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20 Things You Can Do for Oregon's 150th Birthday |
1. Drive 150 miles from your home…to a place you’ve never seen before in Oregon. Meet someone new.
2. Invite the OR 150 team to make a presentation to your civic club.
3. Include information about OR 150 in your company, community or civic newsletters. Call or email us if you need help.
4. Send your friends an email with a link to our website. Encourage them to sign up for our e-newsletter.
5. Interview your grandparent or your grandchild; ask them for
their Oregon Story using suggested interview questions found on the Oregon 150 website.
6. Design a sesquicentennial project with your class, club or neighborhood association.
7. Theme your local community event to the sesquicentennial in 2009. Apply to become one of Oregon 150’s official Project Partners and use our logo.
8. Know an amateur photographer or ideographic? Encourage them to submit a favorite shot or sequence about Oregon as an “Oregon Story".
9. Know a special Oregon recipe? Tell us the story behind it and share it with your fellow Oregon chefs.
10. Theme Your Festival/Parade to Oregon 150. We’ll put you on our calendar of events, 150+ Great Things To Do in 2009
11. Write! see what you can add to the Oregon Encyclopedia,
a one-stop-shop with essays and entries covering the significant
people, places, institutions and events in Oregon, from 10,000 years
ago to the present.
12. Participate in the Oregon Open House. Planning is underway
for a day in 2009 when all museums and historical societies would be
open free to the public. Stay tuned to Oregon150.org for more information.
13. Celebrate Oregon’s statehood with a party. Bake a cake! Have
a dance or a picnic! On February 14, 2009, all Oregon National Guard
Armories will be available, at-cost, for community gatherings.
14. What if, in 2009, everyone in Oregon read the same book? The Oregon Library Association, in cooperation with hundreds of libraries across the state, wants every Oregonian to read and discuss Stubborn Twig by Lauren Kessler.
15. Put on a Pageant. Celebrate and stage your local or state history. Show it at a social or at the county fair.
16. Showcase your local bounty. Produce, products, attractions.
Have a Market Day! Do a special promotion. Have a cook-off or a
community picnic. Support or create a local farmers’ market.
17. Embrace your diversity. Every Oregon community includes
diverse communities and peoples. Have a "Worlds Culture Day" or a
community "Bite" festival! Create ways for each of us to appreciate our
different backgrounds, foods and traditions.
18. Get citizens young and old together. Link high school “seniors” with “senior citizens” for an oral history project.
19. Organize conversation's about civic life and responsibility
in your community or civic organization. Consider what it means to be
an Oregonian.
20. Create a Sesquicentennial project. Create a legacy for your
community to appreciate in 2059 for the Oregon Bicentennial. Put up a
statue, put up a plaque (put up lots of plaques), commission a mural or
other work of art. Do an invitational art contest. Make a time capsule.
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Governor & Legislators Celebrate Oregon’s 149th Birthday |
Governor Kulongoski celebrated Oregon's 149th birthday on Feb. 14, 2008
with legislators from the House and Senate in the Capitol Rotunda in
Salem. The 20-minute celebration featured a rousing rendition of "Happy
Birthday" from everyone in attendance, and the Governor read his own "Oregon Story"; launching Oregon 150's first signature project.
The event marks the official kickoff for the 366-day countdown to Oregon's yearlong 150th birthday in 2009.
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Oregon Stories: Official Launch |
"I came to Oregon because, like millions of others, I thought this was
the most beautiful place I had ever seen", wrote Governor Kulongoski, as he launched Oregon 150's first signature project, "Oregon Stories."
Gov. Kulongoski encouraged every Oregonian to contribute their own “Oregon Story” and to visit Oregon 150's new website oregon150.org. There you can read about Dick Jenkins,
a third generation rancher in Harney County, Oregon, who’s “story
started back in 1880 when my grandfather John R. Jenkins emigrated from
Wales to America.” Mr. Jenkins runs the Round Barn Visitor Center in
Diamond, Oregon, and leads historical and scenic “Jenkins Heritage
Tours” south of Burns, Oregon, near Riddle Mountain.
Five generations over a century have lived on his land. Mr. Jenkins
writes that his “main purpose is to educate the public about our
heritage and the need to manage renewable resources. We should have
started this process 30 years ago but I feel we can still get the
necessary management accomplished.” For Mr. Jenkins, his “Oregon Story”
speaks to his optimism about the future; “If I can contribute in some
small way while I’m still here, I will feel I have attained my goal…
[w]e must educate about our roots in the rural areas of America.” |
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Highlight: March 2008 “Oregon Story” |
The following "Oregon Story" was submitted recently by Gail Denham of
Sunriver, Oregon. Learn how to submit your Oregon Story at oregon150.org today!
“Questions for Grandma Carlson”
Grandma, why did you hide?
behind that rigid, self-sufficient mask,
rarely pulling that curtain aside
to let the soul show?
