Story of a Decade

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The Bulletin AN INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPER

• A RETROSPECTIVE SPECIAL SECTION THE BULLETIN • SUNDAY, JANUARY 3, 2010

Central Oregon 2000 – 2009

The story of our

decade

Photo illustration by David Wray / The Bulletin • Staff and fi le photos

BETSY MCCOOL GORDON BLACK JOHN COSTA ERIK LUKENS

Chairwoman Publisher Editor-in-chief Editor of Editorials

The Bulletin’s usual editorials and book reviews will return next week in the Perspective section. www.bendbulletin.com

C EN T R A L O R EG ON • 20 0 0 –20 09

F2 Sunday, January 3, 2010 • THE BULLETIN

Our decade Read a recap of the happenings and trends in news, business and economy, education, health, food, arts and entertainment, and sports. Then test your knowledge of area trivia.

IN NEWS ...

FROM THE EDITOR

2000

The Bend Elks baseball team comes to Vince Genna Stadium. • St. Charles Medical Center and Central Oregon District Hospital in Redmond agree to merge.

• Regal Cinemas opens, giving the Old Mill District its anchor tenant.

• Roundabouts catch on in Bend after Oregon’s first is installed at Colorado and Century two months earlier.

2001

Oregon’s Smokefree Workplace Law passes.

• The Parkway is completed. • Oregon State University-Cascades Campus opens. • The area’s first synagogue opens. • Four Bend residents file a federal complaint that Bend isn’t compliant with the Americans With Disabilities Act. • Powdr Corp buys Mt. Bachelor for $28 million. • Geologists detect a bulge on South Sister. • Prineville’s last two sawmills, Ochoco Lumber and Crown Pacific, close.

TRAGEDY IN 2001

Where we’ve been — and where we should go

By John Costa

O

The Bulletin

ne of our presidential candidates once to consider the national and international events that asked, “Are you better off now than you have affected Central Oregon, the nation and the world were four years ago?” so profoundly.

Former Deschutes County It’s a good question, both obvious and The attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, changed our assumptions Sheriff Greg Brown pleads subtle, but the answer depends on your perspective. about security, perhaps forever. (For one thing, you need guilty to embezzling $575,000. • Les Schwab Amphitheater is On the obvious level, of course, someone who had a more time at Redmond Airport to go through security.) built. • Bend’s Community Center opens. job four years ago and doesn’t have one now will likely We have gone to war against an enemy that Presi• Chef Jody Denton launches Merenda. say no. dent Barack Obama said must be beaten, even if it takes Juniper Ridge is chosen If your local school district reduced the number of decades. as the location for an industrial campus to teaching days each week from five to four, the answer is As Central Oregon’s National Guardsmen and reservdiversify the economy and provide future likely, “Of course not.” ists have in this past decade, many more of our citizens manufacturing jobs. • Stephanie Beeksma and Danielle O’Neal Gates are killed in a streetThe answer would surely be the same if institutions will go to war and lose their lives to achieve that victory. racing incident in which David Black and Randy you depend on faced default.

From tariffs on foreign-made tires to No Child Left BeClifford are later convicted. • The B & B Fire burns 90,000 acres near Sisters just days before then-President George W. Bush was to speak in Those are obvious and understandable answers to obhind, to the banking and credit policies that first built a Camp Sherman about healthy forests. • Bill Healy Memorial Bridge opens boom and then ushered in a bust, one myth above all has vious and acute problems. after a contentious battle about Bend’s growth. • Bend makes headlines for trying to keep smelly people off Dial-A-Ride. been destroyed. Central Oregon has not been, is not now, But is that, however painful, a comand will not ever be an island immune from the social, plete picture of a community?

Redmond’s G Troop, 82nd Cavalry, is deployed In 2004, a day after economic and political swirls of the nation and world.

What if your city or region has to fight in Iraq and the Bend City Council agrees to allow the ••• made great strides, but is currently Afghanistan. • Two men are slain in separate crane shed’s demolition, Crown Investment incidents in Drake Park. • Oregon voters declare Group takes down the historic structure after struggling? ever has the expression “low water exposes a lot of marriage a union of a man and a woman. dark and without a demolition permit while What if it is a region in which there rocks” been truer or more appropriate than in the • Two former Deschutes County deputies are the historic landmarks commission meets indicted on sex abuse and drug charges. nearby to discuss whether the building is high unemployment, but most condition of the Central Oregon economy as the decade • Tower Theatre reopens. • Volunteers should be saved for its historic value. in Medicine opens a clinic for the working people still go to work every day — a ends. uninsured. • BendFilm holds its first festival. region that has boomed with growth, Rarely have statistics lined up so thoroughly and Redmond Airport gets jets. seen a university arrive, health care painfully.

• While floating the expand, entertainment enriched and Home sales, home prices, foreclosures, bankruptcies, unDeschutes River, Bend Elks player Michael Wilhite drowns, one of several the work force diversify? employment, underemployment — the numbers associated deaths each year as the river sees more use. • The answer, then, is not so easy, even with the collapsed economy are dizzying and depressing.

Deschutes County Commissioner Tom DeWolf resigns after allegations surfaced that he had if the area has fallen from its peak.

It is hard to see back past our current distress to the mild groped two women. • The first Nature of Words The title of this section is “The story recession — by comparison — that began the decade, and literary event is held. of our decade,” and the many events then through the real estate boom to where we are now.

Central Oregonians mourn and developments — both positive The speed with which the economy accelerated is Army Pfc. Tom Tucker, of Madras, and Marine Lance Cpl. Randy Newman, of and negative — that are depicted on these pages indimatched only by the rapidity with which it collapsed.

Bend. • The real estate market begins to cool. • Bend Park & Recreation rectly but powerfully ask the politician’s question.

“How do we explain,” asks Michael Wax, investment District wins the National Gold Medal Award for excellence and greatly expands Juniper Swim & Fitness Center. • Bend launches its bus system.

Do you think you are better off now than you were 10 specialist and former chair of the advisory committee to • La Pine incorporates as a city. • Madras elects “kid mayor” Jason Hale, 26. years ago?

