Statesman Journal from Salem, Oregon • Page 4

living 5-7 lo) agriculture 40 it Statesman-Journal, Monday, July 1 2, 1 982 tit Countless volunteers behind the scenes readying Art Fair "I think it's fair to say those grounds people will put in a 40-hour week," said Simmons, "and some will do more." Their work includes going to Fair-view Training Center to borrow benches, to schools to pick up parts for the two fair stages, to city shops to transport garbage cans, picnic tables and barricades, and to the park itself to relocate tables and benches. "Then all these have to be returned," said Turnidge. The crew, added Melton, "has to put up stakes so that every artist knows where he or she is supposed to set up a booth." "Then we move out and distribute screens for the artists to use for display or as a sunbreak," added Turnidge. THE BOOTHS WILL be operated by 175 artists and craftsmen selected from among 400 applicants. Simmons especially credits Fay Hackleman.

"She received more than 2,400 slides, catalogued them all, and put the information together to be juried. Then all the slides had to be returned Turn to VOLUNTEERS, Page 4B organization, Betty Jo can call and say 'this or that needs to be done' and we can pull people in. There is a lot of camaraderie between us. "People who you don't know call you on the phone and say they want to do something it's super. It's really gratifying," she said.

"And that's why I don't worry about it," said Simmons. "A thing that I think is significant is that as executive director, am the panic button for the volunteers. I panic, but I don't worry there's a difference." Turnidge, who retired in 1980 as assistant superintendent of Salem public schools for the South area, said he got involved in the fair through his wife, who was co-chairman of the fair six years ago. "They are stimulating people to be around just fun," he said, "so I'm glad to be around." MANY VOLUNTEERS repeat year after year, he said. "Some have volunteered on the grounds committee for six years one even comes from Eagle Point." The crew does the fair's physical setup and takes it down.

By KAY APLEY Of the IlitiwH Israel They're already at work those countless behind-the-scenes teers who quietly go about the business of staging the Salem Art Fair and Festival. The Salem Art Association's 33rd annual fair opens Friday and runs through next Sunday in Bush's Pasture Park alongside High Street SE. It is expected that by the fair's end, nearly 500 people will have volunteered their time and talents in putting it on. One roster lists' 48 names. "These are the people who by the beginning of September last year said 'yes'" said Betty Jo Simmons, SAA executive director.

"They are the coordinators of all the areas." HIGH ON THE LIST are the fair co-chairmen, Glenda Melton and Wally Turnidge. The two said there is almost no problem in obtaining Melton, volunteer services coordinator for Salem Public Schools, said, "This is such a well-organized activity that it really flows. Because of the L7 mm, a. mm I jmwm Li LJa 32ss i 4 anal peats by Mike Williams Former home health aide now enjoys volunteer work FAIR SIGN Robert Melton perches on die pot- val opening Friday in Bush's Pasture Park. Melton tery shed roof at Bush Barn to glue a loose section of is one of hundreds of volunteers preparing for die a banner announcing the Salem Art Fair and Festi- annual citywide event Boat sinks; 4 found in lifejackets let's hear it! EDITOR'S NOTE: Each week, the Statesman-Journal honors an "iwt" volunteer nominated by id readers and selected by a Volunteer Senicef panel af Judtct.

By KAY APLEY Of the Statesman-Journal The letter nominating Katherine Siddal of Dallas as volunteer of the week said, "She is a beautiful person, inside and out, bringing joy and aid into many lives room, drives some to the store, a doctor's appointment, or for a ride, and often brings "homecooked goodies" to NEWPORT Four men spent 2 hours floating in the Pacific Ocean Sunday morning after their boat sank off Yachats, the U.S. Coast Guard said. All four men were suffering from hypothermia when picked up by a Coast Guard rescue boat, but were released from a Newport hospital by Sunday afternoon. Hypothermia victims have below-normal body temperatures. The owner of the 36-foot commer the boat's crew radioed in at 2:43 a.m.

and said the boat was taking oft water from an unknown cause. Four minutes later, communications with the crew were lost, the spokesman said. Three boats and two helicopters were sent in search, and the men were found floating in their lifejackets about A helicopter lifted the men from "a rescue boat and flew them to the hospital, the Coast Guard said. cial fishing boat Pacific Eagle, Bob Boules of Albany, was treated and released after the pre-dawn sinking, a representative of Pacific Communities Hospital said. The crewmen Ron Reeves and Ted Pratt, both of Albany, and Hal T.

Campball of Astoria were released after several hours of observation, the representative said. All four men were in their 30s, she said. A Coast Guard representative said shut-ins. SHE ALSO IS ACTIVE in Dallas Evangelical Church. Katherine enjoys volunteering.

"I don't have regularly scheduled hours I just go and come when I want," she said happily. "I've known some of them a long time and some I've just met it's fun." each day." An effervescent, cheerful and bright lady of 73, Katherine has spent untold hours providing health care in people's homes. From 1966 to 1974, she was with the Polk County Health Department as a certified home health aide, assigned by doctors or nurses wherever personal care at home was required. "I like to see people'stay in their own homes," she said. Born on a farm near Pedee, she lived in Valsetz and the Pedee area until moving to Dallas in 1935.

