“I grew up surrounded by bars,” says Germaine Bennett,
who was raised in Hurley, a small town in northern Wisconsin
notorious for its raucous nightlife and prostitution ever since
lumber and mining boom eras in the 1800s. Every summer in
high school, and later in college when her family had moved
to Oregon and she was at the UO, Bennett returned to
Wisconsin as head waitress at the Dairymen’s Country Club, a
private lakeside resort. “I was self-sufficient,” she says. “I
earned money for college, had good sense and didn’t get
pregnant.” She was president of several student groups at
the UO, and went on to grad school at the UO, UNC and
UC-Berkeley, where she earned a master’s in education. She
taught for a year at Napa College, then returned to Eugene,
married Allen Bennett in 1961 and taught high school part-
time while raising three children. “I’ve been active in
Democratic politics all that time,” says Bennett, who also
took art classes at the UO and LCC, had exhibits and got
serious about printmaking. In the early ’90s, she and her
parents returned to Hurley for a visit. “Many taverns had
burned down, except for Nora’s Bar,” she reports. “Nora was
still there and she greeted my dad.” For 20 years, Bennett has
made Nora’s Bar and its imagined debauchery the subject
matter of many prints. See them in July at the Schrager and
Clarke Gallery, 760 Willamette.
BY PAUL NEEVEL
HAPPENING PEOPLE
GERMAINE BENNETT
SUMMER FUN
FOR YOUR
FEET!
Follow Your Feet to
Footwise for Everyday
Summer Sandals
FOLLOW YOUR FEET TO FOOTWISE
Shown: The Lennox by Birki’s
Downtown Eugene
&#SPBEXBZt
'BDFCPPLDPNGPPUXJTFFVHFOF
.PO4BU4VO
Downtown Corvallis
48.BEJTPOt
'BDFCPPLDPNGPPUXJTFDPSWBMMJT
.PO4BU4VO
You’re invited! EWEB Budget Workshop
6 p.m. Tuesday, July 9
North Building, 500 E. 4th Ave.
The Eugene Water & Electric Board will hold a public workshop
to provide customers with a look of the utility’s budget picture
as staff and commissioners begin building the 2014 budget.
For more information: eweb.org/budget
eugeneweekly.com • july 3, 2013
9