. to park, show off their cars and visit. The first show drew 125 cars, a number that has grown to nearly 600.

“I joined the Stray Angels just to have fun and help some folks out,” Boyd says. “Stray Angels really pride themselves in being active in Over time, the Show-N-Shine and Graffiti Night Cruise events combined to become Graffiti Weekend, a five-day celebration of the community.” classic cars that this year begins with the “Street Memories” show The community involvement makes for a long list: Veterans of on the Fourth of July at Roseburg Veterans Hospital.

Foreign Wars, Meals on Wheels, VA PTSD unit, Winston community and teen center, Roseburg Senior Center, Camp Millennium, I still look forward to it every year, as do a whole lot of other Douglas YMCA, Battered Person’s Advocacy, Bowman handicap fishing County residents and out of towners. Some things never change. pond, UCAN Food Bank, Douglas County Special Equipment Fund, For details about Roseburg’s annual Graffiti Weekend visit Douglas County Cancer Services, Doernbecher Children’s Hospital, graffitiweekend.com SOUNDS OF THE UMPQUA

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TRUCKERS’ TRIBUTE Patterson Hood, co-founder of the Drive-By Truckers, explains how an overnight stay in Roseburg and the 2015 tragedy at UCC inspired him to write ‘Guns of Umpqua,’ a song on one of the most critically acclaimed albums of 2016.

Story/Interview by Dick Baltus

T

he Drive-By Truckers may not be a household name in Douglas County, but they should be.

For more than two decades they’ve been producing consistently great rock/country-influenced songs that tell rich stories of life in the “Dirty South.” Their latest release, American Band, was named to multiple “Best Albums of 2016” lists, including NPR’s (#14), Rolling Stone’s (#24) and Billboard’s (#39).

But beyond those reasons, there is now a permanent bond between the Drive-By Truckers and Douglas County in the form of one of the best songs on American Band. Written and sung by band cofounder Patterson Hood, “Guns of Umpqua” was inspired by the tragedy at Umpqua Community College on Oct. 1, 2015.

It’s a beautiful mid-tempo ballad that explores the incongruous juxtaposition of horrific events in idyllic, unlikely settings — and of heroes fighting wars overseas, only to return to new dangers at home.

Southerners to their core, the Truckers have been based in Athens, Ga., for years. But the summer before the UCC shootings, Hood relocated with his family to Portland. In the liner notes for American Band, he describes the last night of their trip: “On my family’s three-week cross-country drive to Portland, we spent the last evening of our journey in a sleepy college town called Roseburg, Oregon. A couple of months later, on a stunningly beautiful autumn morning, someone in that town opened fired on the campus of Umpqua Community College, killing ten and injuring seven* others. I was at home with my family when the news broke and I walked around all day in a daze of questioning and sadness. I wrote “Guns of Umpqua” on a flight back to Atlanta a few days later. It’s fictionalized, but there’s far too much truth within it.” (*Editor’s Note: The shooter killed nine; he shot himself after being injured by police detectives. Eight others were wounded.)

In the following email interview with UV, Hood talks about the song and his new life in Oregon.

The Drive-By Truckers: Brad Morgan, Patterson Hood, Mike Cooley, Jay Gonzalez and Matt Patton.

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INTERVIEW UV: Can you describe how the UCC tragedy affected you and inspired you to write “Guns of Umpqua?”

Patterson Hood: In the summer of 2015, my wife and two kids and I moved from Athens, Georgia, to Portland. We drove across in the Honda minivan and turned it into a three-week vacation — kind of a Chevy Chase meets David Lynch vacation movie. Lots of great times, and some terrible and some surreal thrown in for good measure.

The night we stopped in Denver, we heard the news of the horrific Charleston, S.C., church shooting. I was already in the midst of the American Band album and that event deeply affected the writing of it. The final leg of the journey was driving up I-5 to Portland. We stopped for the final night in Roseburg.

I was sitting on my front porch in Portland on the morning of Oct. 1, drinking coffee and reading the news, when I heard about the (UCC) shooting.

I remembered the pretty town and the beautiful geography surrounding it and was taken by what a really beautiful northwestern fall morning it was. I wrote “Guns of Umpqua” a couple of days later.

UV: Were you inspired to write the song because, now, it felt close to home? Or was it a matter of getting to a point where you felt you had to address the issue of gun violence?

PH: It was a little of all of the above.

Pondering how something like that could happen on such a gorgeous day and in such a beautiful place. I had long wanted to write a song addressing the gun culture in our country and the mass shootings that were happening with more and more frequency, but never found my entry point to it for a song.

I also learned about the former soldier (Chris Mintz) that had been shot, and thankfully lived, and that entered it also.

He survived the Mideast and got shot back home going to school. I wrote the majority of it really fast, but I did spend a good deal of time tweaking and editing it. It was hard to learn to sing also, but I think we got a good take and we play it really well live now.

UV: In the American Band liner notes you address the divisiveness in this country, the red/blue, rural/ urban divide. Nowhere is that more apparent than in people’s opinions about guns. Do you see any hope for compromise or even rational discussion around this issue?

PH: I think the vast majority of folks would like to see some sane moves in a positive direction on the issue, but the NRA has so much power and money and the militant ones are so loud and obnoxiously uncompromising.

I think I’ll live to see it and I’m very encouraged by the efforts of the kids that have been rising up. But it’s going to be a long struggle.

UV: How have you and your family adapted to your new Oregon home?

PH: I absolutely love it here. I’ve loved Portland for years, ever since the first time I played here. It’s so stunningly beautiful, and the climate really suits me. I love the people and the food and honestly about everything about it.

UV: Do you get recognized in Portland?

PH: Sure. We’ve been playing up here for nearly 20 years. I’ve been treated wonderfully by everyone. The move has really benefited my writing, and it’s been great having a bigger West Coast presence for the band.

UV: Do your children understand your fame, and do they ever try to take advantage of it?

PH: They look at it with a little puzzlement.

“Why is that person looking at Daddy?” That kind of thing. Most people are respectful, and I especially appreciate that when the kids are with me.

UV: How have you adapted to living across the country from the rest of the band? For example, how do you rehearse?

PH: My partners were unbelievably supportive of the whole endeavor. We honestly never rehearse. We’ve played so long and so often. When there’s a new album or show to work up we get together for a few days and woodshed.

Otherwise we work up songs at sound check and wing it a lot. Keeps it fresh.

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UMPQUA LIFE

‘ Guns of Umpqua’ Watch The Drive-By Truckers perform “Guns of Umpqua” at theuvlife.com.

I see birds soaring through the clouds outside my window

I made it back from hell’s attack in some distant bloody war

Smell the fresh paint of a comfort shade on this new fall day

Only to stare down hell back home

Feel the coffee surge through morning veins from half an hour ago

Outside my mind I wander freely past this rocky shore

Hear the sound of shots and screams out in the hallway

Waves crash against the banks where Lewis and Clark explored

Spent my last weekend camping out

We’re all standing in the shadows of our noblest intentions of something more

Again down the roadways Just me and Joan and a couple of friends on this beautiful trail Watched the sun slip down behind a mountain stream in these great Cascades Saw a mighty hawk swoop down upon a stream to devour its prey

Than being shot in a classroom in Oregon It’s a morning like so many others with breakfast and birthdays The sun burned the fog away, breeze blew the mist away My friend Jack just had him a baby I see birds soaring through the clouds

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Now we’re moving chairs in some panic mode to barricade the doors

Outside my window today

As my heart rate surges on adrenaline and nerves I feel I’ve been here before

Heaven’s calling my name from the hallway outside the door

UV . SUMMER 2018

Heaven’s calling my name from the hallway outside the door

UMPQUA LIFE

Peer back in time... at the Umpqua Valley’s Museums

jewelry • clothing • decor

DISCOVER WHAT’S INSIDE

Umpqua River Lighthouse 1020 Lighthouse Road, Winchester Bay 541-271-4631 Douglas County Museum 123 Museum Drive, Roseburg 541-957-7007 Colliding Rivers Exploration Station 18782 North Umppqua Hwy, Glide 541-496-0157

www.umpquavalleymuseums.org

556 SE Jackson Street • 541-236-2421

CHUCK’S

us

TEXACO SERVICE 56 Years of Award Winning Service Chuck McCullum (541) 673-4044 Business (541) 434-6294 Cell

912 SE Stephens, Roseburg, OR 97470 ROTARY’S “BUSINESS OF THE YEAR AWARD”

LOCALLY OWNED

Waterjet Robot with technically advanced craftsmanship in use. Over 300 slabs of fine quality stone in stock.

Granite, Quartz, Marble, Soapstone and more.

403 N.E. Winchester St., Roseburg • 541-440-0985 • umpquastone.com

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UMPQUA LIFE

OUTDOOR FUN

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LOVES SHOPPING IDEAS FOR HOT FUN IN THE SUMMERTIME.

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Associated Cellars & Gifts 444 N.E. Winchester, Roseburg Coastal Farm & Ranch 782 N.E. Garden Valley Blvd., Roseburg

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Roseburg Book & Stationery 549 S.E. Jackson St., Roseburg Gordon’s Pharmacy & Gifts 314 S. Main St., Canyonville Real Deals Home Decor 301 Melrose Road, Roseburg Spunky Steer 2395 N.W. Stewart Parkway, Roseburg Poppy Layne Clothing & Accessories 713 N.E. Stephens St., Roseburg

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Absolute Sound & Music 2210 N.W. Stewart Parkway, Roseburg Makena Beach Tan & Boutique 940 N.W. Garden Valley Blvd., Roseburg Simply Sarah Esthetician 713 N.E. Stephens St., Roseburg

Page Editor: Debi Ashley Photographer: Nicole Galster

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1. Associated Cellars & Gifts: Pioneer picnic basket. 2. Poppy Layne Clothing & Accessories: Milo & Trixie collapsible brass shot glass. 3. Gordon’s Pharmacy and Gifts: Thinking Outside The Bottle canteen. 4. Coastal Farm & Ranch: Yeti Rambler 14 oz. mug, 20 oz. mug and 30 oz. tumbler. 5. Gordon’s Pharmacy and Gifts: unbreakable wine glass tumblers. 6. Associated Cellars & Gifts: Grill Master platter. 7. Roseburg Book & Stationery: Boho 58-inch table covering/picnic blanket with pom poms. 8. Associated Cellars & Gifts: River Ranch Oregon olive oil, 51 Oregon marinade. 9. Real Deals Home Decor: Big Red outdoor planter/beverage holder. 10. Associated Cellars & Gifts: Mona B. cooler.

UMPQUA LIFE

MUSIC FUN 2.

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Absolute Sound & Music: 1. Orange Rocker amp. 2. Taylor Hybrid Electric Guitar. 3. Gretsch Ampli Sonic Resonator. 4. Luna Tribal pineapple ukulele. 5. Ortega bass ukulele. 6. Nino Pineapple or Banana percussion shaker.

DRESS-UP FUN

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1. Poppy Layne Clothing & Accessories: Double Zero pink bodysuit, floral shorts, Hi Fidelity gold fanny pack. 2. Makena Beach Tan & Boutique: cowgirl straw hat. 3. Giselle Cat Eye women’s sunglasses. 4. Roseburg Book & Stationery: Cuffs by Jason.

5. Spunky Steer: Corral women’s shorty cowgirl boots. 6. Makena Beach Tan & Boutique: Reef men’s Phantom print flip-flops. 7. Roseburg Book & Stationery: Jennifer Jones - JJ’s Junk: upcycled leather tote bag.

SAFE FUN

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Simply Sarah Esthetician: 1. HydroPeptide Solar Defense tinted sunscreen. 2. The MakeUp Eraser. 3. Flawless Darker Self Tan liquid self-tanner.

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FOOD + WINE

NEW FROM THE GRAPEVINE /

FIRE UP THE GRILL / UMPQUA PICK-A-LICIOUS / HIT THE DECKS

NEW FROM THE GRAPEVINE

Spire Mountain Cellars

Summer brings a colorful tranquility to the Umpqua Valley, which has seen some wineries open, expand and, in one case, rebound from catastrophe.

The winery had its grand opening on St. Patrick’s Day weekend. Adding to the celebration was a silver medal awarded to Spire Mountain’s 2014 Tempranillo at the 48th Annual Greatest of the Grape.

Story by Nancy Rodriguez Photo by Tim Stephanos

774 Hidden Meadows Ln, Oakland

The scenery at Spire Mountain is inspiring, the vineyard visible beneath a canopy of bright, blue sky that has revealed itself from above billowy, white clouds.

Wooden sliding doors open to reveal the renovated interior of an old barn that has been converted to a 4,000-square-foot event center with a view of the winery’s original Iron Wheel vineyard, planted in pinot noir.

Spire Mountain Cellars is a family business. Owners Kevin and Karen Kohlman have made their own legacy in the foothills of Tyee Mountain. The Kohlman home is the former Cole homestead, originally settled in 1903. In pursuing their winemaking dream, the Kohlmans left Southern California, purchased property on Hidden Meadows Lane in 1999 and planted a vineyard. Since then, they have gone from selling grapes to making their own wine, which is produced by Southern Oregon Wine Institute at Umpqua Community College.

Director of events and tasting room operations is daughter-inlaw Megan Kohlman, who embodies the winery’s welcoming warmth. Her contributions have included putting vines in the ground, wine in the bottle and everything between. Plans for the tasting room and events have expanded and will continue to create a customer experience that encompasses all the winery has to offer.

