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About Heppner gazette-times. (Heppner, Or.) 1925-current | View Entire Issue (March 8, 2023)
EIGHT - Heppner Gazette-Times, Heppner, Oregon Wednesday, March 8, 2023 Key organizers honored as grand marshals in Great Green Parade -Continued from PAGE ONE The Heppner Gazette-Times from 1982 talented.” The challenges However they became involved, for however long they were involved, ev- ery one of the eight grand marshals racked up a trea- sure-trove of memories throughout the years. Some of the organizers say the work wasn’t that difficult; Sheryll Bates even though their duties Claudia Hughes and her sometimes kept them from legion of leprechauns as attending all the festivities, soon as we touched Hep- they say they enjoyed work- pner soil, I think,” Brosnan ing with people. says of getting involved “I’m not sure that I as an organizer. “Soon I had anything difficult ex- was heading the group in cept going to the meetings, charge of getting donations, and that really was fun,” advertising and conducting Hutchinson says. “I just en- the auction that helped fund the celebration.” “I rarely say ‘No,’ and I like being involved,” added Brosnan. “There was al- ways a need for more heads and hands.” Sheryll Bates has lived in Heppner nearly 17 years, and says she became in- volved through her role as The early days. Claudia the executive director of Hughes getting into the St. the Heppner Chamber of Pat’s Day spirit. Commerce. That was 2008. joyed working with the peo- “I stepped into the plan- ple and seeing how much ning and had great help we could promote Heppner, with volunteers to make it promote the whole area.” work,” says Bates. “Trying to get people “Although it was part to buy into the idea that this of my job, I wanted to would work,” adds Ball. make sure the event was “And guess what? It did!” successful, become a part Brosnan says she didn’t of the community and put in find the work challenging the hours and dedication to but hated to be interviewed. make it that way,” she adds. “Having to go on the Judie Laughlin was not radio stations to be inter- able to share her stories viewed as part of our ad- with the Gazette-Times, but vertising efforts was never others shared stories of her easy for me,” she says. “I involvement. Many remem- am a terrible interviewee.” ber her artistic ability. For others, the logistics “Judie and Phyllis Pip- were difficult. Bates recalls er, being the artists that they being thrown into planning are, stepped up and got busy the amateur boxing Irish painting some more wood- Smoker. en leprechaun signs for us “Added to the al - to distribute around town,” ready hectic workload I recalls Bates. found myself in—a lot of Ball says Laughlin was after-hours calling to get elected to create the com- boxers to participate,” says memorative buttons, which Bates “The first couple of were started in the fifth years Daye Stone, principal year of the celebration and at the time, helped to put mostly hand designed from everything together and 1987 to 2008. started what to be a tradition “Judie bought a but- for about nine years.” ton machine and spent an “Dotting all the Is and enormous amount of time crossing the Ts as the cele- making hundreds of these,” bration grew from a coffee says Ball. hour to a full day to four “Judie’s artwork for days was the most diffi- posters and especially for cult,” says Hughes. “The the collectible buttons was scheduling, publicity, pro- always so impressive,” motion, deadlines, funding, adds Brosnan. “She is very contracts, food safety, bal- ance of events, music were all on my mind at once.” “Some days as the event neared, I was like a tea kettle boiling over with both steam and anxiety,” she adds. “Friends to the rescue, and they were and still are so amazing.” Of course, putting on an event of this size is nev- er easy, and putting on an event in Eastern Oregon in March might be considered especially challenging. “Wondering if it was going to rain during the parade each year,” Sykes replies when asked about the challenges. “I used to get up Saturday morning worrying it was going to rain. My wife April final- ly said, ‘Stop worrying. The people are going to come and have a celebra- tion whether it rains or not.’ And she was right.” Hughes also admits to worrying about the weather, even while knowing she couldn’t control it. “Nor did any of us have control over the fire that de- stroyed the Wagon Wheel, Central Market, and Boyce Insurance not long before St. Paddy’s Day,” she adds. “Heppner rallied and so did the weather, with an outdoor auction, huge hot air balloon, and concessions springing out of the ashes.” “We burned down the center four blocks of Hep- pner, one block every 10 years,” Hutchinson, a vol- unteer firefighter, adds. And, as if all that weren’t enough, Bates re- calls the events of 2020 as some of the most difficult. “The year we had to cancel a day before the event due to COVID and had to make the decision to not hold it the following year again due to Covid,” she says. The best of times Challenges weren’t a constant, though, and the years of St. Pat’s held many fond memories. “I had great volunteers who took responsibility to help organize certain activi- ties, serving as a resource in helping me get more famil- iar with the full event,” says Bates. “It was wonderful to see a great crowd come out to help us celebrate our local Irish heritage and participate in the activities.” Osmin says she enjoyed “all of it,” with the general good feeling everyone had during the celebration. One memory that stands out for her is dressing up in the duck costume for the O’ Ducky Race. “I was teaching at the grade school at the time, and saw lots of the stu- dents,” she says. “One of my students was afraid of the duck and did not hold back in telling me so! It was interesting the following Monday back in the class- room when we all had a discussion about the duck.” She adds that, as the duck, she did not talk. “Seeing all the people come and enjoying them- selves during the celebra- tion,” Sykes says. “It was usually the first celebration after the winter months and people really liked getting out, having fun and renew- ing friendships and starting new ones.” Sykes says his fondest memory was watching how the KUMA Coffee Hour grew over