She was widowed in 1970. No response to offer of Eyerly reward She has five daughters, Helen Dart, Violet Starks and Emma Sanders, all of Dallas; Lois Miller, Portland and Jeanne Shelton, Salem; 16 grandchildren and, she said, "13 and a half great-grandchildren." "It's a large family," she said, laughing. '''Even the minister quit giving gifts for the ones with the big gest family because I got all of them." A favorite memory is from 1975 when her family, friends and former co-workers got together to provide "more than half" the cost of an 18-day trip to the Holy Land. Two dowsers and one psychic have given civilian searchers different directions around Brown Island Park for the missing woman, Miller said. None of the leads have panned out, he said.

"They all have different ideas and locations," Miller said. Sherry Eyerly was attempting to deliver two Domino's pizzas to an address on Riverhaven Drive an address which later proved to be ficticious. Her company-owned car was found abandoned on Faragate Street with its lights on and motor "People say times are so awful now I don't agree," Then, after 1974, she did part- katherine siddal time private work, "bathing, enemas, colostomies oh, I'd fix a meal for them, too things like that." "Some of them were patients from my aide days and others were referred by the health department or friends or doctors they're still doing that," she said. LAST FALL, she stopped part-time employment because "I had too many other things to do," she said with a bright smile. The "other things" she does, said the person nominating her, include visiting residents in retirement homes, nursing homes, hospitals and private residences everyday.

"She brings a cheery smile and interesting stories to each person," said the writer, and takes invalids for wheelchair rides through the halls or to the dining The Marion County Sheriff's Office dispatching center reported that several psychics had called over the weekend to give investigators their versions of where the young woman could be found. Mount Hood, Klamath Falls and San Diego, were mentioned as possible locations for Eyerly, a dispatcher said. -i" Miller, who chipped in $1,000 for the reward, said he would check today with the First Interstate Bank, 3490 Lancaster Drive NE, to see if anyone had added to the reward fund. Today's figure will be considered the final reward offer, he said. The grandfather of a missing Salem woman said Sunday there has been no response to an offer of $6,000 for information that would solve her disappearance.

And searchers again failed to turn up any clues that might lead them to the woman, 18-year-old Sherry Eyerly, who disappeared July 4 as she 1 was attempting to deliver a pizza. Eyerly's grandfather, Colbie Miller, said friends of the Eyerly family again searched the South Salem area where Eyerly's pizza-delivery car was found, but otherwise, "the day was more or less at a standstill." she said, "having lived through four wars and the Depression and sickness and having poor years when we didn't have money." As for being selected as volunteer of the week, she said cheerfully, "You know, it's nicer now than after I'm dead!" Nominations, by letter ar (arm available at the newspaper office, may be mailed to Volunteer, P.O. Bex 1MB, Salem 17m Nominator will not be identified. Brother Modesto leaves migrant field workers better off 4a ality. Hispanic Catholics fought city hall resistance and overwhelming economic odds to turn a run-down theater into a church.

Masses once were held in fields and migrant camps, but today the home for the Masses is the St. Martin de Porras Church. Leon shrugs off any credit for the church. It was built, he said, by the volunteer efforts of parishioners, who used their belief in the project and themselves as a foundation. "It's the thing that people have within them, and you help bring that power out.

You support them. Maybe that's what a mission is all about," Leon said. Most of the mission's work dwells on that theme, he said helping A generally quiet religious man, Leon sings prayers with the monks. His soul refreshed after several minutes of prayer, he returns to his car off again. jj A young Hispanic couple, with, a child, wants to return to the folds of the church.

Leon talks with the couple, hugging the child, probing with more compassionate questions. As he leaves, he tells the young woman others will come to help her. She will not be abandoned. "You feel good that you helped them. You're growing with each other.

You become part of their life, because you're feeling their suffering, pain, joy, celebration," he said. "You don't say goodbye. You left a part of you with them. And they left, a part of themselves with you." 'i people help 'themselves. "We don't just come in and do a lot of good things," he said.

"By doing it, we enable others to do it." Leon, along with Father Ron Alves, is leaving the mission, but a priest and nun will remain, and another priest will arrive in September. As he gazes out over the fields, Leon says the confidence Hispanics have gained will carry the work of the church onward. His car cruises gently over the crests of rolling hills leading to the Trappist Abbey near Lafayette. The serenity of early evening is settling over the monastery, where the peacefulness fits the lifestyle of monks living there. Leon steps silently into the chapel.

Friend of the poor calls time out with Christ sin and identifying By MICHAEL ARRIETA-WALDEN Of the Statesman-Journal The man in clerical garb strode comfortably between the dusty rows of strawberries. A sweaty, giggling girl ran to the man and hugged him. Other pickers looked up from their rows that morning, then called his name. The warm greetings were the first of dozens in an average, whirlwind day for Brother Modesto Leon. For four years, the fields and their people have been home and family to him.