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Photo by Drink In Nature Photography

Lexeme 325 2nd Street, Elkton

Lexeme is a new winery in the Elkton American Viticultural Area. Its name is derived from the French, a play on the phrase “root of the vines.”

JosephJane Winery 155 Lower Garden Valley Road, Roseburg

The JosephJane Winery was established in 2017 by owners Leon and Kayla Glaser.

The winery and tasting room are crafted with a meticulous detail also seen in JosephJane’s winemaking. The grapes are sourced from the Umpqua and surrounding regions.

The setting on Lower Garden Valley Road reflects the ongoing legacy of renewal, with not only the onset of summer but in building on the past to bottle a new vintage of Glaser wines.

Within a year of selling the Glaser Estate Winery, which was operated

by Leon and his mother Sandy, he and Kayla broke ground on their new location, started making wine and built the tasting room.

Summer plans include events at the winery that will help promote other local businesses and continue the couple’s tradition of community service.

Owners Monja Hudson-Desmeules and Christopher Hudson bring a blend of cultures and winemaking styles from diverse parts of the world.

Monja is from Switzerland, Christopher from Eastern Oregon. Their wine features the varietals that have come to define the Umpqua Valley. Each of the partners brings an individual style that complements the other and a respect that is revealed in the wine.

“The wine tells it all,” Hudson says.

The couple crossed paths when both worked at King Estate Winery and discovered a shared passion for making straightforward, exceptional wine.

They have since built a house on their property in Elkton, started a family and planted a vineyard with a view of the Umpqua River.

Falk Estate Vineyard 551 Falk Estates Lane, Canyonville

In December 2017, the grand opening of the Falk Estate tasting room in Canyonville was celebrated in the Falk family’s home of 30 years. Little more than a month later, fire destroyed both the home and tasting room.

Determined to rebuild, Canyonvile native Greg Falk and his daughter, Tessa, managed to salvage an estimated 90 percent of their wine.

The vineyard planted in 2014 is nine acres of nine varietals. As in medicine, Falk says, there is always something new to learn about winemaking. Tessa is a teacher and inherited her father’s love of learning. She has followed him into the vineyard. So has Brodie Goldbeck, Tessa’s fiancé.

The winery bottles its product under two brands, “Lexeme” and “Louloute,” the latter an introductory label.

The Falk Estate has produced an impressive range of varietals, and its red blend, Le Mardon, named in honor of the Falk matriarch, testifies to the importance the Falks place on family.

Lexeme’s tasting room opened in October 2017. Flights include tastes of the winery’s viognier, pinot noir and a cabernet-malbec red blend.

As they recover from the shock of the Jan. 31 fire, the Falks are confident they can rebuild. As Tessa says, “There is magic in this place and it will come again.”

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FOOD + WINE

FIRE UP THE GRILL UV contributing writer Jenny Wood sat down with Wayne Parker to talk about a range of topics, from the history of Melrose Vineyards to the art of grilling to coming to grips with the death of his two best friends, including wife Deedy, within days of each other.

Melrose Vineyard’s Wayne Parker (left) and Chris Haro.

Here’s a sneak peek of the full article that you will find at theuvlife.com.

Photos by Samantha Starns

W

ayne Parker never looks more at home than when he is standing at the big grill behind the barn at his Melrose Vineyards, a short, scenic drive west of Roseburg.

There, next to the century-old barn that has been meticulously restored and repurposed as the winery’s tasting room, Parker can be found presiding over the preparation of grilled chicken, racks of ribs and homemade pork bratwurst.

Parker’s expertise is the result of more than three decades’ experience working with preparing meats — from his high school days as an apprentice meat-cutter through his years as a custom caterer. Along the way, he also learned to custom-build grills that have been in demand from outdoor chefs.

We asked Parker for some of his favorite recipes for summer grilling, which he generously provides here.

BARBECUED SICILIAN CHICKEN Mild Italian flavors in this grilled chicken make for a deliciously light dinner, perfect with a side of vegetables and salad.

Pair with a fruity pinot noir, which will complement the seasonings of the dish without overpowering the chicken.

Ingredients

Directions

• ¼ cup fresh basil leaves, chopped

• Add chicken and marinate pieces from two to 24 hours. Remove from marinade and pat dry with paper towel.

• 2 Tbsp fresh garlic, chopped • 2 cups pinot gris • 1 Tbsp olive oil • 1 Tbsp SeasonAll • 1 Tbsp ground black pepper • 1 whole chicken, cut into 6 pieces

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• Grill over low heat for about 20 minutes, flipping once halfway. Chicken is done when internal temperature registers.

• 165 degrees.

FOOD + WINE

GREAT GRILLED VEGETABLES

STOVETOP BBQ BEANS

Wayne Parker likes to keep vegetables simple to reveal their naturally delicious grilled flavor.

No barbecue is complete without sweet and savory, smoky beans. For a vegetarian version, omit the bacon and use 2 Tbsp vegetable oil instead.

Ingredients

Directions

Ingredients

Directions

• 4 cups favorite vegetables: try asparagus, eggplant, bell pepper, onion, tomato, zucchini, summer squash and mushroom — cut to preference

• Combine oil, vinegar and herbs in a liquid measuring cup.

Using a large bowl, toss vegetables in marinade, coating well. Grill over medium heat until al dente. Finish with a sprinkle of sea salt.

• 1 lb dried beans (pinto or great northern work well) soaked and cooked (this equals about 3 16oz cans prepared beans)

• In a saucepan over medium heat, cook diced bacon until crisp. Remove bacon pieces, reserving rendered fat. Add diced onion to pan, stir, then add minced garlic cloves.

Saute for about 3 minutes.

Add cooked beans, barbecue sauce, brown sugar and beer.

Simmer until at desired consistency. Season to taste.

• ¼ cup olive oil • 1 Tbsp red wine vinegar • 2 Tbsp favorite seasoning blend (Italian herb blend, chili powder, or others) • 2 tsp sea salt

• 1 lb bacon, diced • 1 medium red onion, diced • 4 garlic cloves, minced • ½ cup homestyle barbecue sauce • 2 Tbsp brown sugar • 12 oz beer • Salt and pepper to taste

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FOOD + WINE

UMPQUA PICK-A-LICIOUS Picking your own berries this summer is not only economical, it’s also healthy and good family fun.

Story by Jennifer D. Coalwell

B

erry-picking season in the Umpqua Valley kicks off in late spring with red-ripe, sunsweetened strawberries and winds down in September with the last of the sweet/tart, finger-staining blackberries.

In between — from June through August — raspberries, cherries, blueberries, loganberries, marionberries and boysenberries come on in overlapping waves.

Whether you eat berries by the handful or turn them into jams, jellies, pies, crisps or cobblers, picking your own is an enjoyable and economical way to stock up. A few hours of sweat equity at the field or farm will make you rich in the kitchen. And better for the experience.

Local berries and cherries are grown for their superb flavor rather than shelf life.

“Picking your own is as fresh as it gets,” says John Malone, dedicated picker of strawberries and cherries.

“I make it a point to tell the farmer how much I appreciate the opportunity.”

Ed and Sharon Richardson of Big Bend Berries have been cultivating blueberries at their Garden Valley patch for nearly 30 years. They grow exclusively for u-pickers.

“Our customers become our friends and we look forward to their return each year,” says Sharon.

For Katrina Sanders, whose seven children range in age from 16 to 3, u-picking is a family outing.

“We love to take the whole family to pick,” she says. “It’s not only great quality time together, but also wonderful for teaching about different fruits; how they grow, how to store and how to cook with them.”

When Janet Catalano moved to Roseburg from Las Vegas six years ago, she had no idea picking berries would become a cherished summer ritual. Last year, she picked and packed more than 120 pounds of blueberries and strawberries, filling her freezer to capacity.

“I spread the picking over several weeks until I reach my quota,” says Catalano. “Not only is it superb summertime fun, I believe it helps me stay healthy by using berries in my smoothies all winter long.”

She’s right, of course. Loaded with fiber, vitamins and antioxidants, berries are bite-sized nutritional powerhouses. In his New York Times bestseller How Not to Die, Dr. Michael Greger recommends eating a half-cup of fresh or frozen berries daily.

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FOOD + WINE

PRESERVING YOUR PICKS The passing of the berry and cherry seasons does not mean you must do without. Freezing is a fast and easy way to preserve your harvest for yearround enjoyment. By flash-freezing berries before packaging, you can remove just the amount you need whenever you want it.

Strawberries: Rinse in cool water and drain well.

Remove green hulls. If desired, slice large berries in halves or quarters (for easier blending later) and spread out in a single layer on shallow pans or cookie sheets. Freeze until firm, then store in heavy-duty plastic bags, squeezing out as much air as possible.

Raspberries, blackberries and other cane berries: No stems or hulls to remove. Rinse, flashfreeze and package as for strawberries.

Cherries: Rinse cherries, remove stems and pits. An inexpensive plunger-type pitter works well. Flashfreeze and package as for berries.

Blueberries: Remove any green stems and freeze in plastic bags without rinsing (rinsing before freezing toughens the skins.) No need to flash-freeze first, as they do not stick together. When ready to use, give them a quick rinse in a colander, if desired.

A VERY BERRY CRISP Lightly sweetened berries under a blanket of oats and nuts.

This recipe works well using one type of berry or several.

Fruit filling:

Directions

• 5 cups fresh or frozen berries (slice strawberries, if using)

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Spray a 6-cup baking dish or 8x8-inch pan with oil and set aside.

• 1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice • 1/2 cup granulated sugar • 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour

Topping: • 1/3 cup whole wheat pastry flour or all-purpose flour • 1/3 cup firmly packed brown sugar • 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon • 1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg • a pinch of salt • 1/3 cup coarsely chopped nuts (walnuts, hazelnuts, pecans) • 1/3 cup rolled oats, regular or quick • 3 tablespoons butter, melted Photo by Tristin Godsey

Serves 5-6.

Fruit filling: Stir the sugar and flour together in a medium bowl. Add the berries and lemon juice and mix thoroughly. Spoon into the prepared pan.

Topping: Combine all the dry ingredients in the same bowl used for the berries. Stir in the melted butter until a crumbly mixture forms. Sprinkle all over the fruit.

Bake at 375 degrees for 35-40 minutes, until topping is golden brown and juices are bubbling.

Serve warm with a dollop of whipped cream or a scoop of vanilla ice cream, if desired.

WHERE TO PICK A guide to u-pick farms in the Umpqua Valley.

The Berry Patch 6271 Old Melrose Road, Roseburg 541-440-8484 Big Bend Berries 458 Big Bend Road, Roseburg 541-673-8767 Big Lick Farm 942 Winston Section Road, Winston 541-863-9587 Brosi’s Sugartree Farms 540 Winston Section Road, Winston 541-679-1472 DelEv’s Blueberry Patch 7062 S. MyrtleRoad Myrtle Creek 541-863-6830 Estill Farms 6680 Highway 38, Drain 541-836-7612 Guido Orchards 342 Shady Drive, Roseburg 541-670-1167 Haven Blueberry Farm 10246 Tyee Road Umpqua 541-459-0364 Kruse Farms Market, Bakery & Gift Shop 532 Melrose Road, Roseburg 541-672-5697 Larry’s Berries 123 Red Fox Lane, Sutherlin 541-459-4764 Lee’s Farm Market 625 Dillard Gardens Road, Winston 541-784-1427 Norm Lehne Garden & Orchards 386 Cleveland Rapids Road, Roseburg 541-672-2745 Paris Orchards 1692 Curry Road, Roseburg 541-673-6417 Valadez Organic Produce 219 Market Lane, Myrtle Creek 541-580-9418

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FOOD + WINE

Tyee Landing (below) and Salud Brewery and Food Truck are two of the many Douglas County eateries serving meals in the great outdoors during the warmer weather.

HIT THE DECKS Dining outside on one of Douglas County’s idyllic summer afternoons or evenings is one of the simple pleasures in life. When you’re ready to go al fresco, here are some restaurants eager to serve you.

Photos by Thomas Boyd

Backside Brewery 1640 N.E. Odell Ave., Roseburg Brix Chill Rooftop 527 S.E. Jackson St., Roseburg Gilberto’s 1347 N.E. Stephens St., Roseburg

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Lighthouse Center Bakery & Cafe 6461 Fort McKay Road, Umpqua McMenamin’s Roseburg Station Pub & Brewery 700 S.E. Sheridan St., Roseburg Old Soul Pizza 525 S.E. Main St., Roseburg

Parrott House 1851 S.E. Stephens St., Roseburg Pedotti’s Italian Restaurant 1332 W. Central Ave., Sutherlin Red Robin Gourmet Burgers 2200 N.W. Stewart Parkway, Roseburg

Salud Brewery and Food Truck 723 S.E. Lane Ave., Roseburg

Tomaselli’s Pastry Mill & Cafe 14836 Oregon 38, Elkton

Schooner Inn Cafe 423 River Front Way, Reedsport

Tolly’s (Summer reopening planned) 115 N.E. Locust Oakland

Splitz Family Grill 2400 N.E. Diamond Lake Blvd., Roseburg

Tyee Landing 11424 OR-138 Oakland

FOOD + WINE

WHAT’S IN A NAME? / SOUL MAN / THEATER OF THE MIND / A LEGACY OF COMPASSION

WHAT’S IN A NAME? If you’re looking for the definition of “Umpqua” you’ve come to the wrong place. But the origin of many of our region’s other colorful names can be found in Chinook Trade Jargon.

