4A COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL APRIL 12, 2017 O PINION Offbeat Oregon History: Ashland’s Shakespeare Festival In 1931, at the height of the Great Depression, a young, charismatic dra- ma teacher named Angus Bowmer got a job at Southern Oregon Normal School in Ashland. Bowmer, a fresh graduate of Washington State Normal School in Bellingham (now Western Washington University), had specifi cally set out to fi nd a teachers’ college (known then as “normal schools”) to start his career in. He had applied for employment at two of them, the only two open- ings at normal schools in the country. The fi rst, the more established Eastern Washington school at Ellensburg, looked at his record of producing and participating in less-than-high-brow dramatic productions, wrinkled its nose, and passed. Luck- ily for all involved, Southern Oregon did not. Today, Southern Oregon University is a fi ne liberal arts college with a large and thriving com- munity of scholars. In 1931, though, it was barely off the ground. Its entire student body was less than 100; its history dated back to the 1890s but it had spent most of the intervening time closed. Its facilities were correspondingly antiquated and rudimentary. But one day, shortly after coming to the college, Bowmer made a visit to Lithia Park. And while he was there, he happened to look out at a derelict old building across the way, and something about it suddenly looked familiar to him. The building was an old Chautauqua house, built in 1917 to house Ashland’s then-boom- ing Chautauqua scene. At the time, the unrein- forced wooden dome covering its top was the second-largest structure of its kind in the United States. Unfortunately, by the early 1930s time, the elements and the laws of physics had rather ganged up on the old building, and the ceiling was getting dangerous. So one of the Civilian Conservation Corps groups had been tasked with dismantling it, leaving nothing behind but a huge By Finn JD John For The Sentinel semi-cylindrical stone wall. And that wall, as Bowmer looked out at it, looked an awful lot like the Globe Theater in Lon- don — the onetime home stage of William Shake- speare himself. Bowmer got busy doing what artists special- ize in: dreaming big. Knowing from a previous production that Ashland residents really enjoyed Shakespeare when it was presented to them, he pitched the Ashland Fourth of July Celebration committee on doing a couple Shakespeare plays in the old Chautauqua building as part of the cele- bration. Based on previous performance, Bowmer was confi dent that it would pull in at least enough money to cover its expenses. The committee took the whole thing under advisement. Despite the example of Bowmer’s previous play, none of them really believed that something like that would make money. But Bowmer was persuasive, and they hated to turn him down, and all of them were good small-town boosters interested in the educational betterment of their town. Finally, a delegation of businessmen from the Committee came to see Bowmer. Although they liked the idea, they told him somewhat sheepish- ly, they were worried that his plays would cause a “defi cit in the celebration budget,” as Bowmer dryly phrased it in his autobiography 40 years lat- er; and to make up for this anticipated fi scal hem- orrhage, they had a suggestion that would, they said, guarantee success. The diffi dence with which they were approach- ing Bowmer made it very clear that they expected him to hate the idea. But fi nally one of them blurt- ed it out: What would he think of sharing the Eliz- abethan stage with a series of boxing matches? To their astonishment, Bowmer said it sounded like a fi ne idea. “I assured them that such an event would be quite typical of the kind of thing that appealed to Elizabethan audiences,” Bowmer wrote, “though, to be sure, their tastes were somewhat more bloody.” And so it was that, in 1935, the very fi rst event in what would soon become the Oregon Shake- speare Festival shared billing with a series of prizefi ghts. The plays, of course, were a great success. And when the holiday was over and the tickets were being counted, Bowmer and his band discovered that they had covered their expenses with a good bit of cash left over. Which was very fortunate, because the box- ing matches that were supposed to guarantee the festival’s solvency were a miserable fl op. Nearly all the Shakespeare company’s surplus earnings had to be pumped into making up the boxing pro- gram’s losses, and Bowmer found himself facing the next year with an empty purse. But, of course, there was never any thought of ending the Shakespeare plays. Ironically enough, this was not the only year the plays ended up being forced to subsidize something else. At the end of the second year, the festival was once again in the black — but by a slimmer margin this time: just $84.73. The plays were sponsored by Southern Oregon Nor- mal School that year rather than the Fourth of July Celebration Committee; so Bowmer went to the president of the college and asked if the funds could be placed in a special bank account for the festival. No, the president said; because the college had just become part of the Unifi ed System of Higher Education in Oregon, the money had to go into the general fund. But, he added, it would be “ear- marked” for the next year’s festival, so all would be fi ne. Thus reassured, Bowmer happily headed off on sabbatical, traveling to England to soak up some Shakespearean infl uences right