Oregon State University’s Cascades Campus, “and com• Snowmobiler Roger Rouse dies after two nights in the woods. • Drunken Broken Top golfers, who had used strippers as Do you think Central Oregon, for all of its current ecoprehend our community (Bend) that began the decade caddies, drive to Merenda in a stolen cart. nomic distress, is better off now than it was 10 years ago? with 40,000 residents and grew to 80,000 plus, and yet Bethlehem Inn opens Or, a very different question: did not generate a sustainable economic system?” its permanent facility.

Do you think Central Oregon is in a better position for Or as Bill Smith, developer of the Old Mill District, ob• Kimberly Potter is killed In 2006, newly on a bike in a hit-and-run. • Snowboarder Tyler the future today than it was 10 years ago facing the deserved, “We entered the decade with an unemployment built athletic fields Eklund is paralyzed. • Deer Ridge Correctional at Summit High cade of 2000 to 2010? rate at 5.4 percent. We’ll end the decade with an unemInstitution opens in Madras. • Bend sues the School begin to company that sold the city worn-out buses. • What did the past decade mean to Central Oregon, ployment rate close to 16 percent, or 1 in 7 wage earnsink, forcing the Voters approve Measure 49. • The Legislature school’s track, and what does it portend for the future? ers not making it. For those folks, and others who decalls for smoke-free bars. • A clothesline on baseball and softball Awbrey Butte makes national news. • Kent Couch Those are hard questions. pend on wages being spent, the decade was lost in teams to compete makes international news by flying a lawn chair off campus for a Not surprisingly, as you will read, the peothe final two to three years.” and a cluster of balloons. • A llama goes berserk. season and leading ple I asked had very different answers.

What happened? to a controversial, Mt. Bachelor shakes state-of-the-art No one underestimated the challenges Simply put, the world credit-finance system, up its management repair project. and celebrates its 50th we face, but most were, assuming we have fueled by greed, collapsed under the weight anniversary. • Les Schwab’s headquarters learned some important lessons and are of one gross, or selfish, miscalculation after moves from Prineville to Bend. • Cole Ortega’s arm is reattached after a surfing accident. • open-minded about different investments another. No community escaped the conseCindy Powell jumps to her death at St. Charles. and a new course, cautiously optimistic. quences. “We have all learned valuable les• Redmond reroute opens. • Domestic partnerships are approved in Oregon.

••• sons in the past 10 years that will be applied in overing the story of a decade is our decision-making process moving forThe 1st Squadron, 82nd Cavalry of the 41st simple if you just start with Day ward,” said Todd Taylor, owner of Taylor Infantry Brigade Combat One and march forward, conforming Northwest and chairman of the board Team is deployed to Iraq. • The Badlands are designated a 30,000-acre wilderness. • Austin to what historian Arnold Toynbee conof Cascade Healthcare Community.

Melton makes national news after being struck demned as the “one damned thing af“This has forced a reconciliation in by lightning in La Pine. • Cessna closes.

• St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church opens ter another” school of perspective. our businesses and our personal life that a new church. • The Diocese of Baker settles In August, The Bulletin It’s much harder when you try to has been difficult but healthy. Building sex-abuse lawsuits. • Jody Denton, creator of Merenda and Deep, files for chronicled the development bankruptcy just hours before he and his family catch a flight for Australia of the Old Mill District and give relative importance to events no a broader economic base (technolto start anew. • Riverbend Park and the Bend Park & Recreation District looked to what the future holds. matter when they occurred. ogy businesses, centers of excellence, headquarters open. • A $100 million fish passage facility opens on Lake See the story online at Billy Chinook to reintroduce native species to area rivers. www.bendbulletin.com/oldmill While this is a locally focused reflechealth care, sustainable power) that tion on the decade, it is impossible not will attract and retain the next genera-

2002

Redmond resident Barbara Thomas is slain by her son, Adam Squires Thomas, below, and four of his friends.

All of the “Redmond Five” are still behind bars.

2003

2004

REMEMBER?

N

2005 2006

2007

GAPING HOLES

2008

2009

C

THE OLD MILL: What a difference a decade makes

C EN T R A L O R EG ON • 20 0 0 –20 09

THE BULLETIN • Sunday, January 3, 2010 F3

... BUSI N ESS & ECONOM Y ...

A DECADE OF

GROWTH Central Oregon has continued its rapid growth in the past decade.

RETAIL

• There’s simply more of it.

And some existing strip malls have gone upscale. The Old Mill District was developed, and there’s been extreme growth on Bend’s east side along U.S. Highway 20.

• Remember Mountain View Mall?

In 2004, that area became Cascade Village Shopping Center (below), and the stores started coming: Bed Bath & Beyond, PetSmart and Best Buy in 2005; in 2008, Trader Joe’s caused a flurry.

• And how about Bend River Mall?

Although the name change was minor — to Bend River Promenade — in 2005, the difference in the shopping center was drastic and drew large retailers, including T.J. Maxx in 2006, and Kohl’s, scheduled to open in March.

COME AND GONE • Several significant national retailers have set up shop or expanded in Bend and Redmond, including: Lowe’s, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Carino’s Italian, REI, Orvis, Cost Plus World Market, Sportsman’s Warehouse (now Wholesale Sports), Home Depot, Wal-Mart and Walgreens.

• Gottschalks came at the wrong time, opening in 2008 and closing in 2009. Other longtime retailers also closed, including: Kmart in 2000, Linens N’ Things in 2008, and in 2009, Office Depot, Joe’s and Ritz Camera Center.

Deschutes County’s population grew 46% to 170,705 from 2000 to 2009.

Jefferson County grew 41% to 27,185. Crook County grew 17% to 22,715.

The population explosion fueled major expansion in infrastructure and development, as well as changing how we live and much of the landscape we enjoy.

... RECESSION ...

But as the decade closed, it was impossible to look at the rapid growth without also figuring in the effects of a severe economic downturn.

FROM HERE TO THERE

San Francisco Los Angeles

Denver

Las Vegas Mesa

HOUSING

September

Peaked in May

Crashed in April

$220,000 November

51% DROP

• Notices of default in Deschutes County soared in 2009, putting a further damper on prices as the market was flooded with bank-owned homes. The market continues to try to work off significant excess inventory that, until it reaches more normal levels, will keep a lid on new construction and higher sales prices.