Were you scared, Grandma,
a too-young Finnish widow,
working your way from Michigan to Astoria,
creating clothes from newspaper patterns,
herding three little ones through train cars,
leaving your parents far behind?
Did you want to keep going
over the wild Pacific,
arrive in Japan or Taiwan,
make clothes from home-grown silk,
pile the children in rickshaws
and learn to use chopsticks?
Or did you feel at home right away
in Oregon, the state that gave you another husband,
a tight-lipped Swede who once you chased
with a frying pan, and who sired
your next four children?
Did you take to your bed, Grandma,
when your oldest son fell from a paddle-wheeler
into the Willamette and drowned,
like your daughter, our mother did,
when her eldest succumbed to polio?
Did you ever guess, Grandma, that your descendants
would cross the oceans many times,
fight in wars, ride in pedicabs and kamikaze taxis,
wade through typhoon debris, learn to eat sushi,
live in Africa where your great-grandson teased
six foot cobras, hunt ancestors in Finland,
explore Europe, yet always rush
eagerly back to Oregon where they raised
more little ones than you could have imagined
when you willed your way west
and became our own pioneer Grandma?
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Southern Oregon Public Television Becomes Oregon 150 Partner! |
Oregon 150 is now an official endorsement partner
with the Southern Oregon History Week television series. Produced by
Southern Oregon Television (SOPTV) the series features seven of their
most popular half-hour history programs, which will air in April and
May, 2008.
The award winning programs are favorites of Oregon Public Broadcasting and SOPTV audiences and include:
- Crater Lake: The Mirror of Heaven
- A South Road to Oregon: The History of the Applegate Trail
- Oregon Finds: Logging’s Living Past
- Camp White: Southern Oregon Goes to War
- Hometown Heroes: The Johnny Hampshire Story
- The Roseburg Blast: A Catastrophe and its Heroes
- Oregon Legends: The John Dellenback Story
An on-air message will precede all of the programs stating that, “The
following program is presented as part of SOPTV’s “Southern Oregon
History Week” and is endorsed by Oregon 150, who asks you to appreciate
the past, celebrate the present and imagine the future as we approach
Oregon’s 150th birthday in 2009. Oregon 150 is a non-profit
organization led by motivated citizen volunteers from across the state
to inspire people to remember, experience and celebrate Oregon and
together, create a robust and sustainable future.”
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Development Director's Report |
Sincere thanks to the Kinsman Foundation for a $40,000 grant to launch
Pink Martini's “Oregon! Oregon! 2009” with Stan Freberg. (Stay tuned
for more exciting info!)
“Established in 1983 by John and Elizabeth T. Kinsman, the foundation
makes grants for Arts, Culture and Humanities and other interest areas
in Oregon and southern Washington. Its board of directors includes huge
Pink Martini and Stan Freberg fans,” said Foundation President Keith
Kinsman.
The Youth Legacies Project has received a $2,500 grant from the Ralph & Adolph Jacobs Foundation to help support our legacy parks project.
During an OR 150 road trip to Eugene last week, Oregon First Lady and
Development Committee Chair, Mary Oberst had the opportunity to tour
Hynix. Photo of Mary Oberst and Doggyun Kim, President and CEO.
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Oregon Legislature Passes Sesquicentennial Resolution |
In February's legislative session, a special resolution was passed
urging Oregonians to participate in Oregon 150 activities and, "explore
Oregon's past, celebrate Oregon's present and imagine Oregon's future".
Click to read Senate Concurrent Resolution 27, on the Oregon 150 website.
Thank you Oregon Legislators!
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Thank You Very Much... We Couldn't do it Without You! |
(The following services were donated pro-bono unless otherwise noted)
- Wieden + Kennedy for our fresh, new website design, brochures, buttons and so much more!
- E-ROI for making our website sing and for a discount on website integration!
- Fleishman-Hillard and Edelman for their public relations strategy and media support!
- Gerry Frank for the discount on the great 149th Birthday cupcakes from Konditorei Bakery!
- Janet Champ for writing and reading her powerful Oregon Story on our website
- Steve Patterson for his ideas on Oregon 150 media partnership strategy!
- The great people who work at our State’s Capitol, for their
tireless support on our first event, the 149th Birthday Celebration of
Oregon:
Juliene Popinga
Ian Tollenson
Kellie Nydigger
Juanita Schaffer
Jodi Sherwood
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Oregon 150 Wish List |
- A full-time Volunteer Coordinator
- Volunteer(s) to help write our monthly newsletter and other copy
- Graphic Design help
- Volunteers to produce: "Can You Say Sesquicentennial" buttons
- Volunteer to organize Oregon 150's "Speaker's Bureau"
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Tell Us What's Happening in Your Community or Organization |
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We want to share what you are doing to plan for Oregon's 150th
birthday. Send us an email and/or a photo for our next e-newsletter. An
example: Douglas County's Oregon 150 Committee planning a repeat of its
"World’s Largest Spaghetti Feed" on March 8, 2008.
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