from the source. But when he returned the following June, he was informed that the Southern Oregon Normal School football team had had a bad season, and the school had used the festival’s $84.73 to pay its debts. “You can imagine my depression,” Bowmer wrote. “I could see an endless succession of sea- sons stretching into the future, seasons in which the Festival would continue to exist only for the purpose of providing money to needy box- ing matches, football seasons and other athletic events.” The situation incensed Bowmer enough that he started looking for alternative arrangements. And, through discreet inquiries, he learned that the festival’s local credit rating was great. With two money-making years under their belt, the festival had convinced the key vendors in Ashland that they would be paid for anything they advanced. So Bowmer was able to cut all ties to the school and the celebration committee, and incorporate the Oregon Shakespearean Festival Association as a nonprofi t educational institution. And so it has remained ever since. Omega-3 fatty acids for brain health through all stages of life There are three major omega-3 fatty ac- ids that we get from our diets. Alpha-lino- For The Sentinel lenic acid (ALA) is a short-chain omega-3 found in fl axseeds, hemp seeds, walnuts, and other plant foods. When we take in ALA from plant foods, the body can convert it into long-chain omega-3s: DHA and EPA, most commonly obtained by eating fi sh. The long- chain omega-3 fatty acids DHA and EPA are associated with many aspects of brain health, and DHA is especially important for early brain development. Conversion effi ciency of ALA from plant foods alone may not be suf- fi cient for many people to achieve adequate DHA and EPA status. I recommend supplementing with these benefi cial fats, since most modern diets are low in DHA and EPA unless fi sh is consumed reg- ularly, and research has confi rmed that vegans tend to have a low omega-3 index. DHA is concentrated in the membranes of brain cells; there, DHA provides structure to the membrane and is in- volved in signaling, connectivity between cells, and neurotransmit- ter production, among other important actions. EPA and DHA have By Joel Fuhrman MD some common functions and some distinctive ones. DHA is most often associated with brain development, learning and cognition and EPA with mood, behavior, and anti-infl ammatory effects.1-4 DHA is a building block of human brain and eye tissue, and suf- fi cient levels of DHA throughout life are important for vision and learning.1, 5 During pregnancy, maternal stores provide the devel- oping baby with the DHA for brain and eye development, and after birth, the DHA is provided by breast milk. There is some evidence that having higher DHA levels, or taking DHA supplements during pregnancy and nursing benefi ts the child’s cognitive development and intelligence.6,7 Infants exposed to DHA-containing formula have similarly shown cognitive improvements at 9 months com- pared to those whose formula did not contain DHA.8 Although the time between birth and 2 years represents the phase of the brain’s largest growth, brain development is not complete after age 2; it continues through childhood and into the late twen- ties.1, 9 The majority of omega-3 supplementation trials in children and adolescents have reported improvements in measures of school performance (such as reading, spelling or learning ability) or be- havior.1,10,11 One interesting study used functional MRI to view activity in the brains of young boys (8-10 years of age) who took either pla- cebo or a DHA supplement for 8 weeks. The boys who took DHA showed increased functional brain activity during a cognitive task, and their level of activation correlated directly with their blood DHA levels.10 This suggests that DHA helps the learning process in children. This research has signifi cant implications, since early academic success helps to build confi dence and set the stage for future college and career performance. Insuffi cient DHA levels have been implicated in a number of childhood cognitive and developmental disorders such as ADHD, dyslexia, and autism spectrum disorders.12, 13 Supplementation with omega-3s, especially in combination with certain omega-6 fatty acids, has been found to improve behavior and ADHD symp- toms.14-18 Not enough research has been done on autism spectrum disorders to determine whether omega-3 supplementation would also be helpful for these children.19 Supplemental DHA and EPA is available as fi sh oil or oil derived from lab-grown algae. I recommend using the algae-based supple- ments, because they are acceptable to vegans and vegetarians, more sustainable than fi sh or fi sh-derived supplements, and free of the environmental pollutants that we may ingest from eating fi sh. C ottage G rove S entinel (541) 942-3325 • 116 N. SIXTH ST. WWW.CGSENTINEL.COM Administration John Bartlett, Regional Publisher Gary Manly, General Manager ................................................. Ext. 207 gmanly@cgsentinel.com Aaron Ames, Marketing Specialist ........................................... Ext. 216 aames@cgsentinel.com Tammy Sayre, Marketing Specialist ......................................... Ext. 213 tsayre@cgsentinel.com Editorial Caitlyn May, Editor. ................................................................. Ext. 212 cmay@cgsentinel.com Sam Wright, Sport Editor ......................................................... 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