Downstate Gazette; 1

The downstate he said said than Oregon's magazine of the air is made possible by the case why it's a production fund. Oh. Hello I'm Jeff golden and I'm genuinely pleased to welcome you to the first edition of the downstate Gazette southern Oregon's magazine of the air in Southern Oregon we're surrounded by a rich assortment of people and places in history of celebrations and conflicts. And over the year to come we're going to enjoy highlighting some of them for you. We hope after the show that you'll make it a point to join us on the last Wednesday of each month. We begin our series by noting a landmark event for what could be the most famous institution in

our part of the state. The Oregon Shakespearean Festival begins its 50th anniversary season this weekend. So we decided to pay them a visit as they were getting ready. Shakespeare in Ashland to most people in southern Oregon and many around the world and up comes the image of a remarkable perch just above the downtown folded neatly and. Without any question the renown of national who works on a festival publicity. The reason we are here because I found. A Cultural Organization at the turn of the century

in the country was one of the. First. This festival Landmark is quiet now and it will be until June when King John Merchant of Venice and begin their runs down on the stage. But as the other players get ready to open this might be the only quiet place at the festival. Underground in the main rehearsal studio there polishing the crown jewel of the golden

anniversary season. Shakespeare's. Artistic director Jerry Turner thinks a landmark season merits a play likely are. One of the best maybe the best I've heard before a tragedy. Best Seller King Lear. The best of them is the one you just read. There are big and they are biggest. This is.

Like. In a steel rule. Everything in the. Process. So this.

Step here. Really smooth. OK. This is really. Tight. It took on the joyous. Storms of there were like China rocks dropped sending rings of activity out from the center to the edge of the stage. Up the aisle and out the side doors. Down the stairs. It approached the auditorium

and down into the vast lobby of the festival's main indoor building. The Angus Theatre opened in 1970 and the carpeting surprisingly enough lasted 15 years and here and so now for the 50th anniversary we have golden carpet and they're laying down tucked in back in time for opening to last another 15 years. Beneath all this it's busier yet the Bowmer basement is where thousands of costume items are produced. When he was Cara Wheeldon and I'm the manager of the clothes for King Lear the really primitive clothing a lot of natural fibers. You know you can get an idea here of the many many pieces of the show probably over a hundred pieces of fabric and died for the show.

What. Is one on one with brown That way there's a lot of fur. Most of the people are dressed in some sort of you know kind of dress down and they do dress for war even though there isn't necessarily a war on stage in the play. But there's a sense of military and military quality. Right. And they're working still to make that military quality more.

Hopeful. And one of the company as a whole is a drilling director trying to I. Guess. That's. Good for us. Yes. It's very characteristic of. Him for this question. Let's just try that. I thank you for coming at the most extreme thing which is something for this I don't think I'll be able to.

Until we get there. The head of the Georgia warriors on the materials Well it's a sheet of poly plastic essentially when you heat it to send it through hot water and then form it over a mold and you can do incredible things with it. This will be an example of finish. Experts tell me that you did last year the filesystem. That you can see if you can. Do a number of layers and. Layers. Yeah. Yeah. And then. It's. Different. With metal ramps and. Anything about issues that you can really you can just shoot at it embeddable things me into it. So that it's you don't deal as much with. You know. Finding things to one material to another it. Tends to be pretty good doesn't it Jane about.

Holding. Different kinds of materials. Can you just. Say. Well that would mean stripping all this down it's all been a lot of it's been resin so there's toxic material that you would have to like. You know melt the sound again. Toxic materials in general have been taken more and more seriously. There is metal. Recently I was in the last 10 years of great consciousness raising about. There are more traditional.

Festivals. In fact one of them. That's roughly.

