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Friday, May 27, 2022

Warm welcome?




Warm welcome?

Letter to editor of McMinnville N-R/News-Register, May 27, 2022

Do McMinnville, Newberg and Lafayette appreciate visitors? Yes.

Are “welcome signs” a good way to welcome visitors? Yes.

From the internet, I read: “The welcome signs surrounding a city can be important markers signifying much more than its population or city seal. Oftentimes, these signs are used to communicate the beliefs and ideals a community holds and shares.”

Look at the photos I took of McMinnville, Newberg and Lafayette “welcome signs” on May 21. Should McMinnville’s sign on Highway 99W be more welcoming?

Tim Marsh
McMinnville



 

Thursday, May 5, 2022

Plastics Recycling Project, McMinnville, Sat. June 4, 2022


BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND 

THE PLASTICS RECYCLING PROJECT 

MARK YOUR CALENDAR 

Saturday, June 4, 2022 10 am–2 pm

Yamhill County Fairgrounds
2070 NE Lafayette Avenue, McMinnville 

Cost is $4 per grocery bag Cash or checks only, please Just show up with these plastic items. 

All items must be sorted, clean, dry, and grouped together as follows: 

>> UN-NUMBERED ITEMS - Bag together - all straws, utensils, and bread bag clips - Bag together - all screw-on and flip-top plastic caps 

NUMBERED ITEMS Does it have a number on the bottom? Bag together by its number. #1s - CLEAR plastic clamshells, to-go containers, cups (no color) #2s, #4s, #5s, #6s - Examples: cold/hot drink cups and lids, prescription pill bottles and lids, take-out containers, plant pots under 4 in., tubs under 6 oz., etc. 

NO STYROFOAM, COMPOSTABLE ITEMS OR RECOLOGY CURBSIDE RECYCLING ITEMS __________________________________________

We are joining Zero Waste’s Recycled Arts and the Sustainable Living Festival and Compostapalooza - at the Fairgrounds. We think we’ll fit right in. Join us there! 

VOLUNTEERS NEEDED TO JOIN OUR ENTHUSIASTIC TEAM QUESTIONS? 

(503) 207-5482 

Sponsors: 

>Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of McMinnville’s Social and Environmental Justice Committee
>Zero Waste McMinnville
>Botten’s Equipment Rental


Also see:

https://files.constantcontact.com/0f542b88401/95740c2a-f74e-4e45-9c38-d2d46a92523f.pdf



Monday, March 14, 2022

Journalist Floyd McKay, Linfield College (1957) and McMinnville High (1953) grad, dies at age 86 on March 4, 2022, in Bellingham, Wash


 Journalist Floyd McKay, Linfield College (1957) and McMinnville High (1953) grad, dies at age 86 on March 4, 2022, in Bellingham, Wash.

 

Link to Oregonian story:


https://www.oregonlive.com/entertainment/2022/03/floyd-mckay-veteran-pacific-northwest-journalist-and-educator-has-died-at-age-86.html

 

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Here's some Floyd McKay/Linfield background ...

Floyd John McKay, born 1935 in North Dakota, was a 1953 graduate of McMinnville, Oregon. High School. He:

--graduated from Linfield in 1957 with a bachelor of arts degree in journalism and political science.

--was a Linfield adjunct professor of communications, 1969-1974.

--served as a member of the Linfield Board of Trustees, 1972-1978.

--received Linfield "Distinguished Alumnus Award," 2016.

 

….

 More links to other sources:

https://wildcatville.blogspot.com/2016/05/in-2016-floyd-mckay-was-looking-forward.html

https://www.linfield.edu/linfield-news/former-journalist-mckay-to-read-from-book-about-the-oregon-story/#more-5766

https://wildcatville.blogspot.com/2017/05/journalist-floyd-mckay-class-of-1957.html

http://wildcatville.blogspot.com/2016/06/linfielder-floyd-mckay-at-oregon.html?m=1

http://wildcatville.blogspot.com/1999/02/literary-snapshot-linfield-19xx-grad.html?m=1

Friday, December 10, 2021

Mary Martin, community advocate, dies Dec 7, 2021 in McMinnville


 Mary Martin, community advocate, dies

By Starla Pointer, McMinnville N-R/News-Register 12/10/2021. Photo of Mary Martin taken in McMinnville by Mac News on Aug. 26, 2013.

 Mary Martin, a businesswoman and community advocate in McMinnville for 65 years, died Tuesday in Willamette Valley Medical Center. She was 85.

Services are pending under the direction of Macy & Son Funeral Directors. 

“We will miss her big laugh, her warm embrace, her prophetic critique of injustice, her encouraging, challenging, generous spirit, and her wishes for a ‘Happy Day!’ even on the hardest of days,” said First Baptist Church pastor Erika Marksbury in announcing Martin’s passing to fellow members of the congregation.

