10 // COASTWEEKEND.COM
ASTORIA SCANDINAVIAN
MIDSUMMER FESTIVAL TURNS 50
CO-FOUNDER SHIRLEY TINNER REFLECTS ON FESTIVAL’S ORIGINS AND HALF A CENTURY OF HONORING HERITAGE
By ERICK BENGEL
FOR COAST WEEKEND
Shirley Tinner, the honorary grand
marshal at the 50th annual Astoria Scan-
dinavian Midsummer Festival, has not
missed a single festival since she helped
found it half a century ago.
A lifelong Astoria resident, Tinner
has watched the event become the North
Coast’s premier celebration of Astoria’s
Scandinavian heritage — a salute to the
Swedes, Finns, Danes, Norwegians and
Icelanders who emigrated to the Colum-
bia-Pacifi c region in the late 1800s and
early 1900s, helped build the town and
shape its industrious Old World character.
This year’s festival takes place Friday
through Sunday, June 16 through 18, at
the Clatsop County Fairgrounds.
Visitors can feast on Scandinavian cui-
sine, collect handcrafted items and enjoy
musical performances by Scandinavian
bands.
For the 50th anniversary, a reunion of
past Scandinavian princesses and queens,
and festival dance groups, will take place
Saturday afternoon. The entertainment
centerpiece is Arrival, an ABBA tribute
band from Canada, who will perform
Saturday evening in the fairground arena.
(The original ABBA hailed from Stock-
holm, Sweden.)
The founders
The three-day gathering would not
exist without a trio of women, including
Tinner, who founded the festival as a
fundraiser for their daughters’ Brown-
ie troop-turned-Scandinavian
folk -dancing group.
Tinner, 80, is unable to walk
in Saturday’s Optog Walking
Parade, but her daughter, Kim
Supple, will represent her, along
with members of the original troop.
and people who are interested in diverse
“It’s an honor to have been asked to do cultures.”
that,” Tinner said.
Brownies to folk
Tinner, whose father
dancers
was a Swede-Finn and
In the mid-1960s, the
mother a pure Finn, can
Girl Scouts were orga-
still speak the “Union-
nizing an international
town” Finnish she
festival recognizing the
learned as a girl.
organization’s founder,
The festival’s other
with each troop represent-
two founders, Carol Obie
ing a country. The fi rst-
and Nelly Norrman, can
and second-graders of
no longer tell the story of
Astoria’s Brownie troop
the event’s founding: Obie
— a pre-Scouts ensemble
passed away in 2009, and
that included Supple —
Norrman, who lives in
took Norway.
Sweden, is in her late 90s
They memorized a
and in poor health. “We’re
O
Norwegian song and
extremely grateful to them
SU BM ITT ED PH OT
m fl yer for
for starting this festival 50
An original progra n festival. dance, borrowed cos-
via
tumes from a vocal
years ago,” Janet Bowler,
the fi rst Scandina
group and performed in
the festival’s entertainment
the old 4-H building (where the Astoria
coordinator, said. “We hope
Aquatic Center now stands) for Interna-
these traditions will continue for future
tional Scouting Day.
generations of Astorians, Scandinavians
COLIN MURPHEY/THE DAILY ASTORIAN
Shirley Tinner, one of the founders of the Scandanavian Midsummer Festival in Astoria, shows off a photo of some of the original performers of an event that is celebrating its 50th anniver-
sary.