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
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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
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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.)