The church “lost another saint this week,” the pastor said.

Until shortly before her death, Martin was still taking an active role in helping people less fortunate in the community. She served breakfast at the church a couple times a week and stood up for homeless people at city council meetings and other events. She advocated for restrooms, storage lockers and shower facilities for people in need.

She didn’t like how others portrayed those without homes, she said in a 2017 News-Register story. “I see in our a town a division that is them and us, and it is a very unhappy thought,” she said.

She disagreed that meal programs and other services only enabled the homeless. “These are human beings” who need a place where they are safe and welcome, she said. “If we could just find some place for them to be, how different our outlook might be about them.”

Martin stood up for other causes, as well. In October, she walked with her daughter-in-law, Cheryl, in the McMinnville reproductive rights rally.

She told the News-Register she was “devastated” by the continual need to fight for women’s rights yet again. Still, she said, such rallies “may wake up a few people who are sleeping. I hope.”

Martin was named McMinnville’s Woman of the Year in the 2017 Distinguished Service Awards.

She was humble about the honor. The positive things she’s done in McMinnville hadn’t been that special, she told the News-Register; they just needed doing, and she was available.

Everyone who knew her disagreed. Past winners of the award noted Martin’s professional accomplishments in business and real estate and her extensive community service, which ranged from supporting the library to helping get the Gospel Rescue Mission prepared to host Linfield international students.

Martin was “an enormously effective bridge across a cultural divide,” a fellow woman of the year winner said.

She was a great friend, said Cassie Sollars, another past Woman of the Year. When both worked at Willamette West Real Estate, the shared books and loved discussing what they’d read.

“Mary devoured books. She read voraciously,” Sollars recalled. “I loved her dearly.”

What made Martin different than some philanthropists, said attorney Dave Haugeberg, was that she was hands-on.

“She was there with her shirtsleeves rolled up, working hard to make a difference,” he said. “She was right there, being part of things.”

Martin said her parents set an example of community service when she was growing up on the Southern Oregon Coast.

Her husband, the late Noel Martin, shared her concern for others. They came to McMinnville so he could attend Linfield; he joined the Linfield Research Institute after graduating.

They soon had four children, Noel Paul, John, Stacy and Robert.

“This town and our church took care of us,” she said. “It was a good place for us to land.”

In the early 1970s, Martin joined Lois Gilmore, Marilyn Crousser, Beverly Trenneman and Rosemary Moore to buy The Book Shop, now called Third Street Books.

US Bank offered the five women a loan, letting them sign for it themselves, rather than requiring their husbands’ signatures.

“That was very unusual then, and a very fine thing,” Martin said of the all-female venture in another News-Register story. Once again, she said, “this town was good to us.”

Martin liked being in business, but she had always dreamed of a career selling houses. Her friend Marilyn Dell Worrix, an agent and broker at Willamette West, guided her in earning a real estate license. She spent the next four decades in the industry and was named Realtor of the Year in 1995.

She helped her daughter become an agent as well.

Stacy Martin said Wednesday that she had received numerous messages of condolence from the community. For instance, Sylla McClelan wrote that she’d seen Mary recently and “was marveling at her ability to be out and about and chatting away with folks.”

Stacy said she marveled at her mother, too. “She never met a stranger,” she said.

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Saturday, November 27, 2021

Getting to know Charlie and Cherie Walker of McMinnville


CHARLIE and CHERIE WALKER

Getting to Know Our First Baptist Church Family

 

By Gloria LaFata - Membership Highlight, December 2021 edition, FBC Tidings newsletter of First Baptist Church (FBC), McMinnville, Oregon. Some minor edits were made by the poster.

 

I had the joy and the privilege of interviewing Charlie and Cherie Walker recently. They have been married for 62 years and I believe the title of this marriage could be "Loving Partnership" or as Cherie suggested, "Travels with Charlie!" Here is their story.

 

Cherie, an only child, was born in McCook, Nebraska. Her father died when she was only 9 months old, leaving her mom a single working mother. Without family support, and working as a secretary, they moved often - to Texas, Louisiana, Colorado, Utah and eventually, San Francisco.

 

Consequently, Cherie was in Boarding Schools until 8th grade, when she and her mom started living together in an apartment in Salt Lake City. Summers were spent in Nebraska with an aunt.

 

She took her first job at 14, working in a San Francisco flower shop, after school and weekends. In College at San Francisco State, she worked part time in the Admissions Office. (Johnny Mathis was a fellow student!) From there, she went to New York City to get her MA at Columbia. She was secretary to the female head of her department. It was at Columbia that she met Charlie.