529,392 ’08-’09

500

’99- ’01- ’03- ’05- ’07’00 ’02 ’04 ’06 ’08 ’00- ’02- ’04- ’06- ’08’01 ’03 ’05 ’07 ’09 Ski seasons Source: Pacific Northwest Ski Areas Association

487,517

*No figures available for 2002 Source: Central Oregon Visitors Association

RESORTS

• Use: There were 161,713 boardings in 2000.

The peak year was 2008, with 247,392.

• Plenty of destination resorts broke ground this decade, with the stated intent of attracting visitors.

Tetherow, Pronghorn, Caldera Springs and Brasada Ranch are up and running, but struggling in the new economy. Remington Ranch and Thornburgh Resort are in limbo, and others have been proposed. Still, the way destination resorts have played out in the area is one of the continuing controversies of the decade.

DEVELOPMENT

2009

$159,000 $396,000 $195,000

600

450

• As the housing bubble burst, so did prices, wiping out substantial equity and turning many homeowners upside down in their mortgages.

Median sales prices in Bend plummeted by early 2009:

2007

680,576 ’05-’06

453,347 440 451,201 430 ’02* ’04 ’06 ’08 ’09 ’01 ’03 ’05 ’07

• Those numbers fell sharply by late 2006 and crashed in the last three years of the decade. Don Patten, who tracks building permits in the region as publisher of “The Central Oregon Housing Market Letter,” predicted there would be 400 permits issued for the whole region in 2009.

2000

700 thousand

470 460

• Size: In 2000, the airport terminal was 23,000 square feet. It has since nearly sextupled, to 136,000 square feet, with a $40 million expansion that opened in 2009 and is scheduled to be completed in February.

• Central Oregon’s housing industry exploded mid-decade on the coattails of easy credit and a belief that the area’s appeal would fuel consistent housing demand and price appreciation. At times, Central Oregon was permitting 300, 400, 500 homes per month.

Mt. Bachelor and Hoodoo

480

• Flights: In 2000, there was air service to Portland, Seattle and San Francisco.

Now, the airport offers direct flights to nine cities.

Salt Lake City

Annual ski visits

490 thousand

The airport grew. Here are some measures of its development.

Eugene

• Mt. Bachelor and Hoodoo saw rapid growth in annual visitation in the peak economic years. Since then, their numbers have been affected, in part by a decline in tourism.

After a 2008 management shakeup, Bachelor expanded its efforts to reach out to local winter sports enthusiasts as well as tourists.

Annual golf rounds

REDMOND AIRPORT

Seattle

Scenery, outdoor activities and quality of life are some of the big draws to the area. Some people came to stay, others just to play.

• Golf also is a big tourist draw and a popular pastime with locals. The number of rounds played in the area rose fairly steadily until the recession.

• The influx of new residents and tourists brought about changes in how we get around. The Bend Parkway was completed in 2001, circumventing the business area on U.S. Highway 97 through Bend. Similarly, the reroute (at right) around Redmond’s business district opened in 2008.

Portland

TOURISM

• NorthWest Crossing, a multiuse development that blends neighborhood-style housing with business, got its start in summer 2002. The first phase had just 60 lots. Now there are close to 500 homes, 65 businesses and more than 100,000 square feet of commercial space. New lots continue to sell, with 40 having sold in 2009 — twice as many as in 2008.

Some developments suffered from bad timing: • Yarrow, planned as a 900-acre, 1,600-home development in Madras, is such a case. Currently, just seven homes are finished; four of those are occupied. A sign (at right) shows the concessions the developer has made to revive sales.

• Sales slowed in 2007 for IronHorse, a development in Prineville estimated to bring 2,900 homes over a 15- to 20-year period. In all, IronHorse has built 20 to 25 homes and 75 homesites since 2007.

BANKING

• The real estate collapse caught up with small banks in 2008 and 2009, as bad loans and declining collateral values splattered their books with red ink. Prineville-based Community First Bank was closed by regulators Aug. 7 and sold to Nampa, Idaho-based Home Federal Bank. Also, Bank of the Cascades’ parent company was ordered in August to improve its financial conditions and operations by early 2010. The bank’s parent company plans a public/private stock offering in 2010 to raise money to meet regulatory requirements.

... and POSSIBILITY SMALL COMPANIES, BIG IDEAS

TECHNOLOGY

ECONOMIC DIVERSITY

• Barack Obama visited Bend-based PV Powered during the campaign, a high-profile acknowledgement of the company’s work in the emerging green-energy field. It’s just one company doing research and development in Central Oregon. Others include Bend Research, a local pioneer in its work with drug manufacturers; Suterra, which develops pheromones to control insect pests; IdaTech, which develops hydrogen fuel cells; InEnTec, which designs and builds waste-to-energy systems; and Microsemi, which makes silicon carbide semiconductors.

• In 2000, there were no touchscreen smart phones, no Facebook, YouTube or Twitter — even the now-ubiquitous iPod was still more than a year away. (The iPhone remains on the horizon for us, though it’s coming.) But by 2002, Qwest joined BendBroadband (which had done so five years earlier) in laying fiber-optic cables in the region, resolving problems with Internet service blackouts, which were sometimes caused when lines occasionally were cut. The lines also brought DSL to the region. BendBroadband and other Internet service providers also focused on speed and accessibility and expanded coverage to more rural parts of the area.

• Juniper Ridge (below, with Les Schwab’s headquarters pictured) is the embodiment of the area’s push toward bringing a diversity of industry to the region. The concept calls for the creation of industrial and manufacturing jobs, which generally pay more than the service industry jobs that form the base of the area’s economy.

LES SCHWAB (2007) He turned a run-down Prineville tire shop bought in 1952 into one of the largest independent tire dealers in the U.S. Les Schwab, who died in 2007 at age 89, was an iconic figure who appeared on TVs in homes across the West wearing his trademark Resistol hat and roaming his 80,000-acre ranch southeast of Prineville. By the end of 2008, the tire company’s headquarters moved from Prineville to Juniper Ridge in Bend.

F4 Sunday, January 3, 2010 • THE BULLETIN

C EN T R A L O R EG ON • 20 0 0 –20 09

... EDUCAT ION ...

... H EALT H ...

