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About Smoke signals. (Grand Ronde, Or.) 19??-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 1, 2006)
6 JANUARY 1, 2006 Smoke Signals Gmid Ronde and Hike Celebrate V ; J ' 1 1 " f v I mAiLaim ft - if- I' 1 Wo Native Pop Star "Jana" Tribal Council members Wink Soderberg and Wesley "Buddy" West at Nike's Tiger Woods Center. ByTobyMcCIary The month of November was cel ebrated as Native American Heri tage Month at the Nike World Campus in Beaverton, Oregon. Nike held many events through Novem ber including Native American storytelling, had a Native American Hypnotist perform, lectures on Na tive wellness and then had a closing event held on Tuesday, November 22 at the Tiger Woods Center. As part of the closing ceremony, the Painted Sky Dancers took stage and displayed a mix of Native and contem porary with not only music but their dancing as well. The dancers work really hard," said President of Painted Sky Mary Hager. This was just a beautiful event." Indian Tacos were complimentary and there was a raffle held for those in attendance. Tribal Council members Wink Soderberg and Wesley "Buddy" West also joined the festivities. The cer emony was open to all Nike employees in which about 150 showed up. To end the event, Native Pop Star Jana performed. Jana is a three time NAMMY (Native American Grammy) Award winner and with her ability to incorporate Native American influ ences with adult contemporary, she is changing the face of pop music. H Memorial Will Honor The Logging Industry MEMORIAL continued from front page Willamina had long been looking for ways to bring traffic off of Highway 18 and into Willamina's downtown area. The idea came to Bobb and his wife, Connie, while driving back up Highway 101 after enjoying a Porsche show down in California. Just outside one of the towns, Arcadia, he thinks, the couple saw a memorial dedicated to fishermen lost at sea. "So I thought, why couldn't we do that same thing with people who had lost their lives in the timber industry," said Bobb. On first hearing the news, the business community was very ex cited, said Bobb. And then it ran hot and cold, back and forth for a few years. Finally, about three years ago, Willamina resident and drug store owner Bob Burr said, '"Let's see if we can actually try to make this happen.'" . Dr. Gary Brooks, a Willamina dentist and member of the local Kiwanis Club, was enlisted to write the first grant, for $10,000, to the Spirit Mountain Community Fund for Steve and Billy Bobb to develop the one-quarter sized statue that now serves as a model for what's to come. Brooks also helped set up the non-profit corporation through the Kiwanis Club that will be used to raise funds for the project. "We're going to do this in phases," said Bobb. The statue itself is Phase One. Then will come the name collecting, because this statue will honor loggers killed in action across the state. The names will be etched in granite, as cur rently envisioned. There will be "some kind of roof over it." There will be site preparation when the site is determined. At the end, a plaque will dedicate the statue "to the hardworking men and women who made their living in the tim ber industry," said Bobb. The prototype statue's first stop was Coyote Joe's, where restauranteur Roily Heuser said that Bobb unveiled it at for a couple of local meetings here, including one for the Kiwanis Club. "Everybody thinks it's a fantastic sculpture," said Heuser. The statue has been on display at Coyote Joe's for a few months already. "They're really, really impressed with the artistic design that Steve did." Bobb said that the plan now is to take the prototype down to the Pa cific Logging Show in Eugene in February, and to keep it moving among different industry events over the next year. Because the project is seeking the names of loggers from across the state, this added attention will help draw in loggers and logger families, said Bobb. And all that interest should translate into vis its to Willamina from folks all across the state. Bobb went ahead and began work on designing and sculpting a small version "so people can see what we're talking about," he said. As with the Veterans Memorial, Bobb enlisted the services of a model, in this case, Tribal member ' til'- c X V. Kevin Hofenbredl. "We got him into logging attire, all the right stuff, and put him on one of the poles used for logging shows, and took some pic tures," said Bobb. "People from the area lent me all kinds of stuff. The spurs, the belt it self, the cork boots. We got lots of in put from local loggers in getting things correct," he said. The design took a year to complete. The location for the ultimate statue is still being considered. And as with the successful Veterans Memorial project, many of the processes are be ing used for this one, too. Bobb's son, Billy Bobb, who built his own "Wildfire Bronze" foundry for cast ing bronze statues (see Smoke Sig nals, 3104) and who also works with his dad at Salem Sign, will do the enlargement and the castings for the finished product. In the old days, sculptors had to take measurements from the pro totypes and extrapolate them to the full-sized statue, said Steve Bobb. Today, with computers, the Bobbs will send the prototype out to a com pany that will digitize the proto type. It will glue together enough hard, high density foam material to carve out the finished piece, and then "close cut" the foam brick. "Then you have to coat it in clay and re-sculpt the details back in," said Bobb. "I'll do part and Billy will do part." For the Veterans Memorial, Bobb worked on fifty separate pieces be fore welding the whole thing to gether. The Bobbs will use a similar process for this one, he said. But before all that happens, re tired logger Roy Zimbrick will be collecting funds for the project. Zimbrick, who cut trees for Willamina Lumber for 51 years, and who served as Vice President and member of the Board of Di rectors of the Association of Or egon Loggers, will be taking the prototype around to raise the funding necessary for completing the project. "I hope that it will enlighten some of the readers that we should manage our forests better than we do," said Zimbrick. "Steve Bobb and Roy Zimbrick," said Dr. Brooks, "they're the vision behind the project."
