Meet the 2010 BMD Board & Advisers & Festival Coordinator

Meet the BMD 2010 Board, its advisers and the  Festival Coordinator below and learn why they are involved in organizing Cottage Grove’s annual Bohemia Mining Days Festival.

The BMD Board Members invite you to join them in organizing what Board President Kathy MacGregor calls “Cottage Grove’s biggest party of the year!”

Call 541.942.5064 for details.

Alan Payment – Festival Coordinator

When longtime BMD Festival Coordinator Sharon Jean stepped down last year, the board selected retired attorney, Alan Payment, to be her successor.

Alan loves Cottage Grove and is actively involved in a number of local community groups and organizations. He’s a member of the Lions Club, serves on the Cottage Grove Boys and Girls Club Board of Directors and is a S.M.A.R.T. reader at Bohemia  School.

As he’s learning the ropes in his first year as Festival Coordinator he says he is grateful to Sharon and the board members for their support and looks forward to presenting the community with another great festival this year!

Kathy MacGregor – BMD Board President

This is Kathy’s fourth year of chairing the BMD Board of Directors.  She came to the board in 2007 after manning the festival’s information booth for the Cottage Grove Greeters, a committee of the Cottage Grove Area Chamber of Commerce.

She is actively involved in the Cottage Grove 2037 Vision process and has a passion to see our community remain an exceptional place to live, work and recreate. She is one of The Grove’s many cheerleaders year-round and especially loves to dress in beautiful period clothing and serve as one of Bohemia Mining Days most effective ambassadors.

Her enthusiasm for her community and for the BMD Festival combined with her leadership and people skills make the BMD Board meetings pleasant but business-like. When not working on BMD or being involved with the Greeters, Kathy can be found (along with her husband Don) taking care of her land, her llamas and her dogs out Mosby Creek way.

She enthusiastically describes her interest in organizing the Bohemia Mining Days Festival each year in simple terms:  “How can you not want to be involved in putting on the biggest party of the year?”

Martha McReynolds, Jr – BMD Board Treasurer

A recently-transplanted resident of Creswell and relative new-comer to the Cottage Grove scene, Martha McReynolds Jr., Treasurer, joined the Bohemia Mining Days Festival Board of Directors in late-2008 after meeting Ms. Sharon Jean, Festival Coordinator, at Gathering in the Grove events organized by the Cottage Grove Chamber of Commerce.  Ms. McReynolds, a member of the Creswell Lions and Kiwanis Clubs, wanted to find a way to get involved also with the Cottage Grove community and is happy to report that joining the Board was a great step toward that goal!

Ms. McReynolds is an environmental consultant employed for 10.5 years by a family-owned consulting firm in Tigard, Oregon and works from an office in Creswell.  She is pleased to have acquired an Associates Degree in General Studies from Lane Community College, and it was during those studies that Ms. McReynolds discovered the joys of Accounting.  Order from chaos using simple math!

For fun Ms. McReynolds has been known to dote on her small dog, Anikin, float rivers, take driving tours, sculpt using seed beads and play the accordion (always in private!).  She is interested in history, sustainability and the conversion of metal shipping containers into residential structures.

Leah Murray – Board Secretary and Vendor Coordinator

Leah LOVES Bohemia Mining Days! Beginning this year she set up a Facebook account for BohemiaMiningDays and is the BMD voice within that popular social networking site.

She has served on the BMD Board of Directors since 2004 and fills two very critical roles on the all volunteer board.  As board secretary,  she takes important meeting notes that track the myriad of details and time lines that help the board and festival coordinator stay on track. In the weeks leading up to and during the festival she plays a critical role as the festival’s vendor coordinator. She handles the contracts, assists with set up on Thursday and troubleshoots any vendor problems that arise.

Leah has brought consistency to this important aspect of the festival. After serving five years as the BMD Vendor Coordinator she says she enjoys the friendships she has made among those vendors who return year after year.  All her hard work is worth it when she sees so many individuals and families filling up Bohemia City in Coiner Park for four days of fun and memory-making activities.

Lorraine Eriksen – BMD Board Member and Volunteer Coordinator

Lorraine Eriksen moved to Cottage Grove in 1982, moved away and returned again in 2000. During the interim she competed her education and worked as a counselor on the Warm Spring Reservation. She now runs a therapeutic foster home for at-risk teen girls.