Story by Robert Leo Heilman Photography courtesy of Douglas County Museum

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T

he names of several Douglas County places and landmarks are words that are unique to the Pacific Northwest.

Umpqua, the most prominent example, is a word of unknown origin that is not known to exist in any language other than English — and then only as a place name for a Native American tribe, our home valleys and our rivers. No one knows what, if anything, Umpqua meant before Hudson’s Bay Co. fur trappers arrived in the early 19th century and applied it to the land and an Athabascan-speaking tribe.

Kalapuya, Calapooia and Calapooya are variations on the name of a native tribe who lived in the southern Willamette Valley and the northern part of what is now Douglas County around Yoncalla (the latter a native word meaning “valley of eagles”).

Interstate 5 today crosses the Calapooya Divide, which separates modern Lane County from Douglas County. Calapooya Creek rises east of Sutherlin and flows nearly 40 miles to the Umpqua River.

CULTURE

As bits of logger slang, some jargon survived in common use into the 1970s.

The jargon consists of about 400 to 600 words, many of which have multiple meanings.

Native carvings in the Umpqua River near Scottsburg.

Most of the local names we think of as Native American actually are derived from Chinook Trade Jargon, a simplified language that is a mix of Native, French and English words used up and down the West Coast in the mid-19th century and which stayed in occasional use into the early 20th century. As bits of logger slang, some jargon survived in common use into the 1970s.

The jargon consists of about 400 to 600 words, many of which have multiple meanings.

a Chinook jargon word meaning “bad” or “worthless.”

Cultus Creek and Cultus Lake, near Azalea, somehow both acquired this term as a name. What made the creek and lake so bad or worthless? We’re left to wonder.

Skookum, one of the most common jargon names in Douglas County, can mean “strength” or “power,” but also “spirit” or “ghost.” We have Skookum Creek, Skookum Lake, Skookum Prairie and a Skookum Chuck Camp upriver from Tiller.

Oregon has several streams named Deer Creek, in addition to the one that flows beneath Jackson Street in Roseburg. But there is also Mowich Creek and Mowich Park locally — “mowich” is a jargon word for deer.

Combining “skookum” with “chuck” means “strong water.” I have heard older loggers speak of having “enough skookum” to pull a load uphill or to lift a log. The SkookumTyee yarder was a popular bit of heavy logging equipment made by Tyee Machinery Works for many years prior to the company’s demise in the early 1980s.

Tyee can refer to a chief or to salmon. It’s also the name of an unincorporated community on the Umpqua River between Sutherlin and Elkton. “Hy’as tyee” means “big chief.”

Toketee is a jargon word that means “pretty,” and is the apt name of a falls on the North Umpqua. Toketee Lake and Toketee Ranger Station are named for the waterfall.

Not far from them is Lemolo Lake, another jargon word meaning “wild, untamed.”

Berry Creek runs through the Ollala Valley. Ollala, sometimes rendered as "olallie," is a jargon word for berries. Tenas, meaning “small,” adorns Tenas Peak.

And tolo, meaning “to win,” adorns Tolo Mountain.

Illahe, the name of a spot on the North Umpqua above Dry Creek, can mean “place,” but is also used to designate a few acres of flat ground in the mountains.

LEARN THE JARGON Chinook jargon is fun to use informally among friends.

Learn a few phrases and you’ll be able to mamook wa-wa (make talk) and mamook heehee (have fun): • Nika tum-tum (Nika, Nesika): I, me, my or mine • Tum-tum: heart or love • Nika tumtum can also express affection, a way of saying “my dear” • Pelton: Crazy • Kinoo: Tobacco • Pelton kinoos: Crazy tobacco • Kloshe: Good • Muckamuck: Food • Tillicum: People, friends or friend • Kloshe muckamuck; kloshe tillicum; kloshe hee-hee can describe a pleasant supper party

Cull is a word commonly applied to rotted, unsellable logs. It is derived in part from the English word meaning to select, as in to cull a herd, but it is also related to cultus,

In this 1929 photo, O.C. Applegate (second from left) poses with costumed Native Americans and a railroad official at the opening of Southern Pacific's Modoc line to Klamath Falls.

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CULTURE

SOUL MAN

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Colton Thomas has devoted the vast majority of his young life to the pursuit of a most soulful, and highly unlikely, passion.

Story by Dick Baltus Photo by Thomas Boyd

T

CULTURE

here are looks that are deceiving, and then there are those, such as the ones that occupy Colton Thomas’ noggin, that just lie to your face.

He also met and learned much from the late Bob Abrahamian, a wellknown Chicago soul deejay, record collector and historian, and Tony Drake, a soul musician.

But don’t let the boyish countenance fool you. Behind Thomas’ rosy cheeks and beneath his wrinkle-free, 26-year-old surface, resides a soul as old as, say, Smokey Robinson or Sweet Pea Atkinson or any of the other soul music legends about whom Thomas can recite chapter and verse at the drop of a high hat.

Thomas launched a blog talk radio show on his MySpace page, called Soul Legends, and started interviewing his new connections, some of whom, he guesses, were being interviewed for the first time.

As a 16-year-old at Roseburg High, when other kids his age were preoccupied with the likes of Foo Fighters or Rhianna or 36 Crazy Fists, Thomas was conducting radio podcast interviews with the likes of Little Anthony. Even sans Imperials, it was a heck of a score for a kid who’d yet to even score his driver’s license (he still hasn’t, but you get the point).

“Little Anthony told me I was the youngest person ever to interview him,” Thomas remembers, “He didn’t like to do interviews, but when his publicist told him I was 16 he said, ‘I gotta do this.’”

By that time Thomas already was a decade into his exploration of a musical genre that, while still alive and well today, saw its heyday nearly half a century before Thomas was born. Nonetheless, by age 5 Thomas was bringing to Kindergarten show-and-tell a cassette tape of himself singing Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World.” At 13, he was with his parents at the Britt Festival, being mesmerized by James Brown.

Three years later he was interviewing Little Anthony. In the years since, Thomas has talked to, and often befriended, many other soul artists, some obscure to the general public but not to aficionados.

These days he has turned his passion into a part-time gig as an A&R (artist and repertoire) man for a soul record label, Transistor Sound.

He’s helping the label find and re-release obscure old soul records or uncover previously unreleased music.

And to think, if it weren’t for Kenny Sherman, Thomas might be acting his age right now instead of combing through his multiple catalogs of black-and-white publicity photos, collecting vintage soul LPs and hanging with musicians and artists old enough to call Grandpa.

He spent much of his youth in the same setting in which he is spending much of his young adulthood — Roseburg’s Days Gone By antique store. He remembers working alongside his dad, the store owner, and listening to the music Sherman, then a local radio personality, would play on 101.1 FM (way back in the late 1900s, early 2000s).

“That’s how I got into music,” Thomas says. “Kenny was playing Jackie Wilson, Sam Cooke, The Drifters, all the soul hits. Early stuff; doowop stuff. It caught my ear right off the bat.”

With the built-in advantage of having a dad with an antique store and regular estate-liquidation jobs, Thomas started collecting old vinyl.

When he got hold of a Little Willy John record, it inspired him to start digging deeper into the stories of different artists. At age 15, he started following an online music forum devoted to the history of Detroit soul labels and artists.

Between that and the emergence of YouTube, Thomas was able to connect with artists who would post where he was posting. People like Bob Babbitt, who played bass with a later version of The Funk Brothers, a group of Detroit session musicians who backed a long list of Motown hits, including “My Girl,” “I Heard it Through the Grapevine,” “Signed, Sealed, Delivered, I’m Yours” and “The Tears of a Clown.”

“A lot of them loved to talk to me or anyone, really, who was interested in hearing their stories,” Thomas says.

Thomas made a new friend in T.L. Harris after the latter ran across his Soul Legends page. They communicated for years without meeting in person. Then one day Harris ran across a photo Thomas had posted on social media of himself posing with Duke Fakir of the Four Tops.

Thomas was soon reading an email from Harris. “He said all this time he’d assumed I was an 80-year-old black man; it blew his mind,” Thomas says with a laugh.

In 2011, Thomas met Gary Foote, bass player for Smokey Robinson, who helped the young fan get backstage at Spirit Mountain Casino to meet the legendary soul star.

The next year, one of Thomas’ favorite contemporary soul acts, Monophonics, appeared at Roseburg’s Music on the Half Shell, which led to a conversation with lead singer Kelly Finnigan, which led to a friendship and, ultimately, Thomas’ new role with Transistor Sound, the record label Finnigan founded. (Still singing, Thomas was planning to record a single, backed by Monophonics, in June.)

Last January, Thomas was featured in the blog of another soulful

THOMAS' COLLECTION OF OL D PUBLICITY SHOTS INCLUDES A RARE PHOTO OF WILSON PICKETT.

friend, Art Brown of the Polyrhythmics. Brown wrote of Thomas’ passion for soul and the accompanying sadness that comes with having older heroes who become friends and then pass away.

“It’s hard for me to not feel a sense of urgency in Colton’s mission, as so many soul legends have gone in recent years,” Brown wrote. “It has to be hard for him to say goodbye to more and more of his heroes as time goes by. But there is no doubt in my mind that they all are very proud of, and thankful for, Colton’s unending passion for their lives and their music.”

It was a nice tribute — for either an 80-year-old or a very young man with a really old soul.

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CULTURE

With a life-size cutout of singing cowboy Gene Autry in the background, Dennis and Rhonda Wright preside over an wide spectrum of radio memorabilia.

THEATER OF THE MIND Sutherlin’s radio museum provides a fascinating look back to the days before Internet streaming, cable TV and the 24-hour news cycle.

Story by Jim Hays Photos by Thomas Boyd

T

he Radio Days Theater of the Mind Museum in downtown Sutherlin isn’t a large space. It occupies a modest storefront, next door to the historic Sutherlin Bank Building. Once inside, a visitor can easily see the exit from just about anywhere.

Wright’s free museum includes many examples and artifacts of radio’s growth into the media colossus that bound the nation in kilocycles. From westerns to comedies, adventure to soap opera, the Radio Days museum has exhibits of it all, including a photo gallery of the people behind the microphones — many of whom became major stars.

For a generation weaned on television, the museum offers a place to see where and how it all began — with actors reading scripts into studio microphones while listeners at home gathered around bulky wooden boxes of wires and vacuum tubes in countless living rooms and used their imaginations to visualize the action they were hearing.

Radio also let listeners hear newscasters in distant countries providing on-the-spot reporting of world events, which in the 1930s and 1940s included events leading up to and including World War II.

For the first time, millions of people could experience at the same time news reports or entertainment programs from far away without That’s because Dennis Wright, the museum’s executive director, has leaving their homes. And unlike newspapers or movies, radio had a filled the place with a vast collection of photos, posters, recordings, unique immediacy. Listeners heard events as they happened instead buttons, badges, pinsbooks — both comic and hard-bound — showof reading about them a day later. Most entertainment shows were themed board games and other collectibles and memorabilia that performed live, because recording techniques that later became reflect his passion for radio’s Golden Age — a relatively short two decades common were still largely experimental. of the mid-20th century when an entirely new medium revolutionized As an advertising vehicle, radio offered the unprecedented chance to the way millions of Americans were informed and entertained.

But it’s easy to get lost in there.

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CULTURE

Five Worth Hearing Of the thousands of radio programs produced, many sound outdated in both style and storyline. But here are five series that have held up, decades after their first airing. All are available as CDs online, or check with Dennis Wright at the Radio Days Museum in Sutherlin.

Pat Novak, For Hire: Crackling dialog and a noir atmosphere are the attractions of this private-eye mystery set in San Francisco in the late 1940s. A young Jack Webb (Dragnet) and a younger Raymond Burr (Perry Mason) are featured in a show written by Academy Award-winner Richard Breen.

reach millions of potential customers with from what was then an emerging pop culture a single commercial. The medium created surrounding the show and radio generally. stars literally overnight.

Along another wall are promotions related And, because of the immediacy of the to the Buck Rogers space adventure series. programming — much of it live — radio Wright shows a “ray gun” offered to listeners became the first interactive medium, actively during one season of the show, and also reaching out to members of its vast audience. has an “improved” model offered during a subsequent season.

Fans of popular programs, especially those aimed at young listeners, were encouraged Museum visitors can also see examples of to mail in proof-of-purchase of the sponsor’s the big, vintage radio sets that were major product and a nominal fee — a couple of box purchases for many families at the time tops and 10 cents, for example — to receive a and were proudly displayed as part of the “secret code” booklet or an autographed photo living room furniture. Wright has also of the show’s star or some other merchandise collected pieces from the technical side of broadcasting — vintage microphones, mixing advertised only to listeners of the show. boards and tape players.

Wright, 61, started the Radio Days Museum in 2016, first as a place to display his But the most valuable exhibit in the whole collection acquired during his career in place is Wright himself. A man with an radio, both as an on-air personality and in encyclopedic knowledge of his museum’s sales. And since the museum opened, he collection, Wright can supply a detailed has successfully searched for and acquired backstory for nearly everything in the additional exhibits when he isn’t working his museum and a trove of fascinating tidbits and day job as a medical technician at a Roseburg insights about classic radio programs and the actors who became stars because of them. retirement home.

An avid fan of The Lone Ranger, a staple of radio with a decades-long run on air, Wright has one corner of the museum dedicated to the masked man and his faithful companion Tonto, who appeared in nearly 3,000 episodes of the program. Included are large posters, action figures, pins, booklets, facsimile badges and other Ranger-related relics that show the wide scope of offerings

Wright and his wife, Rhonda, a former Sutherlin school employee who now helps run the museum, are constantly looking to improve and expand their collection of radio exhibits through purchases, donations or permanent loans.

