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About Keizertimes. (Salem, Or.) 1979-current | View Entire Issue (May 18, 2018)
MAY 18, 2018, KEIZERTIMES, PAGE A5 KeizerOpinion KEIZERTIMES.COM Celebrate Keizer Each year the month of May gets busier and more packed with events locally and regionally. We are smack in the middle of KeizerFEST 2018. KeizerFEST? The Keizer Iris Festival is not dead but it has a new moniker. So many people still call our community’s biggest event by a name it car- ried when it was a fun- draiser for St. Edward Catholic Church—com- plete with a Keizerfest tent that sold beer and had live entertainment. After the church decided to move away from selling alcohol in such a brash fashion, the Keizer Chamber of Commerce folded it in what was Keizer Days and...poof...the Keizer Iris Festival was born. The fi rst festival was in the late 1980s after it was decided to mar- ket the city as the Iris Capital of the World due to the world-reknown Schreiner’s Iris Gardens just north of the city and Cooley’s Gardens near Silverton (it has been shuttered for a number of years now). Regardless of the attempts to make the Iris Festival a regional powerhouse, many still called it KeizerFEST and it remained a local, community event. In the scheme of things, none of that mattters—the residents of Keizer line up for the parade, go to the big white tent with its variety of live entertainment. Some take part in the runs, others visit the iris fi elds. The festival is Keizer’s opportu- nity to put its best foot forward. All the components are there including a recent addition of Lemonade Day on Saturday, May 19. Lemonade Day, overseen by Sa- lem-Keizer Education Foundation, is a national one-day event designed to teach grade- and mid- dle-school aged children how to be entrepeneurs. There will be a number of lemonade stands sited in front of select River Road businesses. We are in the middle of the fes- tival which is offi cially the entire month of May. So far we have had the Mayor’s Prayer Breakfast, named co-winners for the title of Keizer’s Distinguished Young Woman and honored moms at the annual Keiz- er Volunteer Firefi ghters pancake breakfast. There are a lot of reasons to cel- ebrate Keizer as a wonderful place to live. KeizerFEST weekend gives people of all ages plenty to enjoy, especially when the weather coop- erates. Whether you mark KeizerFEST by running, smelling, eating, listen- ing or marching, you will be part of a tradition that dates back to the 1940s and the very fi rst parade in the Manbrin Gardens neighbor- hood of Keizer. —LAZ our opinion Women’s group offended by Rep. Post pers” because they sup- ported Sam Carpenter, not Rep. Post’s candidate. letters To the Editor: I am appalled and disap- pointed by the behavior of my state representative for District 25, Bill Post. I belong to one of the state’s largest conservative women’s groups —Or- egon Women for Trump (OWFT)— who proudly endorsed Sam Carpen- ter for Oregon governor. Because of this endorsement, Mr. Post has recently taken to social- media airways to bash this group of more than 900 members with hor- rible statements. Oregon Women for Trump is very active in Oregon. They are doing good, recruiting Republican precinct committee persons (PCPs), holding political events, raising funds, and campaigning hard for their chosen candidates. OWFT recently held a public gu- bernatorial debate where more than 200 people attended. Members were called “cult-like” and “idol worship- Rep. Post has put down (in a now deleted post) a cancer survivor by referring to her as “a can- cer to our cause.” He also said “if any PCP does not support the Republican nominee for governor, they should be drummed out of the party and stripped of their rights to vote.” We interpret that to mean if your religious beliefs are to vote for life instead of abortion, you should not be allowed to participate as a PCP. This is a bullying tactic and should never have been said by an elected offi cial. I have called on the Oregon Republican Party to look into this despicable behavior. It’s wrong, and Bill Post needs to be held account- able. Carol Leek Keizer Share your opinion Email a letter to the edito. Deadline is noon Tuesday. Email to: publisher@keizertimes.com A thank you to teachers and coaches By TRISTAN BRIGGS We