UPS AND DOWNS

• A splintering of the local health care community has meant more choices and options for area patients, but also greater infighting. While Bend Memorial Clinic dominated the scene in 2000, it’s seen a steady departure of physicians forming their own independent practices, and hired new physicians to replace those who left.

• Central Oregon’s two health care gorillas, Cascade Healthcare Community and Bend Memorial Clinic, have increasingly added services or entered in joint ventures that put them into direct competition with each other, often leaving patients caught in the middle. The Physician Hospital Alignment group (the start of a movement to reinvent the health care system in Central Oregon) has now forced doctors in town to take a side: with the hospital or against it.

• Central Oregon continues to benefit from the infusion of medical technology, providing safer and less invasive ways to perform surgeries.

However, the influx of technology is also leading to higher costs. Nowhere is that more true than with imaging, where physician clinics continue to add MRIs and CT scanners, and then must run patients through them to offset their costs.

COSTS for some common procedures at St. Charles Bend (Cost is defined as the average amount paid by private insurance to the hospital for these procedures) Hip replacement $40,837

MILESTONES AND TOUCHSTONES • No Child Left Behind has changed the educational landscape for Central Oregon students. The implementation of the law at the start of the decade came with grumbling from educators who said students would become nothing more than test scores and numbers on a graph. But the law’s goal, to have every student reach proficiency in language arts and math by 2014, has garnered some very positive results: Schools can no longer ignore the students who traditionally fall through the cracks. No Child Left Behind has faced criticism from local administrators, but many believe the act has done a lot of good for students. And they believe the law will be reauthorized, with changes.

• Population growth by the middle of the decade led to overcrowding in schools, an explosion that the Bend-La Pine school district is just now catching up to. The district added six new elementaries, a new middle school and a new high school. Pictured below are Mountain View High School’s crowded halls in late 1999; the problem was solved when Summit High School opened in 2001.

OPENING A CAMPUS Oregon State University’s Cascades Campus (above) opened at the start of the decade and has survived setbacks in financial backing, leadership and commitment that have threatened its very existence.

But demand for the school’s programs continues to grow.

Enrollment at the branch in its first year, 2001, was 245, and it has grown to 611 in 2009.

• Redmond is just now starting to address the crowding issue, with a new elementary and high school being built. Paving the way for the new schools is the $110 million bond that passed in 2008.

• Budget constraints forced the closure of Westside Elementary in Madras and led to a four-day school week in Redmond. Bend-La Pine Schools eliminated 46 teaching positions and 16 staff positions to balance its 2009-10 budget. But Crook County schools experienced the most drastic changes; last year, the district cut the school year short and slashed funding for spring sports.

It also cut a handful of teaching positions, eliminated full-day kindergarten and drastically cut funding for sports and other activities in the 2009-10 school year.

• Redmond became the first district east of the Cascades to operate an International Baccalaureate program. Bend High will likely receive the go-ahead to start its own IB program in fall 2010.

• Bend’s Miller Elementary, working to achieve LEED certification for its environmentalism, reworked the 67,000-square-foot facility to include solar panels, low-flush toilets and native plants in the landscaping.

BECKY JOHNSON (2007)

Johnson was a longtime philanthropist, and a star in Oregon politics. While her husband, Sam, became a state representative and mayor of Redmond, Johnson served on the state Board of Higher Education for 13 years, as well as other state and national commissions. After her husband’s death, she continued funding education projects and other programs. She died in 2007 at 93.

• For most of the decade, it was business as usual at Central Oregon Community College, which under the tight economy of the past two years has burst at the seams. In that time, registration has been cut off early and the college has expanded its offerings to meet the growing need. Voters have approved expansion at other Central Oregon sites to accommodate more full-time students. Within the past two years, the number of students in health care programs alone has risen 59 percent.

Balloon angioplasty after heart attack

Appendix removal

$43,880

Vaginal delivery

$16,220

$7,889 $6,501

tion of entrepreneurs and employees is critical to Bend’s future,” he added.

“By building a strong base, normalized development will occur to sustain good business growth. In the past 10 years we did just the opposite. If we do not apply this valuable history to our everyday life,” he warned, “we will be having the same discussion in 2019.”

Wax agrees, and suggests that pointing fingers at the world economic collapse exempts our own decision-making, or its lack, from responsibility for our predicament. “We did not build a ‘real’ university to power a potential mountain university/college town that attracts research-based private enterprise,” he said. “We did not execute our plan to build a research/enterprise park that could integrate our ‘real’ university and private economic output. Our leading institutions in Bend, both private and public, are fighting for survival.

“We are part of a state that entered the decade in a tattered condition and leaves the decade in much worse condition than tattered.

“I cannot rationalize that we are victims of macroeconomics; in fact we are all responsible for ignoring the signpost that a real estate- and tourism-based local economy is not capable of providing the stability that we all desire.”

••• till, for all of our current distress, we are a very different and, some would argue, richer community today than we were 10 years ago.

In the words of developer Smith, “We lost

S

$27,965 2005 2006 2007 2008

$29,500 2005 2006 2007 2008

$4,036

$10,575 2005 2006 2007 2008

2005 2006 2007 2008

Source: Oregon Health Policy & Research

• More options for specialized care now exist east of the Cascades, with the creation of the Heart Center and Cancer Center at CHC and such facilities as Desert Bone and Joint.

• Year after year of cuts in Medicare payment rates to physicians have prompted many doctors to stop taking new Medicare patients. That left many seniors struggling to find doctors who would take them, until BMC opened its door to all new Medicare patients.

• New options now exist for low-income patients, including For our 3 counties combined: Mosaic Medical, which opened in 2002 as Ochoco Community 2000: 10% 2002: 15% Clinic, and La Pine Community 2004: 18% 2006: 19% ...

Clinic, which opened in 2002 after ... Since 2006, uninsured statistics have BMC closed its La Pine operation. been compiled in a different manner.

Volunteers in Medicine opened in But every health professional contacted 2004 to serve the uninsured. VIM’s predicts the upward trend has continued. services have expanded since it opened, as has the pool of people Source: Oregon Population Survey it serves. In its first year, VIM had 4,100 patient visits. By 2009, the clinic’s number of visits had doubled.