“I want to be a repository for anything having to do with radio,” Wright says.

Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar: “The Man with the Action-Packed Expense Account,” Dollar was a freelance insurance investigator who was played by six different actors over a 14-year run.

During one season, the series junked the usual 30-minute format for five 15-minute episodes running Monday through Friday of a given week. The resulting 75-minute story arc allowed for more character development, but was also deemed too expensive by CBS, its network, and the show returned to a single 30-minute weekly episode.

Suspense: Just what it implies, this 30-minute anthology featured many major movie stars performing in unusual but engrossing stories “well-calculated to keep you in suspense,” as its announcer, the mysterious Man in Black, intoned.

The Whistler: Another noir anthology with all the stories involving greed, blackmail and/or murder. The title character was a sort of Greek chorus who narrated and sometimes commented directly to the lead character. The show was also noted for its surprise endings, in which the culprit was done in by his/ her own malfeasance.

Jack Benny: Benny was perhaps the only radio comic who didn’t rely on cornball humor, topical themes or ethnic stereotypes. Benny played himself as a miserly, self-important radio star, who was the butt of most of the jokes made by his supporting cast. The show ran nearly 20 years on radio and such was its popularity that when Jell-O brand gelatin became its sponsor, the product within weeks became General Foods’ biggest seller SOUNDS OF THE UMPQUA

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CULTURE

LEGENDS OF THE UMPQUA

A LEGACY OF COMPASSION Sister Jacquetta Taylor with her close friends and pursuing one of her favorite pastimes.

I

t took some special vision to be able to look out over an orchard and grazing land 40-plus years ago and see a brand-new hospital rising from it. Sister Jacquetta Taylor saw it. The man standing next to her, Tony Haber, saw trees and grass.

Haber was interviewing with Taylor for a job managing the Mercy Hospital physical plant. At that time there was just that one facility to manage, but Taylor had bigger plans.

In 1969, she had been sent to Roseburg by the Sisters of Mercy to close the hospital they’d built 60 years earlier along the South Umpqua River (now the headquarters of ADAPT). Douglas Community Hospital had opened in the 1950s just a few blocks away and was taking market share at Mercy’s expense.

Taylor’s intent was to execute a sale of Mercy to Douglas, then be on her way. But the board and executive team at Douglas refused her offer to sell Mercy for $250,000, assuming the hospital would close and they could pick up the pieces for pennies on the dollars.

So Taylor decided to stay and fight. A few years later, she was taking her future facilities manager on what today seems like a short road trip from southern Roseburg to the city’s northern end. But in the early '70s, and to Haber, it might as well have been Eugene.

“Jacquetta took me out to the boonies and pointed down to that orchard and said, ‘That’s where I’m building my new hospital,’” Haber remembers. “I thought to myself, Is this woman crazy? Who’s going to come to a hospital way out here?”

In 1977, the doors of Mercy’s modern new health care facility opened with great fanfare. Taylor used her significant powers of persuasion to lure entertainer Arthur Godfrey to the celebration then, legend has it, drove him around Roseburg, afterward looking for a restaurant that could satisfy his craving for oysters.

(Her first choice, Bing Crosby, was already committed to a USO engagement, but called her personally to deliver the news that he couldn't attend.)

During her 27 years as Mercy’s leader, Taylor shepherded the medical center through remarkable growth and significant challenges. Rarely, if ever, was her job easy. But that never changed the person she was.

“She was unfailingly kind,” physician assistant Cynthia Keys said in a tribute video produced in 2014 when Taylor, now 85 and living with Alzheimer’s disease, left Roseburg to return to a Sisters of Mercy care

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It’s easy to take for granted having access to state-of-the-art medical care locally, but the local health care community might not look the same if not for Sister Jacquetta Taylor.

Story by Dick Baltus

facility in Omaha. “She was helpful to everyone she knew. She had a real joy in life and always looked for the bright side even in some difficult times.”

Taylor’s priorities were Mercy patients and her staff. Like a physician, she would round daily to check on patients, a rarity for a hospital administrator. And to her, staff were family.

“Jacquetta’s mantra to staff was, make all your decisions from the patient’s pillow,” said close friend Verniece Paterson.

Longtime Roseburg cardiologist, Dr. Cynthia Kremser, remembers telling Paterson the story of an employee, who had just drawn a blood sample, asking her if it was OK to bring the patient crab to eat. Based on her experience at another hospital, Kremser couldn’t believe an employee would take such interest in meeting a patient’s personal needs: “Verniece said, ‘Well that’s because of the way Jacquetta’s spirit trickles down through the organization. She treated her administrative team with respect and expected them to treat their staff that way and them to treat patients and physicians that way.’ That was the first time I’d seen trickle-down work.”

Taylor retired in 1996 and spent her final few years in Roseburg rooming with Lisa Platt, president of Mercy Foundation. They met in 2004 and became instant friends.

“When I met her I had no idea she was a nun,” Platt said. “She was wearing blue jeans and a sweatshirt and had her little bowl haircut.

She lived a very simple life, but she loved this community and she loved her patients.”

Taylor was as funny as she was kind. Platt recalled the time the two of them tried to fix a leaking toilet by pulling it off the floor — before turning the water off. “Water was shooting everywhere, and we couldn’t stop laughing,” Platt said. “It was definitely our Lucy and Ethel moment.”

Taylor’s many achievements at Mercy include installing the first CT scanner in an Oregon hospital; creating the state’s first hospital-based ambulance service; bringing dialysis services to Douglas County and opening Linus Oakes Retirement Center, among countless other accomplishments.

But even more than the sprawling, state-of-the-art medical center that Mercy has become, Taylor’s most enduring legacy will be the thousands of Douglas County lives that have been improved because she could see the future of health care in Douglas County where others could only see trees.

CULTURE

MUSIC ON THE HALF SHELL Get your blankets out, stock up on your favorite Umpqua Valley wine, prepare your picnic menu and you’re all set for Douglas County’s favorite annual musical event.

• Thursday, June 26 — Con Brio • Tuesday, July 3 — Larkin Poe • Tuesday, July 10 — Ranky Tanky • Tuesday, July 17 — Teskey Brothers • Tuesday, July 24 — Michael Cleveland & Flamekeeper • Tuesday, July 31 — Dakha Brakha • Tuesday, August 21 — Pink with special guests

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“I JUST LOVE UNDERWATER. IT’S A FASCINATING ENVIRONMENT TO EXPERIENCE. YOU NEVER KNOW WHAT YOU MIGHT ENCOUNTER OR DISCOVER.” — Tom Wicks 42

UV . SUMMER 2018

He just retired from a successful 55-year CPA career, but odds are Tom Wicks’ photography will leave a more lasting impression than his tax returns.

Story by Jim Hays Photos by Tom Wicks

T

om Wicks remembers the time he got into an underwater tug-of-war with a shark.

Clad in scuba gear and using a camera in a watertight housing, Wicks was making some of his breath-taking, colorful nature photos in tropical waters when he found himself close enough to count the fish’s teeth.

“He was just looking for something to eat,” Wicks says, quickly pointing out that this particular shark was no man-eater and was less interested in the photographer than his equipment. Still, it was a heart-quickening moment.

“He grabbed hold of my camera and swam away with it, but he dropped it when he realized he wouldn’t be able to eat it,” says Wicks, who has been on many shark dives and allows that he would definitely avoid some of the species.

“It’s like being around a dog except you’re underwater,” Wicks says.

“You see them, they see you and they basically want to check you out.”

It was one of the more unusual encounters of Wicks’ decades of taking his camera into the wild, and not-so-wild, to capture exquisite images of landscapes and seascapes; of animals big and small, terrestrial and aquatic, familiar and exotic, in repose and in action.

“I enjoy taking photos and trying to capture with the camera what my eye is seeing and producing an image that conveys that vision and emotion,” Wicks says.

It’s been a respite from his day job as a founding partner of Wicks Emmett LLP, the venerable Roseburg accounting firm that he took over in 1968. This past spring, Wicks decided that this tax season — his 55th as a certified public accountant — would be his last.

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“I ENJOY TAKING PHOTOS AND TRYING TO CAPTURE WITH THE CAMERA WHAT MY EYE IS SEEING AND PRODUCING AN IMAGE THAT CONVEYS THAT VISION AND EMOTION.” — Tom Wicks

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“At 75 or whatever, I’ve decided to take early retirement,” he says.

No sooner did he walk out of his firm’s office on Northeast Winchester Street, however, than he jumped into his hobby with a new purpose.

He’s reworking his photography website — www.wixpix.net — where many of his best shots are displayed and sold.

“I’m trying to get it more organized and updated,” he says. “In the last four or five years, I haven’t done much with it. I’ve got someone to help me do a lot of reformatting and, in the process, I’m choosing some new images. It’s going to be more complete.”

If that sounds like no big deal, bear in mind that Wicks is going through the thousands of digital images he has shot over the years and the like number of color slides he made during photography’s pre-digital era.

All that photography has made for plenty of travel to places as remote as Raja Ampat, a group of small Indonesian islands off the western tip of Papua New Guinea, and as close as Wildlife Safari in Winston, a short drive from the Roseburg home Wicks shares with LaVonne, his wife of 57 years, frequent travel companion and occasional photo assistant.

“As I’ve gotten older, what I most enjoy is nature’s creations” Wicks says.

“I’m not turned on by cities or architecture; I like critters and creatures.”

He has spent many hours at Wildlife Safari, both alone and as a volunteer helping visitors find the best spots to observe and photograph wildlife in a more natural habitat.

“It’s been a great experience,” he says. “My objective has been to find animals in situations that don’t look like they are in a captive environment.”

The Wickses have toured all 50 states through the years, but have recently concentrated on the West, with Tom documenting each trip. He became especially enamored of Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming and photo ops not only for the spectacular peaks of the area but also for moose, one of the biggest land animals in the world.

Wicks’ more exotic trips were to find subjects for underwater photography, a passion he discovered a couple of decades ago. The Coral Triangle, a large area of that shape running from the Solomon Islands to the Philippines and the eastern shore of Borneo, is a particular favorite.

“I just love underwater.” he says. “Our oceans cover about 70 percent of the earth’s surface and contain 97 percent of the planet’s water. It’s a fascinating environment to experience. You never know what you might encounter or discover.”

Despite his love for it, Wicks says he is winding down his underwater excursions — and not because of sharks.

“I’ve seen a lot of the underwater world,” he says. “There are still some things I want to do, but I don’t want to repeat a lot of trips I’ve already been on.”

One trip he hasn’t done, but would like to scratch off his list, is visiting the waters off Tonga in the South Pacific and getting in with humpback whales.

“I’m on a waiting list to do that trip in 2019,” he says. “It’s snorkeling, not scuba, and the best place to do that is Tonga. I think it will be amazing to be in the water with those big guys.”

And to bring home a few more additions to his online galleries.

SOUNDS OF THE UMPQUA

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Story by Dick Baltus Photos by Thomas Boyd

It’s not easy to get to Todd Clinesmith, but it’s easier than getting one of his custom guitars. But the long list of names on his waiting list proves his instruments are worth the long wait.

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UV . SUMMER 2018

T

o find one of the most sought-after guitar craftsmen in the country, drive east on Highway 138 to Idleyld, turn left and follow a teeth-rattling, kidneydislodging dirt road in the general direction of the middle of nowhere.

You won’t quite get there, but by the time you reach Todd Clinesmith’s shop you’ll swear you’re close.

You’ve got to really want to see Clinesmith to see him, and you’ve got to really want one of his guitars to get one. His instruments are in such demand that buyers will typically wait a year for delivery of a Clinesmith resonator guitar (or Dobro). And, while he can turn around a lap steel guitar in six to eight weeks, double- and triple-neck versions on stands and with pedals or other accessories are likely to require a year-long wait as well.

But there’s no shortage of customers willing to wait, especially since he’s the only luthier around still making the 1940s-50s style steel guitars for which he’s known.

“I call it a niche within a niche,” Clinesmith says.

The Southern California native got interested in building instruments after he started playing at age 18. “I’d always wanted to build an instrument,” he says. “I had sort of a creative background, and I was always playing with my dad’s tools.”

Clinesmith decided he’d start with a dulcimer, a stringed instrument that’s played by picking and using a noter, similar to a slide. He was a fan of the old Foxfire books, collections of magazine articles written in the 1960s by Georgia high school students who would interview local people about Appalachian culture. When he ran across an interview of an old-timer who made dulcimers, he ordered a copy of the plans for the instrument, assuming he would be out of luck, given it was now the early ’90s.

To his surprise, the plans actually showed up, and Clinesmith was, in a manner of speaking, in business (it would still be almost a decade before he’d start selling his instruments).

After building a couple dulcimers, Clinesmith turned his attention to the Dobro, an acoustic guitar played with a slide and self-amplified by an aluminum cone under a round metal coverplate. As a player, he had switched from acoustic guitar, playing fingerstyle Delta blues and bottleneck slide, to Dobro, which allowed him to expand his sound more melodically than the bottleneck would allow.

Todd Clinesmith and a couple of his coveted steel guitars.