are a privileged group— those of us who grew up in Keizer. Our city and state provided 13 years of education designed to prepare us for success in ways we often rejected or tried to ignore in our youthful demeanors. We often complained about the ancient build- ings, the packed class- rooms that were always too hot or too cold, and of course about home- work (or any kind of work for that matter). In some ways our concerns had some merit—our sys- tem is imperfect and needs the sup- port of society, but as my classmates and I neared the end of our public school experience at McNary in 2014 we were starting to realize the most impactful part of our educa- tion had not been in the infrastruc- ture or offi cial curricula opportuni- ties—this honored place was held by our teachers and coaches. Being four years detached and about to graduate college, my re- spect for the quality of our teach- ers has only grown. Despite every obstacle in their paths for doing so from logistics to bureaucracy to funding to even some downright mean students, they came to work every single day to give everything of themselves to push us to the greatest success possible. They gave of themselves not only in academic rigor, but in the greater lessons of life that are taught by that vehicle— the value of maximum effort, living a life in service to others, and the re- spect for each other and our society that is so important to every part of American life. I will forever remember Coach Hafer running lines with us for what felt like hours to teach our 8th grade football team respect and brother- hood, the Big Four of junior year (Borresen’s Honors American Lit- erature, Tiller’s Pre-Cal- culus, Hanson’s Honors Chemisr., and, of course, Litch- fi eld’s AP US History) each push- ing us past our intellectual limits to set a foundation for us to achieve academic success based in thought- ful values, Master Sergeant Ellis and his wife serving the human needs of students in ways a normal classroom never could while pushing us all to respect and support each other as an AFJROTC family. Mrs. Bell loving her students as if her own children and supporting all of us in our individual growth, Coach Fordney and those dreaded Verda Lane 400s and the mental grit they instilled in us, the stories could go on forever as the mosaic of growth that all of us students went through to become who we are to- day. As I prepare to enter the career of my dreams straight out of college, I will forever stand on this base that the life of keizer our Keizer teachers and coaches helped to mold for me. For this, I and all Keizer students are forever in their debt. A special thank you to many of the teachers and coaches who had an impact on my life from the be- ginning all the way back in 2001 to now from Clear Lake, Whiteaker, and McNary: Mrs. Zahradnik, Mrs. Stai, Mrs. McFadden, Mrs. Percy, Mrs. De- Vos, Mrs. Tipelin, Mrs. Reynolds, Mrs. Biamont, Mr. Hein, Mr. Staley, Mrs. Erickson, Mr. Earl, Mrs. Mc- Nulty, Mr. Hunter, Mrs. Sweeney, Mrs. Mahi, Mrs. Coe, Coach Ha- fer, Mr. Coburn, Mrs. Ambert, Mr. Mulligan, Mrs. Keeker, Mr. Crock- ett, Mrs. Woods, Mrs. Bowers, Mrs. Sheridan, Mrs. Bushey, Mrs. Tavares, Mrs. Roberson, Mr. Ward, Mrs. Cra- mer, Sra. Jensen, Mrs. Bell, Mr. Park- er, Mrs. Graham, Mr. Melting, Mr. Myers, Mrs. Bell, Mrs. Stefani, Mrs. Bello, Maj Garcia, MSgt Ellis, Mama Ellis, Mama Hawaii, Mr. Borresen, Mr. Tiller, Mr. Hanson, Mr. Litch- fi eld, Mr. Looney, Mr. Heimerding- er, Mr. Nicholas, Mrs. Olson, Mr. Freeman, Coach Gauntz, Coach Fordney, Coach Anagnos, Coach Auvinen, Coach Walker et al. An incredible list of mentors and educators if I ever saw one. (Tristan Briggs graduated from McNary High School in 2014 and will graduate from the United States Air Force Academy this year.) Opposition to mascots not a trivial matter In this day and age of a threatened nuclear war delivered by ICBMs, an- other president’s impeachment, huge homeless numbers, impending infra- structure failures, global warming and weather catastrophes, substantive tax relief only for the nation’s wealthiest citizens, “hush money” payments, the corruptions of “pay-to-play” by na- tional offi ce holders, gaso- line price increases, illegal immigrants, etc., there are . . . the mascot crises. Taking what may be argued as the most easy to denounce because it was