UNINSURED

• More doctors: In 2004, Crook, Deschutes and Jefferson counties had 364 physicians; by 2009, their number had reached 486. In those five years, the average annual growth rate of physicians — 6.7 percent — outpaced the 5 percent annual growth rate of the three counties’ total population.

• In 2009, the Legislature passed a bill that would extend health insurance to virtually every child in Oregon. Children in families of four earning as much as $66,000 would get assistance with premiums, and families making more than that could buy into the program.

A REGIONAL HOSPITAL SYSTEM IS CREATED

• A new hospital system began to take shape in Central Oregon in January 2001 with the merger of St. Charles in Bend (pictured below in 2001 and, inset, in 2009) and Redmond’s hospital. At the time, Mountain View District Hospital in Madras moved under the same leadership. Later that year, the hospital system began providing management services for Pioneer Memorial Hospital in Prineville. In 2003, the group changed its name to Cascade Healthcare Community.

CATHERINE HELLMANN (2009) After working as the nursing supervisor at St. Charles in the late ’40s, Sister Catherine Hellmann returned to serve as the president and CEO. Under her leadership, the hospital moved to the east side of town and became a state-ofthe-art facility in the region. Hellman died last year at 88.

C EN T R A L O R EG ON • 20 0 0 –20 09 the decade. But during the decade we were found. That is — or will be — our salvation.

“It wasn’t too long ago that the Democrats’ choice for governor refused a debate in Bend because it was ‘the middle of nowhere.’ Package deliveries were routinely sent to Rome, Italy, instead of RDM, Redmond, Oregon.

Airline clerks in Chicago told us there were no direct flights to Redmond (Microsoft’s home in Washington).

Mail addressed to “Chamber of Commerce Bend, Oregon,” ended up on the Oregon Coast (North Bend).”

The discovery of Bend is not only about destination resorts, which brought people and national exposure. Nor is it about meteoric growth, which has enhanced the area’s standing and power and elevated us to the ranks of Metropolitan Statistical Areas, a designation that placed Bend on much-publicized lists of the top 365 areas in the country for everything, as Smith observed, “from days of sunshine to multiple births per thousand women of child-bearing age.”

Our discovery is really about what we did with it all.

The medical community and its capacity are exponentially greater than 10 years ago.

There are many new public schools, an expanded community college — which just received a $41 million building plan from voters — and a branch of Oregon State University.

There are major new commercial and retail areas, led by the Old Mill District in Bend.

There is a significant airport with flights connecting most major Western cities. There are also greatly expanded communications connections.

With a new bypass and downtown redevelopment, Redmond is reshaping itself.

There is more economic diversification.

While we have retreated somewhat during the recession, arts, entertainment and dining offerings are richer than they were 10 years ago.

And the area has become world-renowned as a center for endurance sports, particularly cycling.

“The idea that a rural Western town can move beyond its natural resource economy and a way of life,” said Dr. Knute Buehler, orthopedic surgeon and Cascade Healthcare Community board member, “to one which leverages other assets such as recreation, telecommuting, high tech, clean air and water, health care, software development, etc., while maintaining a high quality outdoor lifestyle was almost a reality in Bend.”

We came up short in education, transportation, health care, manufacturing, tourism, recreation and entertainment because, he believes, we are still too dependent on real estate development and construction.

Still, he added. “We now have a different collective mindset. We have laid important foundations in the past decade so that it is a real possibility in the next 10 years we can say ‘mission accomplished’ to achieving a vi-

THE BULLETIN • Sunday, January 3, 2010 F5

... FOOD ...

A DECADE OF

TRENDING LOCAL

Since 2000, Central Oregon has seen an explosion of foodie culture. Farmers markets, once limited to a few booths at Bend’s Saturday Market, mushroomed to encompass two markets in Bend as well as markets in most of the region’s outlying communities.

Shoppers, such as those pictured above, flock to the weekly markets to stock up on everything from local heirloom tomatoes to artisan cheeses, such as those produced by Tumalo Farms, owned by Flavio DeCastilhos (right).

... ARTISAN

Demand for local and handcrafted food extended past fresh fruits and vegetables.

Artisan food stores, such as the Village Baker in Bend (whose Mockingbird loaf is pictured above), gained popularity. The bakery opened a second outpost on Bend’s east side in 2009.

Long a hotbed for microbrewed beers (pictured at right is Cascade Lakes’ 20-Inch Brown Ale), Central Oregon saw the specialty beverage market grow even more this decade with the introduction of handcrafted liquor from Bendistillery, (pictured above left with sales head Alan Dietrich) and wine from Maragas Winery owners Doug and Gina Maragas (left).

... SPECIALTY March 2008 brought with it the long-anticipated opening of Trader Joe’s, a specialty grocery chain with a strong local following. Crowds mobbed the store’s opening (right), eager for a chance to buy low-priced organic vegetables, specialty cheeses and the chain’s famous “three-buck Chuck” discount wine. A growing population and changing eating habits were both credited with increased interest in natural food products, for example, and stores such as Trader Joe’s.

... and UPSCALE The first decade of the 21st century was a watershed era for the food-and-beverage industry in Central Oregon. In 2000, Bend had few restaurants that might have been termed “gourmet,” among them the venerable Pine Tavern. By the early 2000s, Cork and Marz restaurants were offering gourmet plates in downtown Bend. • But things began to change rapidly after San Francisco chef Jody Denton (pictured at left) moved to Bend in 2002 to open downtown Bend’s Merenda Restaurant and Wine Bar. In 2003, Texas chef Gavin McMichael opened The Blacksmith, quickly winning praise in the international press for his “new ranch cuisine.” Suddenly Bend was the darling of the foodie scene on the West Coast, and the movement had spread to Redmond (Chloe and Brickhouse), Sisters (Jen’s Garden) and Sunriver (South Bend Bistro). • By the end of 2007, however, the economic downturn was taking its toll. When Denton closed Merenda and Deep, his second Bend eatery, as 2008 drew to a close — leaving substantial debt behind — the recession was well on its way, and many restaurants followed Denton’s lead by shutting their doors. • At the end of 2009, there are hints that things are picking up again. Merenda has been replaced by 900 Wall. Zydeco has relocated to downtown Bend, and other fine-dining restaurants, such as Joolz, the River Mill Grill and Trattoria Sbandati, have opened.