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Now he wanted to build one, or one and a half actually. “I was going through a lot of instruments trying to find He needed one guitar to make his mistakes on, and a sound I had in my head,” Clinesmith says. “I bought another to not repeat them on. Without any luthier quite a few Fenders, but the sound was real thin. It drove education or training, he was winging it. Clinesmith tore me crazy when I’d hear these old recordings with this fat, apart his own guitar to see how it was constructed, then rich sound that I couldn’t get.” dove in, applying some basics he’d learned from a guitar That sound, he learned, was being produced by guitars construction book. made by an innovator named Paul Bigsby. Well-known It took him about a year to finish his first guitar, and a today for his electric guitar vibrato tailpieces, Bigsby year later Clinesmith had made a couple more. By year also invented the solid-body electric guitar and was the father of the steel guitar. three, he says, “I was building a pretty good resonator.”

There were only a few luthiers making the unique guitars, and Clinesmith realized his were comparable in quality to any out there. In 2001, he decided to give it a go as a full-time business.

“I started hitting all the music festivals, setting up booths and bringing my guitars around,” he says. “Before the end of that summer I had about a year-long waiting list, and it kind of took off from there.”

While Clinesmith had been playing in bands and becoming a pretty accomplished bluegrass-style Dobro player, he was increasingly drawn to the sounds produced by the steel guitar. Soon it would become his instrument of choice. He was particularly enamored of the tone he was hearing on recordings from the 1940s and ‘50s, and he was frustrated that he wasn’t able to reproduce it on any of the production steel guitars he had played.

The first steel guitar record Clinesmith bought was “2 Guitars Country Style,” by Speedy West and Jimmy Bryant. It was the first modern pedal steel guitar recording and the musicians were playing Bigsby instruments. (In an interesting twist, Clinesmith is now restoring West’s steel guitar for a collector.)

By the time Clinesmith started playing steel, Bigsby’s instruments had become hard to find and appropriately expensive. But through a stroke of serendipity, Clinesmith learned a Chicago-based friend had in his possession many of Bigsby’s tools and parts, which had been gathering dust in a closet since 1966, when Bigsby sold his business to a former Gibson guitar executive.

After striking a deal with his friend, Clinesmith flew to Chicago, then drove back home with his prized possessions and started making steel guitars.

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Clinesmith’s lap steels (top) require about 30 hours of labor while a triple neck can take 100 hours and comes with a year-long wait time.

“Todd’s instruments are the epitome of classic American workmanship,” says New York professional musician Mike Neer.

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“I’m really recreating a lot of what Paul did,” he says. “I put my own unique stamp on the guitars, but I’m working from his designs. The old Bigsby guitars are museum pieces, in a way, so I’m happy getting that sound out there again.”

and was not surviving financially and artistically,” Neer says. “A steel guitar that Todd sent me was the catalyst for everything changing. I felt empowered with a sense of nothing to lose, so I quit playing guitar and focused all my energy on steel.”

As are his customers. While you won’t see many steel guitars on MTV, it remains a popular instrument in many musical genres, including bluegrass, country, western swing and Hawaiian. And the best players are as particular about the sound of their instruments as Clinesmith was his.

Clinesmith and his wife Shelly, a Winston native, moved from California to Glide in 2004 and from Glide to the top of that unforgiving dirt road four year later.

From that beautiful and preternaturally quiet spot, he makes about 40 steel guitars a year and another four to six Dobros.

Several who have purchased his guitars, while not “Eric A lap steel guitar requires about 30 hours of his time, Clapton famous,” as Clinesmith puts it, are well-known while the “handful” of double and triple necks on stands in the steel guitar world. They include Chris Funk, of (consoles) he makes can take up to 100 hours. Prices The Decembrists and Black Prairie (a past guest at range from $1,500 for a typical lap steel to us much as Music on the Half Shell); John Ely and Bobby Black, $5,800 for a triple-neck console. Dobros take up to 100 both former members of Asleep at theWheel (Black also hours, start at $4,200 and have gone as high as $7,800. played with Commander Cody) and Mike Neer, out of Clinesmith uses a variety of woods to make his New York, whose acclaimed 2016 release, “Steelonious” instruments, including Hawaiian koa and Oregon featured steel-guitar-centric covers of jazz great myrtlewood, but his favorites are western curly Thelonius Monk tunes. maple for his resonators and eastern birdseye maple “What Neer effectively does is take an instrument for the steels. associated with, in order, Hawaiian luau, Santo and About half the time, Clinesmith’s customers know the Johnny’s 1959 Sleepwalk and every Jackson Browne wood they want; he makes the choice for the other half. song David Lindley played on, and use it to transform “They either have a wood type they’re attracted to or the Monk book in a most wonderful and delightful way,” they have a sound they like, and I’m able to recommend C. Michael Bailey wrote for All About Jazz. woods based on that.”

Neer says he first connected with Clinesmith “when I heard Todd was going to be making Bigsby-styled guitars, which some of my favorite players, like Speedy West, Buddy Emmons, Vance Terry and Joaquin Murphy, played at one time. I had to get in on placing an order.”

According to Neer, Clinesmith’s instruments embody the best qualities of 1930s-era Rickenbacker steels, his personal gold standard. “I’ve owned many steel guitars, but nothing I’ve played has captured the magic of Rickenbacker the way Clinesmiths do,” Neer says.

“Todd’s instruments are the epitome of classic American workmanship. The tone and feel are outstanding.”

Located on opposite sides of the country, Neer and Clinesmith have never met, but they’ve developed a strong friendship and working relationship over the last decade. Neer even credits his guitar maker with revitalizing a struggling career.

Most of Clinesmith’s business these days comes through word of mouth or customers finding him online.

He hasn’t had to schlep guitars around music festivals since that summer of 2001. “Since then I’ve always had a backlog,” he says.

He isn’t terribly nostalgic about his journey through instrument making. That first Dobro? It survived several moves until one day he was burning some scrap wood, and the old guitar caught his eye. Soon it was ashes. He tried to burn the dulcimer too, but Shelly wasn’t having it.

She took a clock off a wall in the Clinesmith home and hung the instrument in its place.

“I think I liked the clock better,” he says, laughing.

Maybe now, but chances are the old dulcimer will win out over time.

“At one time I was on the precipice of quitting, because I felt stuck in a place that I didn’t want to be musically

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Stories by Jenny Wood Photos by Chris Pietsch

There’s nothing more pleasant than a warm summer bicycle tour along the Umpqua River, especially when friends come along for the ride.

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ry, sunny days make for great bicycling, whether it’s a mountain trail or a country road. Then there’s the area’s amazing scenery — lush green hills that turn golden as the summer goes on.

A long bike ride can be a fun group activity. Through personal connections — and social media applications such as Strava for the active-minded — a group of seven riders with differing skill levels and experience can join up for a classic 32-mile ride through the beautiful Umpqua Valley.

Riding with others and enjoying the fresh air and physical activity is a fun way to make new friends and bond over shared interests.

And Douglas County is an unforgettable backdrop for cycling.

Many exhilarating rides can start right from the garage. Within Roseburg alone are enough excursions to keep a rider rolling throughout the summer.

Three routes of note start and end at the Stewart Park train in Roseburg, but are varied enough in distance and scenery that riders may want to make these a regular part of their cycling, especially with a group of friends riding along.

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• At Hubbard Creek Road, turn right and cross the Umpqua River. A stop on this bridge reveals great views either upstream or down.

• When the route reaches Garden Valley Road, you will have traveled 16 miles. From here, it’s just a short ride to Umpqua Lighthouse Bakery and a chance to refuel and carbo-load with coffee, sandwiches, soups and delicious homemade baked goods. Then it’s time to head back.

• Return to the Garden Valley Road junction and turn left. Stay on Garden Valley Road, which briefly follows Calapooia Creek and passes the fields and plant of Norris Blueberry Farms on the right. The Umpqua River is soon again visible from the road. Garden Valley Road continues with rolling hills, scenic fields and farmland and passes over the North Umpqua River once more just before Roseburg Country Club on the left.

MAIN ROUTE (32 Miles)

• Continue on Garden Valley, make the push up just one more hill, then enjoy smooth sailing back into town. Turn right onto Goetz at the Fred Meyer parking lot, going straight to pass by the duck pond and the skate park. Follow the bike path as it winds for your last mile back to the Stewart Park train.

• From the Stewart Park train, follow Stewart Park Drive west.

CYCLIST PROFILES

• Turn at Northwest Stewart Parkway and cross the bridge over South Umpqua River.

• At West Harvard, turn right and follow the road for about a mile until it veers left and becomes Old Melrose Road.

• After a half-mile on Old Melrose Road, the first of several gentle hills must be climbed. This first ascent provides a gorgeous view of the South Umpqua.

• Old Melrose follows the South Umpqua for two miles before splitting. About one mile after the road veers away from the river, turn left onto Melrose Road. Melrose Road has a nice wide bike lane and over the next two miles provides views of farmland, passing the local school and the District 2 Fire Station.

• Turn right onto Melqua Road (the Melrose Country Store is on the corner). Ride nine miles on Melqua, a quaint country byway. Sights along the way include vineyards, the confluence of the North and South forks of the Umpqua and more farmland with a variety of winding hills.

• As the road turns away from the river, a succession of statues can be viewed adorning fields. The first is a bull on the right then a half-dozen head of cattle to the left. Further along are likenesses of Native Americans, horses and a cowboy.

• At Iverson Road, take a right and, after a coaster hill, you’ll see on the left the beautiful and quaint Coles Valley Church sitting amidst a grove of trees. The road takes a 90-degree left turn just past the church, and the scenery changes again to vineyards and an impressive blueberry field. Iverson Road ends at Hubbard Creek Road.

It doesn’t take any special background or physical make-up to enjoy cycling. Here’s some information about the diverse group of cyclists, including writer Jenny Wood, who got together for a recent road trip.

Name: Kelly Leonard Age: 70 Occupation: Retired financial adviser Experience: Started commuting to university in the early 70s and hasn’t stopped Snacks: Water, Cliff Bars, attitude First ride memory: Did I mention it was the ’70s? What memory? But an early favorite is my first Century Ride in the Umpqua Valley. Totally unprepared, barely made it. And I was in shape.

Favorite things about riding locally: Beauty, easy access to a multitude of great rides, amazing variety of roads, scenery and improved attitude of those with whom we share the road.

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CYCLIST PROFILES Name: Melody Cobb Age: 48 Occupation: School counselor and substitute teacher Experience: One year, after enjoying spin classes at the fitness center Favorite things about riding locally: My delight in cycling the Umpqua came after moving back to Douglas County after living in large urban areas.

RIDE 2 (9 miles) • Follow previous directions to Melrose Road.

• Turn right on Melrose Road and cross the South Umpqua River. Beautiful vineyards are on the left and Kruse Farm will soon be on the right.

• Follow Melrose as it veers right onto Garden Valley Road. After climbing a short hill, cruise east on Garden Valley Road through six traffic signals.

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• After the sixth light, across from the Fred Meyer gas station, merge onto the sidewalk to get on the bike path that winds through Stewart Park.

• Veer right at the intersection through the disc golf course. Go down the hill, cross Stewart Park Drive continuing on the path until you see the Stewart Park train to finish the loop.

Favorite Douglas County ride: I like riding the backroads from Roseburg to Glide. This scenic ride has light traffic, and the hills provide a good workout. O.C. Brown Park is a good place to stop for a quick snack or rest Snacks: Lots of water and GU gels or Lara Bars

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RIDE 3 (20 miles) Follow the initial instructions up to approximately four miles on Melqua Road. Turn left onto Cleveland Hill Road and follow it along lush fields and numerous rolling hills until it meets back with Melrose Road. Turn left onto Melrose, then follow the instructions on Ride 2 after the right turn onto Melrose.

To join a group ride, check out the Umpqua Velo Club. To learn more, go online to www.cycleumpqua.com

CYCLIST PROFILES

Name: Paul Whitworth Age: 52 Occupation: Designer, teacher, bike mechanic Experience: Riding for 46 years Favorite things about riding locally: Great variety of roads to ride so it never gets boring, and it is all beautiful Favorite Douglas County ride: Hard to pick just one. Maybe Lookingglass, Reston, Tenmile, Olalla or Strickland Canyon.

Ride accomplishment: The first century I did at age 15, it had a lot of climbing and the weather was terrible. I was the fifth finisher. I think I was the youngest rider to complete that route at the time.

abilities as a newbie. It was awesome but so painful. I like to refer to that ride as the “death ride” and give her grief over trying to kill me.

Favorite thing about riding locally: The rivers. I find such great joy in riding alongside water Name: Russ Jones Age: 36 Occupation: Firefighter Experience: Riding for nine months First ride memory: Falling over on my way to work because I couldn’t get my shoes unclipped

Name: Jenny Wood

Favorite things about riding locally: Great scenery and nice weather

Age: 31

Favorite area/ride in Douglas County: Out Garden Valley

Occupation: Dietitian

Cycling style: Whatever speed gets me to work on time

Experience: Riding for 10 years Snacks: Banana, dates, granola bar, two bottles of water

Name: Cimeron Kormendi

I never leave for a ride without: My flat kit. You only get stuck on the side of the road once.

Age: 39

Favorite things about riding locally: So many miles to explore and I like to see all the animals grazing along the route.

Experience: Been riding since childhood, first mountain biking and more recently road biking.

Name: Hannah Johnson Age: 33 Occupation: Roseburg High School dean of women Experience: Almost seven years First ride memory: I got into cycling in the Sacramento area.