At a migrant family's apartment in Independence, or in the fields of north Yamhill County, or in the cells At Marion County jail, the mention of Leon lights a smile on many a Hi-spanic's face. Leon came to the Mid-Willamette Valley from tough East Los Angeles a streetwise missionary aiming to aid Hispanics in Oregon's hinterlands. He returns this month to the barrio, to a neighborhood riddled by gang warfare that is pleading for his counsel. He will leave in 6regon a wide scattering of touched hearts. While driving over isolated Yamhill County roads recently, Leon reflected on his four years in the mid-valley.

He came to the Mision Claret physically a house outside Dallas to bolster the Catholics' service to the valley's Spanish-speaking populace. The mission has transcended the spiritual aim. "If a person doesn't have a place to live, or anything to eat, how can he think about praying? On an empty stomach?" said Leon, 35. He first stops at the strawberry field near Dayton. Within minutes, the mission's sweep of services becomes obvious.

After visiting young and old in the fields, he stops briefly at a migrant's house. The family receives an update on his work to straighten out their immigration papers. Then it's on to -the home of other field workers. delinquent youths ended up under Leon's wing because of his ability to teach and counsel them. "People know the difference between right and wrong.

They just need the support to do it," he said. Those early experiences steered him toward the Claretians, a social work missionary arm of the Catholic Church. He earned national recognition for his work with gangs in East Los Angeles, where he first was stationed. Leon's face has become a familiar sight to many officials at the Oregon State Penitentiary, the Oregon Correctional Institution and the jails of Marion and Yamhill counties. And to the inmates, it's a welcome sight.

But his work ill the mid-valley has centered on starting and aiding youth groups and helping organize Hispanic religious communities. The mission serves most of the mid-valley, concentrating on Dayton, Salem, Independence and Jefferson. Two priests, a brother and a nun have held Masses in those communities, but the bulk of the work is in the fields and streets. With his compact car as a makeshift office, Leon often travels hundreds of miles a day. After leaving another migrant's home, Leon hustles his car into a farmer's driveway.

The home, with a swimming pool, seems a world apart from the migrant housing. But Leon has brought the two together. The farmer, who also is a roofer, once was skeptical and fearful of Hispanics simply because he never dealt with any, Leon said. But today he occasionally hires Hispanic migrants for his roofing business, and he contributed many In-kind services to the building of a Hispanic church. That church thrust Leon into a leading role in a sentimental story played out in Dayton.

As in the movie, "Lilies of the Field," a dream born and nurtured In the hearts of migrants became re through the poor. Heady stuff for a farmboy from California's San Joaquin Valley. an admitted "trekkie" who says he enjoys "Star Trek" on TV more than "Star Trek" in the movies. After 10 years of fighting battles BROTHER MODESTO LEON where he delivers strawberries. He continues to Newberg Community Hospital.

A longtime supporter of the church is pleased by his visit. The pace is brisk, hectic. And Leon talks rapidly, occasionally mixing Spanish and English. Though a quick talker, his tone and questions probe with compassion. Is the baby all right? Are you still working? How's your mother feeling? Though driving on a well-traveled highway in Yamhill County, he often gestures with both hands, leaving the car to weave momentarily on its own course.

A medium-sized man, he has side-bums almost the size of pork chops, but a receding hairline. His start of a belly prompts jokes. Leon, the son of a cabinetmaker and seamstress, immigrated from Cuba at age 10. His knack for working with troubled kids surfaced early. As an 8th grader, he was chosen by nuns who thought he was older to help teach catechism.

Gradually, the By PHIL MANZANO Of the Statesman-Journal DALLAS They were a proud family. But poverty wore their pride to patches and forced them to ask for help. A trip to obtain food stamps became a snare that led the family of undocumented migrants to be sent back to Mexico. This and similar stories are all too familiar to Father Ron Alves so familiar that he is taking a year off from his work with Hispanic parishes in the Mid-Willamette Valley to regain his ability to deal with them. Alves describes the family as decent and hard-working when they could find work.

They were church leaders. But they were also people whose poverty trapped them, he says. As Alves recounts the story, the anger becomes apparent. Alves is a Claretian priest, working in the social action arm of the Catholic Church. He believes his mission is to peo- lor tne poor in lexas ana more recently in Oregon, the 40-year-bld priest is tired.

He doesn't know why, but somehow his zeal waned. So he is leaving the mid-valley for a year of study in Berkeley, hoping to find some answers. It has been a. good fight, though, deaflng with what he calls "the clash between people and society. "What I mean by poor is people on whom other people live, at their expense.

They don't have control over their own destiny. not free -whether it's their poverty, Ignorance or lack of status," he says. "The issue is not a political one, but a moral one. "I really think that identifying with the poor is identifying with Christ conversion she.JXQLia Turn tn KDiriun Pave IB. FATHER RON ALVES pie who become entangled in a system too large to grasp, too big to see nebulous, but all too real.

Asked why he does it, his answer is wrapped unjn things like corporate aj niuii( a.