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F6 Sunday, January 3, 2010 • THE BULLETIN brant, diversified economy while maintaining a high-quality outdoor lifestyle.”

••• ow widely that new collective mindset is shared is likely the key to a decade of recovery and growth and another generation of spirited, imaginative leadership.

Or is the current experience so searing that we have become averse to risk?

What about the young leaders who have a lifetime of work ahead?

“If you were 20,” said Patti Moss, president and CEO of Cascade Bancorp, “and looked back over the past decade on all of the unusual once-in-a-lifetime events that have happened and realize that those 10 years encompass half of their lives, it puts it in a different perspective than those of us who have been around for 50 years and it represents just 20 percent of our lives.”

Of course, there will be winners and losers even in another decade of plenty.

Do we have the social, intellectual and financial system to support the risk-takers, while picking up and redirecting those who fall behind? Can we think of land and development in ways that are different than we have in the past, ways that redirect its use to the support of technology, health care and energy, as Taylor described it? Can the development of Juniper Ridge or the realization of a Skyline Forest be used in innovative ways to answer the concerns of Rod Ray, president and CEO of Bend Research?

“We have learned the cost of not investing enough in education and all that goes with it,” he said. “… COCC is out of capacity right at the time our local citizens need it the most to get retrained.”

And, of course, the same can be said many times over for

H

C EN T R A L O R EG ON • 20 0 0 –20 09 higher education in Central Oregon, which may well be the most important ingredient in building a community with, as Wax described it, “a sustainable economic system.”

On that point, Becky Johnson, the new leader of OSUCascades, observed, “I think Central Oregonians saw the possibilities for the future that come with a vibrant community, and one of those is the possibility for a robust highereducation institution.”

Let’s hope so.

Looking forward, according to Smith, we have advantages and shortcomings — all of which emphasize the necessity to learn the lessons of the last decade.

On the short side: myriad mandates and standards that take up resources; the economic and political risks in the world; state taxes that will discourage families and companies from coming to the state.

On the long side: Central Oregon is beautiful and attractive; technology allows folks to live anywhere and work; and we have a critical mass in population.

Overall, what he worries about is that governments and banks, and others, “will create an environment that is not as kind to freedom of lifestyle and innovation as we have had.”

Jay Casbon, the first leader of OSU-Cascades, is more optimistic. “The recession — with all of its misery and pain for so many of our neighbors and businesses — also awards us a second chance to discover what is really important, an opportunity to see the folly of placing too much emphasis upon affluence and superficial frivolities; we get a new chance — if we get our discernment right — to refocus and claim a more integrated quality of life for our region.”

••• s we consider what we learned — or should have learned — in the past decade, and how that applies

A

to the future, it is important to recall that we have all been through this before.

While historically repetitive, hard times are difficult to predict and their depth hard to gauge. But they do happen over and over again. Whether you are a bull or a bear, you’re bound to be right half the time.

In that light, it’s good to consider the sustaining compassion of a great community.

Jim Petersen, of the law firm Karnopp Petersen LLP, remembers moving to Bend in 1980 and being recruited to be the United Way’s campaign chair.

Petersen recalls that the community was in a recession arguably as bad or even worse than one we are in now, yet the giving campaign exceeded its goal.

“I said to myself,” Petersen remembers, “‘What a great community — I’m really glad I decided to live, work and raise my family in such a caring community.’

“Fast forward 30 years,” he continued, “and we find ourselves in a similar situation.

“During the pre-recession largess years, I found myself worrying about whether the percentage of ‘takers’ from our community was escalating faster than the percentage of ‘givers’ to our community.

“However, I have been sensing recently that when times are truly tough, that same community spirit of helping people truly in need that I experienced 30 years ago, seems to be again alive and well.

“I am not sure what, if anything, our experience these past few years portends for the future.

“Maybe we have been forced to rediscover who we truly are as a community of people. That out of all the negative may come a positive that may indeed portend well for our future.

“At least I hope so.” •

... A RTS & EN T ERTA I N M EN T ...

The arts and entertainment scene has grown dramatically since 2000, marked in part by the many music venues, theater troupes and art galleries that have come and gone. Here’s some of what happened in the past decade.

Midtown Rock Rink & Roll opens in 2000 with two large rooms 2000 for shows, Midtown Ballroom and Domino Room. A third venue, The Annex, opened above the ballroom in 2007.

“Encore! The Return of the 2001 Tower Theatre,” a revival capital campaign for the circa 1940 icon,

comes to fruition when the Tower Theatre Foundation buys the building from the city of Bend. A ribbon-cutting was held in 2004.

• Maralyn Thoma and then-husband Steve Dougherty open 2nd Street Theater, which closed in December 2009. Pictured at right is the 2007 showing of the Broadway hit “The Sunshine Boys.”

Perhaps no venue has done more to put 2002 Bend on the music map than Les Schwab Amphitheater, which has hosted superstar musicians such

as Bob Dylan, Coldplay, Jack Johnson, Brooks & Dunn and Willie Nelson (at left).

• Founded by Taffy Gleason to fill a gap in need, Bend’s Community Center, an event and social services center, opened in the old Bend Senior Center building on Fifth Street. The center also operates a thrift store on Franklin Avenue. • Cascade Community School of Music opens.

The Grove, a popular downtown bar, begins hosting local acts, touring 2003 bands and internationally known DJs. Below, Bend rapping sensation Mr. Gone performs at The Grove on July 6, 2007 — the last Friday night at the club before it closed for good, leaving a large hole in the local music scene.

The owners of Be Bop Coffee House 2006 — by far Bend’s busiest live jazz venue — decide to close. Before they could do so, their patrons raised money to keep them open. The efforts weren’t enough, however; 10 months later, Be Bop was still losing money and shut down for good in 2007. Above, one of the jazz club’s most frequent acts, the Bend Jazz Trio, perform its last show in October 2007. • Buckboard Productions, a dinner theater in Redmond, raises the curtain.

Cat Call Productions 2009 puts on its first show.