I was about one or two months into riding, and a friend took me on a beautiful and incredible ride that was far beyond my

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Occupation: Firefighter

First ride memory: Riding South Douglas County fire roads on my Mongoose mountain bike Favorite thing about riding Umpqua: Many challenging loops with rewarding downhills Cycling style: Never in a hurry, just there to enjoy the ride Cycling ambitions: I would like to enter a local race like the Tour de Fronds in Powers

Along for the ride (L-R) Kelly Leonard, Paul Whitworth, Hannah Johnson, Jenny Wood, Cimeron Kormendi, Russ Jones, Melody Cobb.

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HEALTH

TAKING CARE OF THE SKIN YOU’RE IN / THE HEALING POWER OF MUSIC / TAKING LIVES TO THE NEXT LEVELS / FANCY FOOTWORK…ANKLES TOO

TAKING CARE OF THE SKIN YOU’RE IN Story by Jennifer Grafiada Photos by Thomas Boyd

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It’s the largest organ in — or is it on?

— your body, and esthetician Shannon Anderson feels a responsibility to help you keep it healthy and glowing.

HEALTH

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arm steam perfumed with essential oils, jade stones caressing cheekbones and a face mask made primarily of kale.

This is the Apothecary Facial, Shannon Anderson’s signature treatment at Glow Skin Care, and it is 75 minutes of pure bliss.

“Because your skin is the largest organ in your body, it is my responsibility to make certain every product and service I offer is as clean as possible while providing healthy and beautiful results,” Anderson says. She is a proponent of what she terms “integrative skin care,” which places an emphasis on high-quality ingredients and addressing inner health as well as outer health.

Skin changes day to day, Anderson explains, depending on things like weather, stress level, seasons and hormones. So she customizes

Anderson, who has been in practice for eight years, recently moved to a large, light-filled space on Northwest Edenbower Boulevard in Roseburg.

“I think I dreamed of this since I was a little girl,” says Anderson, who evolved from playing with toy makeup as a child to waxing college roommates’ eyebrows to her unique approach that eschews the harsher products of the beauty industry. Many products contain alcohols that strip the skin’s protective barrier, as well as artificial fragrances and preservatives, Anderson explains.

“The most powerful and healing ingredients are simple, fresh and natural,” Anderson says. Her replenishing treatment oil, for example, is filled with lavender, chamomile and other herbs, steeped for six weeks, then cold-pressed by hand.

“It became my desire to provide the most healthful, effective and pure

“RECEIVING A FACIAL AND THEN NOT TAKING CARE OF YOUR SKIN AT HOME IS LIKE TAKING A JOG TO THE DONUT SHOP.”

— Shannon Anderson

her facial ingredients at the time of the visit, mixing things up in what she calls her “Apothecary Backbar.” Anderson says she is the only esthetician in Oregon to offer this feature, and it exemplifies the fresh, natural and individualized approach she takes at Glow Skin Care.

Lined up in clear jars are things like kale compound — rich in vitamin K — rose geranium and juniper hydrosols, colloidal oatmeal and carrot seed extract, chamomile and arnica. Each botanical compound is packed with vitamins, minerals and antioxidants to feed the skin and lend it a nourished glow.

“But receiving a facial and then not taking care of your skin at home is like taking a jog to the donut shop,” Anderson says. Managing stress, good sleep, exercising, sound nutrition and a tailored skincare regimen are all essential to healthy, radiant skin.

skin-care treatments possible,” she says. “As we are awakening and learning where our food comes from, it is also important to know where our skin-care products are made and their contents.

The most effective skin care products are raw, organic, farmsourced and handcrafted with love.”

Soon, Anderson will be offering Dien Chan Zone Facial Reflexology, which stimulates specific points on the face for inner healing; Gua Sha, which uses an ancient Chinese tool to simulate the results of Botox; and Herbal Poultice, a facial massage that incorporates four modalities from Thailand to provide a sculpting and lifting effect.

For a complete listing of services and to book online, visit GlowSkinCareShannon.com.

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New Strides Can Help.

For most people, the decision to replace a knee or hip is not just about health, it’s also about quality of life. Choosing the right surgeon and rehabilitation team is the most important step you can take to ensure your joint-replacement surgery gets you back to enjoying the activities you love most.

and successful joint replacement programs. We use a comprehensive, evidence-based team approach that includes skilled surgeons, nurses, and therapists with many years of experience helping people get back to the best quality of life they deserve. Right here at home.

At CHI Mercy Health’s New Strides Joint Center you have access to one of the regions most experienced

Ask your healthcare provider about New Strides Joint Center or call us at 541.677.4361.

Is Knee or Hip Pain Holding You Back?

www.chimercyhealth.com SOUNDS OF THE UMPQUA

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HEALTH

THE HEALING POWER OF MUSIC Volunteer musicians provide much more than entertainment for patients recovering at Mercy Medical Center.

Story by Nate Hansen Photo by Thomas Boyd

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n a calm morning in the hall just outside Mercy Medical Center’s intensive care unit, Tim Juett is beginning his day’s work.

Nurses, physicians and hospital technicians move through the wide hallway along with the occasional patient or visitor.

Juett is unique among the group. He’s a volunteer musician, one of several who donate their time and talent by playing in Mercy’s Music to Heal program.

On this morning Juett, an accordionist, has a special opening act for his performance of American standards. Another volunteer, Katherine Kerns, is also on hand to play traditional Chinese music on a zither.

Known in China as a Gu Zheng, the zither is a large stringed instrument similar to a harp. The instrument’s origin dates back more than 2,000 years. With her technical prowess and instinctive sense of melody, Kerns’ performances are popular in Mercy’s halls and often attract an audience.

Kerns has performed and taught music for more than 40 years. She holds a master’s degree in ethnomusicology from the University of Michigan and is involved in several music projects — both local and international. But she also makes time for her performances at Mercy.

Michelle Kronner, Mercy’s director of volunteer services, founded the therapeutic music program in 2015. She was inspired by local

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musician David Bennett, who often played guitar for his wife when she was an ICU patient.

“When (Bennett) was playing, patients would come out of their rooms to listen, nurses would open doors, I could see the immediate impact,” Kronner says.

Bennett became one of the program’s first musicians; now between two and seven musicians perform at Mercy each month, and Kronner hopes to see that number grow.

“I’d like to have high school students come play,” she says. “They wouldn’t have a formal audience here; it would help get their jitters out.”

Juett, a retired physical therapist, also began playing at Mercy in 2015. His introduction to the program came during an especially difficult time.

“My first week playing at Mercy was the week after the UCC shooting,” says Juett, who now plays at the hospital at least once a month. “There was a Red Cross liaison person in the ICU that week. After listening for a little bit, she came over to me with tears in her eyes and thanked me for what I was doing and said how beautiful it was.”

To learn more about Mercy’s Music to Heal program, or to volunteer your musical talents, visit www.chimercyhealth.com/volunteers

HEALTH

TAKING LIVES TO THE NEXT LEVEL

In the only obstacle course race training facility in Oregon, Andrea Bowden encourages members to take their fitness to new heights.

Story by Jennifer Grafiada Photos by Thomas Boyd

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HEALTH

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I

t feels amazing after you sit all day,” says the woman on the mat as she rolls back and forth on a foam cylinder.

Shoulder Mobility Work is the technical term for what we are doing, and it’s an important exercise to perform in advance of deadlifting weights.

Angela Carter works at Umpqua Bank, and a few evenings a week she trains at Next Level Fitness Training, an indoor/outdoor g­ym that uses obstacle course race training, or OCR, to “motivate you to move toward better.”

The gym’s founder is Andrea Bowden, a coach and competitive athlete with three decades’ experience in fitness training. She says she’s seen it all, “from low-fat to high-fat eating, records to Spotify, machine equipment to functional fitness.”

leg raises or reverse crunches, another run, 10 burpees and one final run. The trainees joke around a bit then get cracking.

It’s training like this that brought Carter to Next Level more than a year ago. “Andrea had a whole course set up,” Carter says. “Sled push on pavement, tire flip, sandbag carry and then some.”

Carter says it was “terrifying” at first, “but after that I was hooked.” OCR training, she adds, has increased her energy and confidence.

The training group has a friendly, supportive vibe. Its makeup ranges from fitness devotees to people in their 50s and 60s wanting to become more active. Bowden tailors the workouts to the trainees’ fitness level, then gradually increases the intensity over time to steadily build both fitness and confidence and minimize setbacks.

Functional fitness means training for the life “Everyone in this room can get over an eight-foot you want to live. It’s an alternative to sitting at wall in one jump, flip a tire a ton of times, do a desk during the workday, then going to the the monkey bars, climb a rope,” Bowden says, gym and sitting on a weight machine. Instead, watching her charges as they continue their functional fitness means moving, lifting, workouts, chiming in with a subtle correction climbing and jumping — activities to help build or encouraging praise here and there. “They stamina for chasing after grandchildren or didn’t start that way, but they can do it now.” getting more work done in the garden.

What keeps them coming back?

Bowden has always been a fan of this approach but didn’t become a full-on OCR “There are a few people in here that inspired acolyte until she unexpectedly won the me early on and they’re the only reason I’m going to be able to do what I’m going to do,” says Eugene Terrain Race in 2015.

50-something David Gilbert, who plans to “That win turned me on to the sport in such a enter a Spartan Super obstacle race event and way that I thought everyone should know what ultimately complete a “Trifecta,” three rigorous it feels like to compete in an obstacle course obstacle course races that must be completed in race,” she says. a single calendar year.

Bowden founded Next Level in June 2017, Nearly everyone in the gym is signed up to inside a space on Roseburg’s Northeast compete in half-marathons, 10ks and other Diamond Lake Boulevard. It is one of just a competitive athletic events around Oregon. few OCR training gyms in the U.S., and the “We’re holding each other accountable in that only one in Oregon. way,” says Bowden. “We’re here for training, not On a pleasant Monday evening, the gym’s doors for exercise. You can go anywhere for exercise.” are open to let in sunlight and fresh air. Music plays in the background and disco balls flash, Bowden hopes to add more programs for lending some extra energy to the crunches and adults and kids in the future. OCR, she believes, is for everyone. squats and stretches going on.

Bowden issues the night’s program: a bear “I have never been focused on weight loss. My crawl, a run outside with a sandbag, 12 pull-ups, focus is on improving your health and wellness, another run, sideways monkey bars, hanging every day,” she says. “And I think I do a pretty good job of that.”

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Next Level Fitness Training 1600 N.E. Diamond Lake Boulevard, Roseburg.

541-260-8825 iamnextlevelfit.com

THE TRAINING GROUP RANGES FROM FITNESS DEVOTEES TO PEOPLE IN THEIR 50s AND 60s WANTING TO BECOME MORE ACTIVE. UCC OFFERS COURSE RACING Every Monday through Friday, a team of 15 ambitious Umpqua Community College students gathers for its “movement preparation exercises.”

It could be at the UCC track, the Next Level Fitness Training gym or elsewhere in Douglas County. The constant in their training is coach Andrea Bowden, who leads them off on a long run or has them do sprints.

That’s when the real work begins.

The surrounding hills are peppered with obstacles for the runner. A cargo net must be crawled under, and walls traversed.

There are balance beams and a large structure with monkey bars called “the rig” plus tires (called “crab pots”) to be pulled up a steep hill or repeatedly flipped over. Four miles later, the crew returns, another tough workout in the books for the only college obstacle course racing team in the U.S. The team was created in fall 2017 and is open to all UCC students. While it has no rivals, don’t think Bowden wouldn’t like some competition for her group. Under the college’s auspices, she has invited several other schools to form teams and race against her UCC crew.

Members of the team are ready for an outside challenge.

“Andrea motivated the heck out of me,” says Robbie Yard, 34, who studies computer information systems at UCC. “And I love to compete.”

“Everyone just strives to build each other up,” says Boone Pearson, 20, a forestry management major. “No matter how bad we do, we always encourage each other. That pushed me to want to stay. We are like a family.”

Ross Pinard, 28, joined up because he missed the team spirit and camaraderie of high school sports.

“I like being a part of something bigger, helping others become better while having them help me,” Pinard says.

Having a motivated group to start with makes the coaching easier, Bowden says.

“They are so much fun to work with,” she says. “They give 100 percent every time. They are a team in the true sense.

They adore each other, they encourage each other, they want to be faster than each other. They are driven to be better every day.”

LEARN MORE: Uccriverhawks.com/sports SOUNDS OF THE UMPQUA

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HEALTH

FANCY FOOT WORK… ANKLES TOO Podiatrist Dr. Brandon Bishop relocated to Roseburg from the Midwest in July 2016, and the change has done him good.

Story by Dick Baltus Photos by Tristin Godsey

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HEALTH

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wo years ago, Dr. Brandon Bishop decided it was time for a change of scenery.

personal life and his practice, helping people who come to him for treatment of an array of problems involving feet and ankles.

For five years, the affable podiatrist had been providing comprehensive medical and surgical care to patients with foot and ankle problems in a Dayton, Ohio, orthopedics clinic. Now he was looking for a new opportunity.

“I see a lot of cartilage damage, arthritis, sprains, tendon and ligament tears, fractures, bunions, hammer toes and plantar fasciitis,” he says. “I also see many patients with foot and ankle problems related to diabetes. Many of these conditions can have debilitating effects, and a lot are preventable.”

Bishop would have been happy staying in the Midwest, but the Utah native also wasn’t averse to heading back to the western side of the country. So he decided to interview for an opportunity with Centennial Orthopedics and Podiatry in Roseburg.

One visit was all it took.