the years. To Hughes, the best part of the KUMA Coffee Hour was Father Condon, Dom Monahan and Congressman Greg Walden bantering back and forth—a priest, a lawyer and a politician, she notes. “(They) would have been a sensation on any comedy hour or late night show,” she says. Also especially memo- rable was the visit from the true Irish singers and danc- ers who came all the way from Ireland in 1991. Fam- ilies in Heppner stepped up Bill “Hutch” Hutchinson to host them in their homes and long-term correspon- dence resulted. That year was also a fa- vorite for Hutchinson, who was visiting the celebration decked out in his traditional leprechaun garb. “I was walking down the street after the cof- fee hour and one of those Irishmen chased me down and said, ‘Wait, wait, wait! I want to take your picture and send it back to Ire- land!’” Hutchinson recalls. “That made my day.” Brosnan also enjoyed being a leprechaun, though her outfit sported the huge, paper mâché head created by Marti Mitchell, Geor- gia Van Winkle and Judie Laughlin. “Being incognito, see- ing the little kids’ expres- sions,” says Brosnan. “Only once did a naughty boy who was probably about 12 harass me by pulling on my jacket and insisting that I tell him where my treasure was!” Ball’s fondest memory involved the sheep dog trials, which were held at the fairgrounds at the time. “I was lucky enough to encounter a small, jolly lit- tle Scotsman from Victoria, B.C., by the name or nick- name of Scotty,” says Ball. Scotty and wife Winnie had brought their dogs for the sheep dog trials. Scotty took a liking to the inex- pensive little “tam” Ball was wearing and wanted to trade hats. “It took some convinc- ing to get me to trade, as Scotty’s was a real wool Scottish tam from Scot- land,” Ball adds. “He told me it has ‘spent the night in a real Scottish castle.’ I tried to refuse, but he wouldn’t hear of it.” The craziest of times Some of the craziest memories also involved the sheep dog trials. Hutchin- son said he always enjoyed watching the talented dogs and their workers. “There was a guy at the sheep dog trials that came down from B.C. and had a dog that was about ready to drop pups,” says Hutchin- son. “That dog was still a working dog. That dog would want to go out and work those sheep when it wasn’t her turn. She’d start to sneak out and he’d call her back.” Hutrchinson also re- calls a year when there was a sheep dog in the parade, herding six or seven geese down the parade route. Brosnan recalls the year she drove committee heads Hughes and Osmin in her MG convertible. The pair rode on the back. “Thing was, it was rain- ing,” adds Osmin. “So we had to get plastic tarps with our heads poking out of the tarp, and holding umbrellas. It was quite the sight!” she says, adding that she wouldn’t mention what Hughes’s son said about the ride. One of Bates’s craziest memories was of a late snow that left mounds of snow downtown and in side streets where they planned activities. “Our great public works team started loading snow into dump trucks and dumping it elsewhere so we could safely have our annual event,” says Bates. “Needless to say, we had another successful St. Patrick’s Celebration weekend!” Several of the organiz- ers share memories of being leprechauns both during the festivities and to promote them—some crazier than others. Hughes and Brosnan share a memory of…well, of being kicked out of Wild- horse Casino or stopped at the door, depending who you ask. “My fellow leprechaun and I—we went after dona- tions in costume—went to Wildhorse Casino to ask for a donation,” says Brosnan. “Little did I know the big head was considered a mask and not allowed within the casino,” adds Hughes. Ball remembers step- ping up to host the coffee hour for Claudia Hughes one year, since Hughes had a previous engagement. “I announced myself as Claudia Hughes,” says Ball. “I received some strange looks, like I had lost my mind. At that point, I may have.” Other memories in- clude the parade and events surrounding it. Ball remem- bers being “coerced” into the O’ Planky and O’ Bed races…perhaps the instance Sykes also remembers? “The Gazette-Times entered the bed race. We got a baby crib, I attached wheels to the bottom and our newspaper editor at the time got inside with a baby bonnet holding a large calf milk bottle for effect and we raced,” says Sykes. “We did not win but had a lot of fun doing it.” (Editor’s note: The Gazette-Times editor will not be participating in the bed races this year.) “So many crazy mem- ories, and some cannot be told,” Hughes adds. Where we go from here Over the years, the cel- ebration grew from a stew feed, to a radio coffee hour, to a four-day event that has included the Great Green Parade, Cruz-In car show, motorcycle races, kids’ ac- tivities like the Leprechaun Run and O’ Ducky Race, Irish Smoker boxing, Re- membrance Walk, dances, a Ceili and other live en- tertainment, and even bull riding. “All in all, wonderful memories of the Wee Bit O’ Ireland Celebration,” says Osmin. “I just hope it continues for years to come so others can have fond memories!” “Not one person or group can make this event happen,” says Bates. “It takes a community to pull together to make it happen, and I have been fortunate to see a great community in action. Thanks for the memories and the opportu- nity to organize this event for about 13 years.” “My hair and beard are not as red as they were back then,” Hutchinson admits, but says he hopes to don his green suit and show up again this year as Heppner’s leprechaun. “I just gotta make sure it fits. We might have to do some alterations on it.” “Thank goodness younger people and new people to our area started to take over the ‘business’ so some of the ‘oldies’ could retire,” says Ball. “I hear often how people are ‘too busy’ to work on the committee, but guess what…when this celebra- tion first began, all of the committee members were working full-time jobs, had kids, etc. It’s just a matter of priorities.” “Heppner should be proud of the St. Patrick’s Day celebration they’ve created,” she adds. “It sure- ly takes a village.” “It takes a village and two counties to celebrate a Wee Bit O’ Ireland in Hep- pner,” concludes Hughes. “Top o’ the morning to all of ye Irish and Irish-for- a-weekend. 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