• Mirror Pond Gallery — which had

Founded by Bend author and poet Ellen 2005 Waterston, The Nature of Words, Central Oregon’s largest annual literary event, has brought the likes of Annie Proulx, David Guterson, Alexandra Fuller, Ted Kooser, Timothy Egan and Ursula K. Le Guin to Bend. • Clyde Thompson founds the auditioned choir Central Oregon Mastersingers.

• Local promoter Bret Grier, through his company Random Presents, has been steadfast in his effort to bring big names to the Midtown/Domino complex for more than 10 years.

taking on some of the acts that stopped playing The Grove.

Since then, the popular pub’s concert calendar has become more diverse and busier. • Sisters Jazz Festival plays its last season after a 17-year run.

which continues its run of more than 30 years.

• Obsidian Opera, founded by Sharon Goodmonson in 1997, puts on its last performance. • Innovation Theatre Works hosts its first performance. • Cascade Music Festival announces it’s over just before its 27th season was set to begin. • High Desert Chamber Music is founded by Isabelle Senger.

Waters, Gus Van Sant and C. Thomas Howell. • Deschutes Public Library launches the annual community reading event A Novel Idea … Read Together with events and programming tied to themes in the selected novels.

• McMenamins Old St. Francis School (left) reopens as an event facility, theater, bar and restaurant with overnight lodging. The former Catholic school has hosted dozens of national touring acts, and its free Wednesday night shows are hugely popular.

• C3 Events and the proliferation of Bend’s seasonal festivals illustrate the growth in the music scene over the decade.

C3’s long-running Munch & Music series continues to draw hundreds of people to free shows in Drake Park, and the seasonal festivals often host regional and national touring bands, plus stages for locals.

Silver Moon 2007 Brewing & Taproom begins hosting music,

A lack of funding 2008 threatens to close Cascades Theatrical Company,

Founded by Katie Merritt, BendFilm launches 2004 with 53 films. Over the years, BendFilm has brought to town filmmakers and celebrities such as John

A DECADE OF MUSIC

opened in 1994 — reopens the space as Arts Central, focusing on arts education.

Kebanu Gallery moves from downtown Bend to the Old Mill District, but several newer, smaller galleries, including independent, nontraditional spaces like artist co-op and gallery PoetHouse Art and BICA Gallery, remain downtown. The Old Mill District also has become an art hub, with the relocation of Tumalo Art Co. and the opening of the Lubbesmeyer Studio & Gallery and Atelier 6000 studio/workshop nearby in 2008. Even the popular gallery walks, which have been around in Bend since the mid1990s, have spread from the downtown arts core to the Old Mill.

• The scope and reputation of the Sisters Folk Festival (above in 2008) has grown in the past 10 years, building from an off-the-radar gathering to one of the better folk fests around.

Now it’s a three-day cornucopia of folk, under the leadership of the festival’s board and artistic director, Brad Tisdel.

• Also in Sisters, Jeri Fouts and others have for more than a decade brought big-name artists to Sisters High School for Sisters Starry Nights, a concert series that has raised close to $1 million for Sisters school activities.

• Sunriver Music Festival remains, and Michael Gesme continues to conduct the Central Oregon Symphony through COCC. Cascade Festival of Music is gone, but Central Oregon does have some smaller operations, including High Desert Chamber Music.

• As Bend grew in recent years, talented musicians moved to town and supplemented those already here. As a result, Central Oregon is the home of a local music scene that is incredibly vibrant and creative, especially considering our population size.

Local musicians play rock, punk, metal, folk, country, Americana, bluegrass, hip-hop, reggae, blues, jazz, electronic music, and more, and in 2009, they released more albums, released higher-quality albums, and toured farther outside Central Oregon than ever before.

C EN T R A L O R EG ON • 20 0 0 –20 09

THE BULLETIN • Sunday, January 3, 2010 F7

... A N D SPORTS

A DECADE OF

GAME CHANGERS

• In 2000, the Bend Elks brought summer baseball back to Vince Genna Stadium, which had stood virtually empty in 1999 after the departure of the Bend Bandits of the independent Western Baseball League. The Elks attracted about 15,000 fans in their first year and have become increasingly popular.

• Also, in 2001, a group calling itself the Save Our Stadium Committee formed in fierce opposition to the Bend park district’s proposed redesign of Vince Genna Stadium and demanded that the then-55-year-old stadium be preserved as a baseball facility. The park district and Jim Richards, founder and owner of the Bend Elks, have since reached agreement on a long-term lease that is expected to keep the stadium home to baseball for years to come.

• Part of the reason for Central Oregon’s rapid growth the past decade is its bountiful outdoor opportunities. As more enthusiasts take to the trails, locals have been hard at work maintaining those trails and building new ones.

• The Wanoga Trail Complex, for example, is adding about 35 miles of singletrack mountain biking/running trails in the area west of Bend. The region is already home to hundreds of miles of such trails, as well as groomed cross-country ski paths.

VINCE GENNA (2007)

In 2007, Central Oregon lost a local sports icon.

Bend’s parks and rec director for some 37 years before retiring in 1990, Genna was known by many as the founding father of baseball in the city. He coached local American Legion baseball teams for years and oversaw the development of the Bend ballpark that in 1972 was named in his honor. Genna died at age 86.

• Summit High School opened in 2001, adding a new school to the Intermountain Conference, creating scores of sports participation opportunities and redistributing the pool of athletic talent in Bend.

• The sports landscape at the west Bend school itself changed in early 2007, when gaping sinkholes tore apart many of Summit’s playing fields.

A controversial multimillion-dollar project to repair the ruined facilities featured a new state-of-the-art running track and an artificial-surface football/soccer field, funds for which were raised in an effort led

by Bend resident and former NFL quarterback Drew Bledsoe.

• School reclassifications: In 2006, the Oregon School Activities Association enacted a plan that expanded the number of the state’s high school athletic classifications from four to six. The result was a leveling of the playing field that dramatically benefited Central Oregon schools. • Locally, the reclassification’s most striking impact was to the Intermountain Conference, which became Class 5A and whose schools were no longer grouped with the largest schools in the state. • The new alignment proved an immediate boon to many local sports teams, a number of which experienced unprecedented success at the state level. • The OSAA has approved another reclassification plan, featuring “hybrid leagues,” for a four-year time block starting in 2010-11.