The graduate of Brigham Young University and Des Moines University provides patients with these and many other conditions comprehensive preventive, medical and surgical care. Board certified in foot surgery and reconstructive rearfoot/ankle surgery, Bishop says he chose the specialty of

“I’M TRYING BEEKEEPING AGAIN THIS YEAR BECAUSE I FAILED LAST YEAR. IT TURNS OUT SOMETIMES BEES LEAVE.” – Dr. Brandon Bishop

“When I flew out of Cincinnati it was 30 degrees and snowing,” Bishop remembers. “When I landed in Oregon it was 75 and green. Rhodies and azaleas were blooming. I thought, ‘This is all right’.”

As it has turned out, life in Roseburg has been far more than all right for Bishop, his wife Kim and their four children, ages 14, 12, 9 and 6. He’s found an easy-living lifestyle within reach of all the outdoor activities he enjoys most.

“I knew early on that I liked Roseburg, but I’ve come to love it,” Bishop says. “It’s a great community. People are so kind, and we are so near a wealth of activities.”

Those that Bishop enjoys most include hiking, cycling, photography, golfing, coast visits, waterfall exploration, gardening and, to a certain extent, beekeeping. The latter comes with the qualifier only because Bishop took it up last year and…

“I’m trying beekeeping again this year because I failed last year,” he says. “It turns out sometimes bees leave.”

podiatry because “it had everything I wanted.”

“I have a rewarding practice that includes surgery, which I really love, and also get to enjoy a lot of quality family time,” he adds.

Most surgeries are elective and performed in the outpatient setting, but he also provides emergency care for fractures and other foot or ankle trauma.

“It’s a very rewarding practice because I can often see very quick improvement in my patients’ conditions,” he says.

Bishop’s patients include young and old, which is another rewarding feature of his practice. “I care for a wide variety of patients, and I enjoy talking to them all.”

Between his practice and his Roseburg lifestyle, Bishop says he and his family couldn’t feel more at home.

“We’d like to stay here forever,” he says.

Appointments can be made with Dr. Brandon Bishop by calling Centennial Orthopedics and Podiatry at 541.229.2663. The clinic is located at 2460 NW Stewart Parkway, Suite 100, Roseburg.

Bishop says he has no similar plans. He’s loving both his

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SPIN CITY / ALTERNATIVE LEARNING / LOCAL LISTENING

SPIN CITY Vinyl LPs are enjoying a record resurgence, and in Roseburg The Record Loft is well-equipped to meet the increased demand.

Story by Brandon Johns Photos by Thomas Boyd

O

nce considered obsolete in an age of digital technology, vinyl records have made a comeback.

And in Roseburg, John Hooper, a longtime collector of LPs, is helping fuel the medium’s resurgence. Owner of Good Vibrations, a Roseburg TV, home electronics and car stereo store on Northeast Stephens Street, Hooper has also been running The Record Loft above his shop for the last three years.

“I’ve always collected records over the years, just never gave it up,” Hooper says. “Slowly my collection outgrew the house and morphed into this. And my wife, Dana, may have suggested it was time to sell some of my inventory.”

Many mainstream bands are now cutting records on vinyl, and standards, both old and newly pressed by The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones and others have become more in demand.

The Record Loft is there to meet the need.

Its walls are lined with both vintage and new vinyl recordings by rock, jazz, country and blues artists.

Vinyl records have been outselling digital downloads recently, as evidenced by Sony’s decision to again start pressing LPs after a 28-year hiatus, while equipment manufacturers have returned to designing and building turntables.

Audiophiles rate vinyl’s fidelity and fullness of sound superior to compact discs or digital downloads. In addition, record sleeves have a pleasing aesthetic appeal. People often buy an album because they like the artwork the music is wrapped in, providing a visual component to the audio experience. The Record Loft also provides its clientele with the tactile experience of browsing through actual records, instead of just looking at online photos of album covers.

“We don’t sell online because Roseburg needs a record store,” Hooper says. “People enjoy the experience of going to a record store, and we want to provide that for the community. Plus it’s fun to see someone get excited finding an oddball record they have been searching for, like they found the needle in the haystack.”

If customers lack the equipment to play the records, Hooper has that covered, too — selling an assortment of audio equipment from such quality brands as Yamaha, Denon and Thorens.

Whether customers are old audiophiles or millennials hearing analog stereo for the first time, The Record Loft offers a rich listening experience. The result will be the unique sound that comes only from a vinyl LP spinning on a turntable.

John Hooper (above and right) uses a standard rating system to indicate to customers the quality of every LP he sells.

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BUSINESS

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BUSINESS

ALTERNATIVE LEARNING

Parents of preschoolers and older students can choose from several outstanding local learning environments for their children. Here, three educators share the unique traits of their schools.

Story by Jennifer Grafiada Photos by Tristin Godsey

HUMMINGBIRD SCHOOLHOUSE Hummingbird Schoolhouse is a Waldorf-inspired preschool, taught by a Waldorf-certified early childhood teacher.

Year established: 2014 Ages served: 3-5 Enrollment: 15 FOUNDATIONAL PHILOSOPHY (From founder and teacher Leana Randol) One of the most important aspects to Waldorf education is that it sees and considers the whole child as a thinking (spiritual), feeling (soul) and willing (physical) being in its approach to education. From birth to 7, the emphasis is on nurturing the child’s senses and providing a foundation for his or her physical development through movement, self-directed play and through meaningful and creative activities.

This is further supported by being in nature, storytelling, movement circle, songs and seasonal celebrations. Waldorf education believes that the seeds planted in the first seven years of life lay the foundation for how children encounter other human beings and how children creatively participate in life.

CLASSROOM & BEYOND The school is surrounded by nature. Windows let natural light in so we can experience and attune to the environment outside. Walls are painted in watercolors that reflect the colors of the sky, the lofts are made from real logs and branches, and the majority of the toys are handmade and of natural materials. Outside there is a garden, a sand area and a fort, which offer a natural play space for the children.

I believe the hands are an extension of one’s heart and by creating and caring for everything in the environment, you make something special because it is made by you.

A highlight of the school’s curriculum is the morning movement circle that brings song, verse, movement and games to the children in an imaginative way that reflects the seasons. In Waldorf education, singing is considered a social art as people can hear their own voice, hear others and truly listen to one another.

In addition to all of the experiences inside the classroom, the entire class goes outside to play every day, rain or shine.

LEARN MORE For more information visit HummingbirdSchoolhouse.com

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BUSINESS

COBB SCHOOL

MAPLE CORNER MONTESSORI

Cobb School is a private PreK-Eighth grade school emphasizing experiential learning in small classrooms.

Maple Corner Montessori is a Montessori-inspired preschool taught by a Montessori-certified teacher.

Year established: 1994 Ages served: 4-14 Enrollment: 75

Year established: 2018 Ages served: 3-6 Enrollment: 20

FOUNDATIONAL PHILOSOPHY

FOUNDATIONAL PHILOSOPHY

(From director Meredith Bliss)

(From founder and teacher Leanne Jorgensen)

We like to describe what we do as “growing the brain and the heart.” As a school, we strive to provide an outstanding academic program that emphasizes critical thinking, problem solving and collaboration alongside traditional academic skills.

I love that in Montessori schools, from an early age, children are taught extensive geography, botany, zoology and history with beautiful handson materials that they can touch and feel. They learn complex concepts via real experiences and projects, and a multitude of songs and stories.

The world is a fascinating place and children love learning about it.

We also believe that our obligation goes beyond building strong academic skills. We have a role in helping children grow into responsible, empathetic members of a community, and to become leaders in small and large ways. Our core values (or “5Cs”) of community, creativity, courage, compassion and curiosity form the backbone of our approach and are critical to the culture and atmosphere we hope are seen and felt in our building.

CLASSROOM & BEYOND We believe that children learn best by doing, which means that learning is hands-on, often dirty, joyful and relevant. As a private school, we have a lot of flexibility with our curriculum. This means we can integrate learning across several disciplines, dive deeply into units of study that capture kids’ interest, and focus on deep engagement with content. Our program has a heavy emphasis on science, Spanish and the arts. We also introduce dramatic arts to our students throughout their time at Cobb.

You won’t see a lot of workbooks or worksheets when you visit. It’s more likely you’ll see kids playing, learning games, working in a group with manipulatives, discussing history or current events or engaging in a scientific investigation in the science lab. Every day, there are new examples of hands-on, experiential and interdisciplinary learning where kids are lighting up with excitement and wonder, and celebrating new discoveries.

LEARN MORE For more information visit CobbSchool.org

I also love that children are able to move through the curriculum at their own pace. Lessons are given one-on-one or in a small group, which makes all the difference. Children are more engaged in the lessons while the teacher can see what they are fascinated by, when they are ready to move forward and when they are drawing connections.

This allows children to reach their unique potential and to nurture their interests, which leads to a lifelong love of learning. It also engages their minds on more levels than just simply listening and repeating information, as their critical thinking skills are continually fostered.

Moreover, when children are allowed choice within a framework, they know that what they are interested in matters, that what they are driven to do is something that is respected and that they are responsible for their learning. This system leads to good work habits, valuable life skills, confidence and initiative: the basis for success.

CLASSROOM & BEYOND In addition to academics, our program stresses life skills such as problem-solving, courteous behavior and self-expression. Extensive time in nature every day helps center the children and nurture their spirits as well as their bodies and minds. Field trips, guest speakers, cooking, art and outdoor projects are some of the ways that learning is tied to experience. We have a garden, a lovely tree-filled campus and beautiful classrooms with lots of wood and natural materials where children can work with literally hundreds of materials.

LEARN MORE For more information visit MapleCornerMontessori.com.

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BUSINESS

Local Listening

Interested in hearing original music performed by local artists? If you can’t make it to one of the local venues that regularly host live music, check out the latest recordings from local musicians bringing their original compositions to the public. Here are four of UV’s favorites: Story by Nate Hansen

Story by Brandon Johns

neil gregory johnson NEIL GREGORY JOHNSON Genre: Rock, Blues, Country Our favorite track: “Three Days on the Wagon” You may recognize Neil Johnson from his frequent jazz guitar gigs at a number of local restaurants, but might not realize that Johnson is as accomplished a singer-songwriter as he is a great musician. The Roseburg native just released his debut EP, which he recorded in Portland with producer Sean Flora. Johnson is gearing up for a summer of gigs with his backing band, including a spot at the Douglas County Fairgrounds on the Fourth of July.

Listen to his music and see his concert schedule at neilgregoryjohnson.com

BRAEDEN COUNTS

TORY ROSE

HECKTIC WEEK

Genre: Country, Pop, Rock Our favorite track: “Angels in the Sky”

Genre: Country, Pop, Blues Our favorite track: “Please Don’t Go”

Genre: Folk, Americana, Soul Our favorite track: “Walk With Me”

Country vocalist and guitarist Braeden Counts regularly performs at venues across Southern Oregon, but he might be best known for his presence on YouTube, where he has posted more than 20 videos of himself performing a mix of originals and covers. Counts has been a featured artist on local radio station Best Country 103, and his catalog of originals is diverse and evergrowing. His most popular song, “Angels in the Sky,” is a tribute to the victims of the Umpqua Community College shooting.

Oakland’s Tory Rose began playing guitar at age 12, and has built a strong following in her hometown and beyond. Rose consistently packs venues around the county with her shows featuring a mix of creative covers and well-crafted originals.

Rose’s performance and songwriting style is in many ways reminiscent of ZZ Ward, another local talent who got her start at a young age.

Folk duo Hecktic Week, aka Mike Hecker and Jennifer Weekly, has been releasing original music since 2014. Blending the acoustic instrumentation of Americana with the nuanced vocal delivery of soul has been a winning formula for the duo, who have become mainstays at many local venues. The pair create a surprisingly large sound at their live shows, thanks in part to the multiple talents of singer/guitarist/ percussionist Hecker.

Counts’ music, videos and more can be accessed at braedencounts.com 72

UV . SUMMER 2018

Find videos of her original and cover music on her Facebook page, facebook.com/toryrosemusic

To date, Hecktic Week has released six originals, which can be found on their Bandcamp page, heckticweek.bandcamp.com

4th annual

BUSINESS

SAFETY DAY R KIDS FO

SATURDAY, JULY 14 10 AM - 1 PM

COSTCO PARKING LOT

PROUDLY PRESENTED BY CHI MERCY HEALTH & COSTCO K-9 photo opportunities: 10 am, 11 am and Noon *Helicopter from Noon to 1 p.m. pending emergencies and weather

THANK YOU: 911 Communications Bay Cities Ambulance City of Roseburg Fire, Police & K-9 Unit DFPA Douglas Co. Sheriff Douglas ESD Dynamic Martial Arts Evergreen Family Medicine Healthy Kids Outreach Program Joe’s Towing Operation Lifesaver Optimist Club REACH Air Servpro of Douglas County The News Review UCAN Head Start/Early Head Start UCHC UP2US Now Child Abuse Prevention Wildlife Safari Youth for Christ

DAY TRIP The 60 miles between Roseburg and Toketee Falls provide a fascinating, scenic landscape, not to mention a great coffee spot.

Story by Bentley Gilbert Photos by Thomas Boyd

W

e begin our tour with a scenic route “less traveled.” Head north from Roseburg on Stephens Street for about nine miles to Wilbur (or from Interstate 5, take the Umpqua Community College exit and head north).

Turn onto North Bank Road and head east.

Mere yards from the intersection, on the right, is the historic Wilbur United Methodist Church.

Continue along this route — up hills, down dales, around curves and through groves of trees — for five miles to the recently upgraded west entrance of

Scenic Fall Creek Falls.