Three. Hours to finish the way from start to finish that includes the hairstyles and. Things like that. This is where we glory and really create the wigs for all the productions for Hispanic adoptions is happening. We take a basic wig and then put in a more natural hair. I finally hear. Exactly the same. So it's done on a much much smaller than this it's got a little hook. On the very. Same reach through one of the cross bars. Grab a couple here or not. And I'm only going to go out to write a line is here and then. Right right. Everything's OK. My shop that's where you trim the netting back to about half an inch beyond that and that's where you put the spirit guide that we can attach it to the

actress face. And then we start going to like. The more true for the helmet. We're just too sure this is true. 100 yards away from the two story home or theater in the scene and prop shots it's the show's other than live shows with more intercepts that dominate. Your neighborhood. For your fancy. Here. Check. Out about the festivals Master Martin.

Dealing with. Graphs. Here. For tour. It is. For. Me to. Hear. This I have a certain there we didn't have this smaller fellow that we were going. To make a cover for. His address was. Very nice and safe. They tend to work back. Which are. What you're nailing. Down right here I believe again because of Kerry. But we. Didn't have. A knife here so this was quite cold in a little bit. With us without. Help. In the way the suits on stage are completely over all of this and it's really sloppy but it's going to notice. From that angle. You know it takes too much time to.

Get on. It's very much part of this mission. And as the work goes on to make more and more persuasive we begin to wonder if February on this fifth anniversary before. Truly in touch with the roots are past the thousands of people. That have made up the company over the years. The trust they gave us kind of handing down of responsibility season after season. We stand on their shoulders and want to do that. The people that follow us. Will have something. To pass onto which is not exactly how.

It happens down here. Right. We're. Taking. Your. Story. To. The festival it doesn't look like you to be easy for these people to take year off. They're busy they're edging a little closer step by step to their offerings for the Oregon Shakespearean festivals golden anniversary. Party. It's like.

So happy 50th birthday to the Shakespearean Festival. Happy New Year to everyone who's descended from or interested in the Chinese begins the year of the Ox year number forty six hundred eighty three on the Chinese calendar. And we know at least one place in the Rogue Valley where they're celebrating. Kims is a familiar landmark to all of us in southern Oregon. We've enjoyed their fine Cantonese food for more than 35 years. But how many of you knew that inside is a tower temple one of the only ones in the Pacific Northwest. Two hundred years ago. This old her graced a temple in a coastal village in

southern China 100 years ago. It came to Portland Oregon with the grandfather of Henry one of the temples were moved over here to the United States. It was mostly. A family temple like the kitchens at the temples the temples and the for family style Gandhi and Jill that would have the temples. That carving by hand and then they take gold leaf and whole again so that you can see the will see the expression on the people's faces. It was. In my garage for five years before we could get out and all we did was wash it that is the original gold leaf and.

Very few can't manage. Anymore. Crabs pick it and fish and well. In the southern. Close to the color we we're born. Most of our lives from the sea. Fishing you know cramming. During the Gold Rush years. The Chinese population in the several hundred Henry's father used to bring goods down to Jacksonville from Portland. Later Henry was drawn to the area himself by the opportunity to go into the restaurant business. When the Tallis temple in Portland was torn down Henry thought it Salter and brought it to the lobby of his restaurant.

It is the Chinese New Year. Henry's partner papa Lee keeps the candles and the incense lit and makes all the proper food offerings. How isn't Confucianism is just the philosophy of life a way of life. Back when Henry's father plied his trade and Chinese sentiments ran high in these parts in a way there's more opportunity today to exchange and appreciate one another's cultural views. The Chinese New Year is a come on about the second month and third month is when you start spring planning. So it's

a renewal of life thing. The new years is almost the same thing. The Chinese are Caucasian but a African or you know other Asians. Our correspondent on the year of the Ox was Nick Clarke who's director of the Southern Oregon Historical Society. This is a side he will be a regular contributor to the Gazette in the months to come as we bring you stories of some of your neighbors who've been here for 70 80 or 90 years. Right now though let's go east of the mountains. Many believe that the bald eagle has all but passed by the wayside except on government emblems and the masthead of the down state. Is that. In fact our correspondent Mark Brown tells us that's not true. It's unusual easels is very solitary It's very it's a territory almost a

year right now where there's communal roosting is a particular herd touristic It's only during the winter that they'll tolerate each other you know 15 20 go free when you get to it over the weekend several hundred people gathered near the Oregon California border south of Klamath Falls to watch bald eagles. Standing to the sounds of the Bear Valley National Wildlife Refuge the group had this one opportunity to see some of the more than 600 bald eagles in the area as they left their roost to feed. Wow it's this abundance of migratory waterfowl on the lower Klamath Lake and to Lake wildlife refuge that attracts the Eagles to the region managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service the refuge now plays host to the largest wintering concentration of bald eagles in the lower 48 states.