... NEW SPORTS • We’ve seen tremendous growth in traditional sports, but also in nontraditional ones. These days, school kids can play lacrosse, and there’s been a huge rise in disc golf. But would you ever have thought there’d be kiteboarding at Broken Top or Trikke Skkis on Hoodoo?

... NATIONAL EVENTS • Central Oregon landed a number of world-class sports events in the past decade.

While the region has always been renowned for its winter sports, it has emerged as a U.S. cycling mecca during the past decade. Central Oregon is cycling-mad, evidenced by the numerous spandex-clad riders on the roads year-round and the thousands of fans who show up each July for the Cascade Cycling Classic.

(Pictured above is the Prineville stage of the CCC in 2006). Plus, Bend hosted two

USA Cycling national championship events in 2009 — the Elite Road Nationals and the Cyclocross Nationals. But the most high-profile sports event ever to be staged in Central Oregon, The Jeld-Wen Tradition, became a reality in 2006 when the Champions Tour announced that the tournament, one of the 50-and-older professional golf circuit’s major events, was moving from the Portland area to Sunriver.

2007 was the first in a planned four-year run for the tournament in Central Oregon.

... and ACCOMPLISHMENTS CHRIS KLUG

• A snowboarder who grew up in Bend and still lives part-time in Sisters, Klug qualified for the Winter Olympics for the second time in 2002. And just 19 months after undergoing a lifesaving liver transplant, he won a bronze medal in the parallel giant slalom at the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City. Currently, the 37-year-old is hoping to qualify for the 2010 Vancouver Games.

RACHAEL SCDORIS

• A sled-dog musher from Alfalfa, Scdoris made headlines around the globe in 2005 when, at age 20, she became the first legally blind racer to compete in Alaska’s Iditarod.

Citing illness among her dogs, she pulled out two-thirds of the way through the 1,161-mile race. But the next year she made history again by completing the race — which she repeated in 2009.

MAARTY LEUNEN

• After leading Redmond High to its first state basketball title as a junior in 2003, Leunen became a star at the University of Oregon, where the 6-foot-9 forward helped the Ducks to two NCAA Tournament appearances.

Leunen was a key to Oregon’s run to the Elite Eight in 2007. In 2008 he was selected by the Houston Rockets in the second round of the NBA draft, and currently he is playing professionally in Italy.

Several Central Oregonians have made stellar achievements on a national scale. These are four of them.

JACOBY ELLSBURY

• An all-state baseball player at Madras High in 2002, Ellsbury went on to become an AllAmerica center fielder at OSU, where as a junior in 2005 he led the Beavers to their first College World Series in 53 years. A first-round draft pick of the Boston Red Sox that year, Ellsbury climbed quickly through the minor leagues and in 2007 was called up to Boston, where he was a sensation in helping the Sox win the World Series.

F8 Sunday, January 3, 2010 • THE BULLETIN

A DECADE OF TRIVIA

1

C EN T R A L O R EG ON • 20 0 0 –20 09

What four restaurants have operated out of this space since the turn of the decade?

• For an extra point, give the correct name of the breezeway that houses this restaurant.

And for yet one more point, what’s the official name of the circular plaza at Drake Park that this breezeway leads to?

2

How many roundabouts have been constructed in Deschutes County since the dawn of 2000?

• For extra points, name the locations of the roundabout art shown below.

3

How many times did the 4th of July fireworks show catch Pilot Butte on fire during the past decade?

7

What three breweries have opened in Deschutes County during the 2000 decade?

Think you know C.O.?

Take our quiz and enter to win a limited-edition prize.

ABCD

CONTEST DEADLINE IS JAN. 18.

4

What business used to operate on this spot?

8

Which two of the following national figures have NOT appeared here during the past decade?

David Sedaris Willie Nelson Bob Dylan Maya Angelou Sheryl Crow Coldplay Garrison Keillor Dave Matthews Alice Cooper Jack Johnson Paul Simon Sugarland

Johnny Lang Smash Mouth Barack Obama Trisha Yearwood Bill Clinton Ira Glass Keith Urban The Fray James Brown Beach Boys Timothy Egan Taj Mahal

5

What winter in the decade brought the most snow to Mt. Bachelor?

And the least?

6

9

Name the biggest splash each of these folks has made beyond our local pond during this decade.

10

A) Ryan Longwell

B) Ashton Eaton

C) Shannon Bex

D) Sarah Mattox

E) J.D. Platt and Galaxy

F) Paul & Josh van Eikeren

How many new parks has the Bend Park & Recreation District built during this decade?

More than the economy ran amok this decade. During the Dry Canyon cross-country meet, Kevin Cox was chased toward the finish by a rogue deer.

What other animal made headlines during the decade for going berserk on a Terrebonne runner?

• For extra points, name the two new year-round beers that Deschutes Brewery offered in six-packs in this time period.

Win a limited-edition framed copy of the front page from the Jan. 1, 2000, and Dec. 31, 2009, editions of The Bulletin. These decade-spanning pages are one-of-a-kind reproductions on the same offset lithographic plates used on The Bulletin’s web press.

The Bulletin file photos and submitted photos

F I LL OU T T HIS FOR M OR E-M A IL DECADEQU IZ@BEN DBU LLET I N.COM Completely fill out this form and return to The Bulletin, ATTN: Decade Quiz, P.O. Box 6020, Bend, OR, 97708 1

3 4

Bonus A Bonus B

2

9A 9B

5B (eg. 2001/2002)

9C

6

Bonus B

8B

5A (eg. 2001/2002)

Bonus A

7

Bonus C

Bonus A

Bonus D

Bonus B

To enter the contest, please provide the following contact info: Name

8A

Telephone Address

9D 9E 9F 10 Total points

E-mail (Optional)

To be eligible to win the limited-edition framed front pages, entrants must fill out this entry form and mail it to The Bulletin, ATTN: Decade Quiz, P.O. Box 6020, Bend, OR, 97708, or submit an e-mail entry that includes all information requested on this entry form. Mailed entries must be postmarked, dropped off or e-mailed by Jan. 18. The entry with the most correct answers will win. In the event of a tie, a winner will be chosen at random from the tied entries. The winner will be named and answers will appear in Community Life on Jan. 23. Bulletin employees and their families and friends are ineligible.

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