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OUTDOORS

North Bank Habitat Management Area. The area has miles of strenuous trails, and the many and varied birdsongs show this is significant avian habitat.

Sheep by the dozen, and of all ages, dot the hills. The North Umpqua River will be on the right. Several turn-outs enable you to stop safely and take in the scene, holding it in your mind’s eye or in a photo.

When North Bank Road crosses the North Umpqua and reaches Oregon 138, we turn left and head east again toward Glide.

Traveling up the North Umpqua, now on our left, we pass through much of historical, geological or recreational interest. Just as we enter Glide, we stop at Colliding Rivers, a well-interpreted rare geological phenomenon that occurs where the North Umpqua River and the Little River meet head-on.

Nearby, the North Umpqua Ranger Station provides many maps you will want for the rest of the trip as well as information on conditions ahead.

Before leaving Glide, head up Little River Road to the picturesque Cavitt Creek covered bridge. Built in 1943, its design allows log trucks with high loads to cross the stream.

Return to Glide, then head east again on Oregon 138. Just past Idleyld Park, pull off at the Narrows Wayside for stunning views of the North Umpqua. There are plenty to be had, and this is just the first.

Just beyond, the Swiftwater Bridge leads to the lower trailhead of the North Umpqua Trail, a 79-mile path that ends at Maidu Lake at 5,630-feet elevation, a gain of 4,800 feet from the trailhead’s elevation. But you need hike only about a quarter-mile to see Deadline Falls. You’ll learn about the steelhead and salmon that are so important to the region’s culture, economy and recreation.

Well-marked North Umpqua trailheads punctuate this drive seven more times, generally 3.5-5.5 miles apart. The two longest stretches between trailheads are 15 and nine miles, respectively.

Take special note of Susan Creek Falls on the left side of the highway, approximately midway between the Swiftwater and Wright Creek trailheads. Here a well-tended, smooth, wide, wheelchairaccessible path runs for just under a mile to the scenic 50-foot waterfall. A picnic area is nearby.

Thirty miles down the road, Toketee Falls is just 200 steps roundtrip to the viewing area. Here you will find a double-tiered falls that drops 120 feet over walls of columnar basalt. The upper falls is 40 feet, the lower an 80-foot plunge.

Basalt is a common indicator of the volcanic activity that created the Cascade Range. Crater Lake is just 40 miles to the southeast. In the Chinook jargon of the Pacific Northwest First Peoples, “toketee” means “pretty” or “peaceful,” which also describes the falls. (See Page 32 for an explanation of Chinook jargon.)

At the parking lot adjacent to the trailhead is a wooden, 12-foot diameter pipeline, that diverts much of the North Umpqua River water to a powerhouse downstream. Watch out for streams of water squirting from the pipe’s numerous leaks.

River water to a powerhouse downstream. Watch out for streams of water squirting from the pipe’s numerous leaks.

(Top) Day trippers can enjoy the view along Wild River Drive from a bench placed by a local homeowner. (Middle) Under new ownership and newly remodeled, Idleyld Store and Deli is a great place to stop for lunch or provisions.

(Bottom) The Narrows in Idleyld SOUNDS OF THE UMPQUA

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OUTDOORS

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OUTDOORS

DAY TRIP

Now it’s time for your return trip. If you weren’t energized enough by the trip and scenery, stop in Glide at the Atom Espresso and Coffee Bar for a jolt of great coffee.

Owned by photographer Jody Brown, the shop’s decor will take you back. A record from a shelf of vinyl that spans an entire wall might be playing as you chat or simply sit and sip your drink.

The coffee bar’s restful ambience creates a great place to reflect on your excursion.

Brown (right) came to the area in 2012 and was seeking a way to draw people to her photography studio.

Her shop “sells a feeling,” she says. Her goal is to make people feel comfortable, and she succeeds with a hip, upscale, urban vibe expressed by everything from the Elvis coasters on the tables to her large blackand-white photos displayed on the walls.

“People love the atmosphere here,” she says. “It’s become a destination and a place to talk about what they’ve seen.”

It’s a perfect place to rest after hiking to the North Umpqua’s several “thundering waters.”

The Atom Espresso and Coffee Bar is on the north side of Oregon 138 at the east end of Glide, just before the bridge.

Photographer Jody Brown says she’s not just selling coffee at Atom Espresso and Coffee Bar, she’s selling “a feeling.”

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GARDENING IN EDEN Rich soil, great weather and a long growing season make the Umpqua Valley a little slice of heaven for gardening enthusiasts.

Story by Becky Radliff Photos by Thomas Boyd

T

he sight of a cherry tree laden with pink blossoms, the scent of lilacs on a gentle breeze, the thought of homegrown tomatoes fresh off the vine…sometimes it’s just a little tease of one of your senses that makes you want to garden.

You can see lilac bushes lining your driveway, a pink cherry tree blocking your neighbors’ ugly garage and rows of tomatoes and carrots growing in that sunny spot where the grass is always brown in the summer.

“Spring in Oregon is just amazing,” says Chris Rusch, president of the Douglas County Master Gardeners. “Almost overnight, the hills will go from brown to emerald green, trees will start blooming and bulbs will start flowering.”

Friendly temperatures and a sliver of sunshine will motivate even those with brown thumbs to get outside and plant. And there may be no better place to see your gardening dreams become a reality than in the Umpqua Valley.

“The Umpqua Valley is unique in that it’s a Mediterranean climate, so we have one of the longest growing seasons in Oregon,” says Rusch, who has gardened on her family’s property in Tiller for the past 45 years. “That climate is conducive to growing all kinds of fruits and vegetables.

Most of us have forest loam soil too, and that’s easy to grow in. With just a little compost, you can turn it into rich garden soil in just a little while.

“So there’s great soil, great weather and a long growing season. It’s a little piece of heaven!”

And because of people like Rusch and the hundreds of Master Gardeners in the region, the answers to your gardening questions can be just a phone call away. Or simply visit the group’s Discovery Garden near Roseburg and find out for yourself if turning your back lawn into a vegetable patch is a viable option.

Open from dawn to dusk, the Discovery Garden boasts 19 different types of gardens, ranging from a butterfly garden to a Japanese garden, and including a huge vegetable patch called

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GARDENING CAN TAKE A LOT OF WORK, BUT THE FRUIT — OR VEGETABLES OR FLOWERS — OF ALL THAT LABOR IS ALWAYS WORTH THE EFFORT.

OUTDOORS

IF YOU GO What: Discovery Garden Where: 238 River Forks Park Road Hours: Dawn to Dusk What to see: Children’s Garden (with a library), Victory (vegetable) Garden, Butterfly Garden, Herb Garden, Japanese Garden, Shade Garden, Straw Bale Garden, Perennial Flower Border, Easy Access Garden, Dwarf Fruit Tree Orchard, Hedgerow, Sun Garden, Ornamentals Garden, Rock Garden, Xeriscape Garden and The Pavilion.

Signs provide direction for self-guided tours, but friendly volunteer gardeners are often onsite to help visitors. Easy-to-read informational boards about composting, worm bins, biochar and raised beds are also plentiful.

Website: douglascountymg.org/discovery_garden.html

IF YOU GROW

Top tips from Master Gardener Chris Rusch: 1. Get your soil tested. Call or stop by the Douglas County extension office (1134 S.E. Douglas Ave., Roseburg) for more information. They will not only test your soil, they’ll also make recommendations for improving it.

.

(Left) Discovery Garden (Top Right) Chris Rusch at the Douglas County Master Gardener’s annual plant sale

the Victory Garden. Volunteer Master Gardeners not only tend to the plants, but also work at the plant clinic.

“We get a lot of landscaping questions,” says Rusch. “People will call and ask us to help identify weeds and how to control them.

There are also a lot of diseases that pop up during cool, wet springs, so we have people ask what they can do to fix it. Usually it’s a fungus disease this time of year.”

Another meaningful job the Master Gardeners took on in 2011 is donating produce from the Victory Garden to Douglas County’s United Community Action Network, which in 2017 received more than 7,000 pounds of fresh vegetables from the group. Discovery Garden also includes a children’s space – an interactive learning place that includes a small library of kid-friendly gardening books.

To support their efforts and spread the cultivation of healthy plants throughout the community, each spring the Master Gardeners host the Douglas County Plant & Garden Expo at the fairgrounds.

Proceeds from the plant sale are used to keep the Discovery Garden open and operational.

Gardening can take a lot of work, but the fruit – or vegetables or flowers – of all that labor is always worth the effort, Rusch says.

“It’s very satisfying to plant a small seed and see it grow into a wonderful edible product, to open the freezer in the middle of winter and enjoy a stew from summer vegetables or to open a jar of pears and bake a pie,” she says.

2. Make a plan (before you buy plants).

Walk around your neighborhood and find shrubs and trees that you like and will grow well in your area.

3. Define your space. If you’re planting vegetables, make sure they get plenty of sun and have good soil drainage.

4. Try raised beds or containers. For freedom from bad soil or if you don’t have a lot of room, this is a great way to maximize the space you have and start right away.

5. Think about irrigation. Gardening can be expensive if you’re using city water, so plan on using lots of mulch and a drip irrigation system to cut down on water consumption.

6. Become a master gardener. If you’re encouraged to learn more, winter is the season for classroom education. The 12week master gardening course is offered every winter. There is usually a waiting list, so sign up early (right after you’re done harvesting your last tomatoes).

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SANDTASTIC! DuneFest in Winchester Bay draws sand enthusiasts from near and far for the chance to ride their toys over some of the largest dunes in the world.

Story by Josh Gaunt Photos by Thomas Boyd

I

t’s the most fun a family can have in sand.

That’s the promise of the 2018 edition of DuneFest, scheduled for July 24-29 at the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area near Winchester Bay.

The event brings ATV lovers, side-by-side enthusiasts and motorcycle riders from across the country to enjoy an array of riding activities with the Pacific Ocean as the backdrop.

The Oregon dunes are among the largest in the world and the annual DuneFest has become a signature event for the area.

“It’s a great event, it’s family-friendly and a great place to meet new people,” says Jody Morrow, DuneFest coordinator. “It’s like a sand family almost.”

DuneFest events include three night rides, freestyle tricks, a tire toss and scavenger hunt, in addition to racing every day. A show-n-shine is also planned, along with live music.

Kids’ activities include a special riding area, with vehicle rentals available and adult supervision required.

A winning raffle ticket will net the holder a customized, 2018 Yamaha Raptor 700 ATV. Proceeds from the raffle will benefit Oregon Coast Powersports, a popular Winchester Bay business that was destroyed by fire in February. An auction is planned for Saturday, with proceeds benefiting local service organizations.

“It’s an action-filled week full of great people, sand toys and entertainment,” Morrow says.

For a complete event schedule and to learn more about available accommodations, go online to www.dunefest.com.

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LAST WORD

I

was plopped in the Umpqua Valley at age 12. Left the only home I’d ever known and a junior high with 2,000 kids for Glide and a school with just 200 students.

You Can Take Her Out of the UV, but…

A FORMER NEWSPAPER EDITOR MAINTAINS A CLOSE CONNECTION TO HER HOME OF 40 YEARS.

By Vicki Menard

Even though I’d been living on a 10acre farm, this hilly, forested part of Oregon seemed so different than living on the outskirts of Portland. I was not immediately impressed, not even when my new classmates pointed out country singer Hoyt Axton’s son was sitting next to me.

Forty years later, I’m back in Portland, yet I couldn’t be fonder of the Umpqua Valley.

As a teenager, I realized attending a small school like Glide gave me the opportunity to participate in team sports, rather than being cut in favor of more talented athletes. Becoming a Wildcat sparked my lifelong interest in fitness.

Our family’s first drive along the North Umpqua River was another eye-opener. How had my family, who descended from 1843 Oregon Trail pioneers and had visited every corner of Oregon, missed this breathtakingly beautiful jade green river snaking through a luscious forest and basalt canyon walls?

Yet it was my career that gave me a unique look at the Umpqua Valley.

Some may recognize my name from nearly 30 years of bylines in The News-Review. A few will recall me as Joe and Clarene Looney’s daughter, or may remember the stories I told as I caught my first summer steelhead on a fly, raised identical twin daughters, climbed Mount Thielsen, ran the Hood to Coast Relay, lost my precious mother to cancer or tried to provide perspective and invite comment in my role as newspaper editor.

Being able to tell stories of the people who live in the Umpqua Valley and what happens there was inspiring. Working as a reporter, I met artists, authors, musicians, entrepreneurs, outdoor enthusiasts, scientists, teachers, craftsmen, hobbyists and community leaders — an endless number of passionate people.

I treasure each of those interviews and the thrill of running across some of those same people along the North Umpqua Trail, at a local winery, brew fest, the coast, the gym, or my favorite event: Music on the Half Shell summer concerts.

The contraction of newspaper journalism prompted me to relocate and learn to write for a different industry, but it hasn’t stemmed my love for the Umpqua Valley. New acquaintances hear me expound on the advantages of the UV: the scenic beauty, the climate, the resources, the people. I insist they travel the North Umpqua Highway on their next trip to Crater Lake.

I take great solace in having kept my home in Glide. There’s still much to explore in my new city and beyond, but I expect one day I’ll be back.

Vicki Menard, a Roseburg News-Review staffer from 1983 to 2015, now directs the Marketing and Communications Departments at Todd Construction Inc. Established in Roseburg in 1942, the commercial general contractor moved to Tualatin in 1987. Her boss is a fellow Glide High and Oregon State grad.

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