You know that some of them are coming in from northern scatch on Alberta British Columbia Washington Oregon. So they are in fact a migratory in their in their habits. Now some parts of the country they are as you get more southern climates say they tend to spend the year around you know smaller Erna and in the same general area of it. But here these birds are coming in from quite a ways off because this part of. Adjacent southern Oregon has only about 30 no nest sites. So in order for us to get nearly 600 eagles that we had here earlier they had to come from quite a ways off. The annual bald eagle conference in the Klamath Basin is not the kind of formal event you may think to attend you don't need credentials with the Audubon Society. Nor must you be a card carrying member of anyone's birdwatchers group. Instead it's a very informal event. Anyone is welcome. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Oregon's Department of Fish and Wildlife help the Audubon Society organize the annual event. Like any large gathering these eagle watchers

offer a convention style souvenirs and even exhibit close ups of the bald eagles for those of us including our photographer who can't find an eagle to sit still long enough for a steady picture refuge manager Bob fields took this photograph. He says that even though an estimated 13000 Eagles migrate to the U.S. Each winter their numbers are still low. Banning some of the hard pesticides like DDT and stuff has been a tremendous boon in the recover recovery of the eagle and their status. And coming back. So the bald eagle remains threatened in the northwest and is considered an endangered species in California. But nevertheless there appears to be enough of these spectacular birds to create an even more spectacular sight each winter as they gather in the Klamath Basin. This is Mark Brown for the downstate because that. Here That's What I.

Feel is one of the most important contest of the centennial because of course it started January 1 1985 contest as being a kickoff for the whole centennial celebration a way that we could get people talking about it the way that we could get. Would be a visual effect that would be running through the city when we were having people register for the contest and they would come in sign some sort of comment about why they were going. My wife had never allowed me to see what I look like with the beard. And so they were really excited about the possibility. We have had 75 people to sign up for this. Interestingly very pleased

in fact we have a couple of businesses locally. Jackson County Federal Savings along in which seven seven to eight people signed. And man with. Business here 76 years old. We kind of hold something back to earth and if there's going to be an all out unity or effort or group here's where we part. Management said let's do it let's go. And anybody on the staff we want to take their word. For it is the president no less. Want to take a picture. You're. In my job as difficult one without a license to. Do it. So

I was pleased. To hear anything really in writing but it has been encouraged by top management. There is really one of your. I guess it was neat you decided it was. Me What. Appeared. To be five categories in June during the centennials moon celebration in the race for us or maybe the longest walk from pigs he may have a front runner among his tellers. Got a good looking beer good beer growing in nice and heavy I think we might have a good dinner there. We're. Starting to hear a. Good time to start drawing a check is just killing me. In the first few years when my to take care of the skin. But. Most people supported the history. It's a. Celebration of the

century to be an opportunity for people to become enlightened concerning our history. In my mind that everybody has. Got also happens to be one of our aims with the downstage We hope you've enjoyed our first edition and plan to join us regularly on the last Wednesday of each month. And let us hear from you. We'd like to devote this last minute of future shows to viewer comments. So let us help. For the downstate. Jeff Gold. Send your comments and suggestions to the down state visit 34 South First Street

Medford Oregon 9 7 5 0 1 the downstate southern Oregon's magazine of the air is made possible by the k s y s production fund. If you would like to join the fund's efforts to promote local production please call KFYI us at 7 7 2 3 1 2 2. During business hours. What is this.