inherently wrong in the fi rst place, news out of Al- bany recently announced that South Albany High School has decided to sur- render its Rebels nickname for some- thing more acceptable, even though the old nickname has been quite dif- fi cult for some to give up. It has been used at South Albany for years while its origin was the Confederacy, ad- opted as a battle cry in fi ghting the North, the objective being to preserve, protect and perpetuate the enslave- ment of their fellow African-Ameri- can citizens. Such a time from our past cannot be labeled anything other than grossly in- humane since it’s indisputably known that African-Americans are just as hu- man as all the other homo sapiens: the difference solely skin color with all other body parts identical. Neverthe- less, a war was fought by Americans against other Americans, resulting in 1.5 million casualties. So, how many modern day Americans feel right about attending sports events where participants and spectators cheer for the Rebels? Meanwhile, although the mat- ter is not brand new to Portland, a few moons ago one of its secondary schools, Cleveland High School, ar- gued long and hard, with many a bitter feeling aroused, to preserve their Indi- ans mascot. Now, we, the informed among us, know how the American Indians, and original dwellers of what became known as North America, were treated. The real American Indi- ans, those same natives who settled in North America—long be- fore Europeans arrived— having their name taken to celebrate victory or defeat in sports events. Inciden- tally, at Cleveland High in Portland, Indians has been replaced by Warriors. Never wanting the dust to get entirely settled in mascot land, there now brews in Portland another mascot donnybrook. This time it’s over Quakers as a mascot name for Frank- lin High School. Never mind that early and famous American patriot Benjamin Franklin was never a Quak- er, the founders of Franklin somehow decided that would be a better mas- cot name than, say, for arguments sake, lightening, as old Ben had something to do with enlightening humankind vis-a-vis the fundamentals of electrical conduction. A for- mal com- plaint was made with the Port- land Public Schools Edu- cation Board over the use of Quakers at Franklin High and the complaint re- sulted in the gene h. mcintyre Keizertimes Wheatland Publishing Corp. 142 Chemawa Road N. • Keizer, Oregon 97303 Phone: 503.390.1051 • www.keizertimes.com MANAGING EDITOR Eric A. Howald editor@keizertimes.com ASSOCIATE EDITOR SUBSCRIPTIONS Derek Wiley news@keizertimes.com ADVERTISING Paula Moseley advertising@keizertimes.com PRODUCTION MANAGER & GRAPHIC DESIGNER EDITOR & PUBLISHER Lyndon Zaitz publisher@keizertimes.com One year: $25 in Marion County, $33 outside Marion County, $45 outside Oregon PUBLISHED EVERY FRIDAY Publication No: USPS 679-430 Andrew Jackson graphics@keizertimes.com POSTMASTER Send address changes to: LEGAL NOTICES legals@keizertimes.com Keizertimes Circulation BUSINESS MANAGER 142 Chemawa Road N. Leah Stevens Keizer, OR 97303 billing@keizertimes.com RECEPTION Lori Beyeler INTERN Periodical postage paid at Salem, Oregon Random Pendragon facebook.com/keizertimes twitter.com/keizertimes PPS board devoting a year’s time to choosing a new name. The complaint was explained as Quakers is the name of an organized religion and, as such, is “inappropriate, offensive, and uncon- stitutional” for use as a school’s mascot name. Incidentally, the board, after re- ceiving the complaint, has decided to review all its district naming policies and make changes accordingly. Whether an issue is viewed as great or small often depends upon the be- holder. The mascot debates are prob- ably considered by many Americans as “small’ issues. Nevertheless, no mat- ter the degree of importance, these debates are symbolic of the Ameri- can spirit since colonial times to try to serve the needs and concerns of all citizens rather than what’s narrowly self-serving and self-centered, biased and prejudicial. It is the belief of this writer that we Americans should do everything possible to pull together: A prevailing condition of cooperation and sensitivity for all, hopefully en- abling our nation to reunite as in some former times where every American sees this as a place to call home. (Gene H. McIntyre lives in Keizer.)
