DECEMBER 28, 2017 // 11
DOUG T RICH
BERENIECE T JONES-CENTENO
DWIGHT CASWELL PHOTO
JESSAMYN T GRACE
DWIGHT CASWELL PHOTO
DWIGHT CASWELL PHOTO
Doug Rich, keeping active
Bereniece Jones-Centeno
Jessamyn Grace
Doug Rich was an athlete through college, then a cam-
pus minister and, later, a college professor.
In midlife he answered another call, to the ministry. He
became pastor of a church in New Mexico, where he visited
the cowboys and coal miners in his congregation with his
“motorcycle ministry.” Rich and his wife, Jeanne, later
moved to a church in Warrenton.
Finally retired at 79, he rides his Honda 800, but finds
few companions his age to share his riding, backpacking
and fly fishing. That he remains active is “a wonderful gift,”
he said, “and I’m very grateful.” He likes to get outdoors as
much as possible, “but now it takes discipline. You have to
push yourself.”
He says this standing in a garage filled with barbells,
boats and bicycles, waiting for a change in the weather.
So if you see a large man of a certain age on a motorcycle,
fishing rod strapped to his back, odds are that’s Doug Rich,
heading for the nearest trout stream.
Bereniece Jones-Centeno’s father and brothers were a
gospel group, but little sister wasn’t included. “Adult rebel-
lion” was what she laughingly calls her decision to make a
career of music.
“I love the art form,” she said, “the power of the human
voice, and the power of communication when somebody
sings.”
She had her first opera role at 19, and after singing pro-
fessionally for 20 years Jones-Centeno found herself with
the Eugene Opera Company, and a performing fellow at the
university.
A position as managing director of the Astoria Music
Festival brought her to Clatsop County, where she later
became creative director at the Liberty Theatre. Somehow
Jones-Centeno also managed to co-found the Cascadia Con-
cert Opera Company, which has moved to Astoria.
In 2018 she looks forward to a successful and innova-
tive Liberty season, and to “bringing Cascadia to fruition
in 2018,” when they will perform their first commissioned
work.
Jessamyn Grace is both executive director and belly
dance instructor at the nonprofit Astoria Arts & Movement
Center, located in Astoria’s Odd Fellows building. The year
2017 was, she said, “one of the most challenging years of
my life.”
It was feared that the building would be purchased and
altered by new owners, and Grace describes 2017 as a “year
of focus without distraction, of community voice and ac-
tion, of fighting for something I care about in the best way I
knew how, the AAMC.”
With 2018, Grace said, she has been “given the opportu-
nity to look ahead with hope and excitement at the ways I
wish to strengthen the nonprofit organization through more
classes and additional community involvement.”
Grace looks back on a challenging year and said, “I col-
lect, with reverence, what I’ve learned and hold it close in
order to step into the New Year with courage and grace.” CW
COURTESY DOUG RICH
A young Doug Rich
COURTESY BERENIECE JONES-CENTENO
COURTESY JESSAMYN GRACE
A young Bereniece Jones-Centeno
A young Jessamyn Grace at a luau