 

Charlie, an only child, was born in Bolivar, Pennsylvania. His mom died when he was 6 years old, so he lived with his grandparents. His first job was in 9th grade, working in a grocery store after school, packing potatoes in bags by the peck, earning 5o cents every Saturday.

 

In his Senior year he got a job writing for a small town newspaper. Benefits included his own phone, a free newspaper and he was paid 11 cents an inch! In his high school graduation class of 18, 3 of them went off to college, including Charlie. He commuted 6o miles, each way, to the U. of Pittsburgh.

 

In his Junior year of College, he decided his small town needed an Appliance Store. He got the collateral, rented space, contracted with Westinghouse and hired a blind man to mind the store when he was at college. It all worked out well and Charlie learned a lot about blind people and how to run a small business.

 

After graduation, Charlie got a job teaching Junior High in Greensburg, Pennsylvania. While there, he was called into the Army for two years, the Army Signal Corp. After his two-year commitment, he went back to his old job that they had held for him, where he stayed two more years.

 

When his grandfather died, he inherited a little money, so decided to go to Columbia University in New York to earn his MA. There he met Cherie. At Columbia he had two part time jobs: mentoring an African-American youth, who had no male figure in his life, and working at a YMCA as an Activities Manager for Youth.

 

He finished his MA in one year and went on to Rockford College in Rockford, Illinois, as Dean of Men, Director of Placement, Assistant Professor of English and Assistant Tennis Coach (something he had to teach himself). After a year, Cherie joined him there and they married. They stayed two more years and Cherie worked as a District Director with the Girl Scouts in Rockford.

 

Their next move was to Stanford for Charlie's Doctorate, where he studied higher education and Latin American Studies. Cherie worked as District Director of Girl Scouts in Redwood City, California. While working on his PhD, Charlie taught two classes at Menlo College and patrolled the dorms, enabling them to get a rent free apartment and save money for a trip they were planning!

 

After Charlie got his PhD, they took a 3-month trip on a freighter to South America, stopping at all the Central American ports along the way. After this trip, it was on to Hamline University in St. Paul, Minnesota, where Charlie was Academic Dean for 6 years. It was there they adopted their two children, Douglas and Christy. Because of the way she was raised, Cherie wanted to be the one to raise their children so that was the end of her Professional career. Her Unprofessional career as hostess began then, for the many guests Charlie invited into their home.

Their next move was to Troy, New York, for five years where Charlie was President of Russell Sage College, a women's college. Since it wasn't a great fit, they searched for a new opportunity, which brought them to McMinnville and Linfield College.

 

It was 1975 when Charlie became President of Linfield. His first order of business was to get Linfield on solid financial ground. He established the International Exchange Program and started the RN Program.

 

Something that was really important to him was bringing outstanding, world renowned people to Linfield and inviting the community to hear them speak. He wanted to unite the college and the community. Speakers included Henry Kissinger, President Gerald Ford, President Jimmy Carter, Beverly Sills, Chancellor Helmut Kohl, etc. Each speaker was invited into their home for dinner, along with other guests. Cherie says it was definitely challenging, but such an honor to meet so many outstanding and famous people.

 

Cherie and Charlie, upon arrival, searched for a church. They chose FBC because of the friendly people, Bernie Turner, and the wonderful Children's Program, where Cherie team-taught with Roz Turner and Mary Martin.

When Charlie retired in 1992, the couple moved to Neskowin, on the Oregon coast, because they love the ocean. Charlie was instrumental in starting a Library and developing the Neskowin Chamber Music Series. Cherie volunteered at the Tillamook County Health Department and started her own business, creating and making wedge-shaped placemats when none could be found for their round table. They were so popular that in 1994 she got a contract with Norm Thompson's Solutions Catalog. She loved every minute even though it was a steep learning curve.

 

The Walkers moved back to McMinnville in 2014, and have been active in our church ever since. Charlie on the Endowment Committee, Deferred Maintenance Committee, the 150th Anniversary Committee, the Board, etc., and Cherie with Buildings and Grounds, the Winter Shelter, and Sew & Sews.

 

The Walkers have two children. Their son Douglas is in Atlanta, soon to be in Portland, and their daughter Christy is in Kansas with her two children, the Walkers’ grandchildren.

 

Cherie and Charlie love the ocean, ships, their Delightful Dinner Group, trips to Ashland for Shakespeare plays, traveling, entertaining, reading, music, the Walking Group and Charlie loves to make Ice Cream and Homemade Soup! They've had wonderful trips from a simple overnight double round trip on a Lake Michigan Car Ferry, to Europe to South America to Australia to the elegant trip across the Atlantic on the Queen Mary II and so many more. "Travels with Charlie!" indeed.

 

We are so fortunate to have Cherie and Charlie in our community and our church, sharing their wisdom, talents and generosity with us all. What a privilege to call them friends. Thank You!

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