Lorraine joined the BMD board so she could give back to the community and be a role model for the girls. The teens have helped make and place signs around town as well as assisting the Kiwanis club run their food both. This has helped the girls learn that everyone, no matter their age, has a talent they can share with others.

Marie Longfellow – Board Member and Bloomer Parade Coordinator

Marie was born and raised in Cottage Grove. She spent much of her working career in Eastern Oregon before retiring and returning to her birthplace and her family’s Victorian home in the historic Northwest Neighborhood.

For the last three years she has served on the BMD Board of Directors and as the Bloomer Parade Coordinator because history is her passion — particularly preserving as much of Cottage Grove’s history as possible. She is a member of the Cottage Grove Museum Board of Directors, the Cottage Grove Historical Society and the Prospectors & Golddiggers Booster Club. She served as the local Gold Mining Museum’s first director and also worked for the Lane County Historical Museum in Eugene.  She hopes this year’s festival will be fun for everyone and Thursday’s Bloomer Parade will have a great turnout and be the best one yet!

Darby Valley – Board Member

(Bio coming soon)

Charley Knox – Board Member

(Bio coming soon)

Jerry Vaverka – Board Member

Jerry is one of those hard-working behind the scenes logistical wizards every successful organizations needs. He and his wife, Margie, and their daughter Jill organize and participate in activities within their church, for Special Olympics, and for the Kiwanis and Aktion Clubs.   Due in large part to his efforts Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic Church’s Parish Center is one of our community’s best celebratory gathering places.

To help cover the overhead costs of putting on the annual festival the BMD Board works closely with the three Kiwanis Clubs to offer the Miner’s Steak Dinner on Thursday night and the Chuckwagon Breakfast on Sunday morning. Jerry’s skills in estimating the costs and procuring the ingredients for these important themed meals is invaluable to the continuing existence of Bohemia Mining Days.

His always cheerful personality, broad smile and the twinkle in his eye brighten up each board meeting he attends with Jill, his sidekick and the apple of his eye.  He enjoys organizing the festival each year because he loves the satisfaction of knowing that his efforts create a pleasant experience and happy memories for his friends, neighbors and community visitors for four days each summer.

Sharon Jean – Board Adviser & Past Festival Coordinator

Sharon has been a people person her entire life and a community organizer for all of her adult life. In 1996, she and her husband Ron Rice relocated to Cottage Grove from Hawaii when he bought Geomax Engineering.  Communities in five states prior to her arrival in Cottage Grove benefited from her leadership and organizational skills and were left with an asset that didn’t exist or didn’t function as efficiently prior to her residency there.

Among the many community contributions Sharon has made since becoming a Grover, she will be most likely be remembered most for leading the effort to rescue Bohemia Mining Days from the brink in 1999. Organizers that year made big plans to celebrate the event’s 40th anniversary and instead a last minute and unexpected change of venue created some unfulfilled contracts resulting in a financial and public relations nightmare. Then a small business owner in the Downtown Historic District, Sharon stepped forward and formed a new board of directors with the goal of rescuing the festival from an unnecessary and untimely death.

With the new board’s full support, Sharon used her gift of persuasion, along with her leadership, organizational, and business skills to bring the festival back into the black in only two years.  She served as BMD Festival Coordinator from 2000-2009 and added a significant level of organizational structure (paid coordinator, operations manual, office and phone) to this important community group of volunteers before stepping down last December.  She has continued working with the board and the new coordinator in an advisory capacity this year to create a smoother transition and to ensure the current and future success of the festival she loves so much.

Cindy Weeldreyer – Board Adviser & Website Content Coordinator

Cindy has been a full-time Grover on “Weeldreyer Hill” since 1983.  Her husband Ralph is a Cottage Grove native [CG Lion Class of 1967].  Ralph first  introduced her to Bohemia Mining Days in 1980, the year he began dating this newly transplanted Louisiana Bayou Girl.

Cindy served 12 years as a Lane County elected official; first on the Lane Community College Board and then two terms as a Lane County Commissioner. For many years she’s been a freelance writer for the Cottage Grove Sentinel and the host of an inspirational Sunday morning radio program on KNND-1400 AM.  Ralph and Cindy are also members of the Prospectors & Golddiggers Booster Club.

She describes herself as “just one of the many garden variety do-gooders who call Cottage Grove home.” She says this is the primary reason she enjoys volunteering her time each year to help the BMD Board — and because of the truth in what Sharon Jean often says, “It takes many hands and hearts to create this annual community event.”