Welcome to Monmouth Monthly a peek into the heart of the Willamette Valley. Each month we will bring you updates of the things happening in and around town brought to you by the people who helped make it happen. I am your host Sabra Jewell
and welcome back to Monmouth Monthly. Later on in the podcast. We are going to be talking to Ron Woodruff And Suzanne Dufner all about the historic preservation board because it is historic preservation month in May. But first we are going to be talking to Roxanne Beltz all about the upcoming peacock Festival on May 20 and Monmouth welcome Roxanne. Thank you super fun to be here. So glad to have you. So before we get into all the peacock festival festivities, why don't you tell me a little bit about you. So as you said, I'm Roxanne belt. I wear many many, many hats. I'm a Monmouth city councilor. I am a small business owner. My business is an emerging business enterprise. It's also a woman owned business. I worked in public transportation for many, many years. And when I retired, I decided I wanted to run my own business. And the next thing I knew I decided I was going to do a festival here in town. And you have so much time on your hand. Right, Roxanne? Because you I think you're on how many boards? How many? How many things you're doing. You're also on city council.
I'm on six other boards of directors. That is a lot of work. So this is much appreciated that you're throwing this festival. So we're gonna talk a little bit first of all, there are peacocks actual peacocks in the city of Monmouth. Correct. That is right. And they are wild animals. How do we know how long these peacocks have been in the city? So as far as I can tell the research I've done there have been peacocks and P hens living continuously in the gentle Woods neighborhoods since about the late 80s or early 1990s. That's amazing. Like I'm sorry, I'm just picturing these peacocks everywhere. And where do these peacocks typically hang out in Monmouth I've lived here for a few years and I've never seen them. So most of them are over in the gentle Woods Neighborhood and in gentle Woods Park. And I have to say there are people that raise peacocks and so you can have them domestically but the ones that live in gentle woods they are wild animals just like wild coyotes or raccoons or chipmunks or snakes. So you have a love of peacocks right now you are wearing peacock pants I have to tell our listening audience you cannot say that you are wearing peacock stretch pants you love peacocks Have you always loved peacocks did it was it because you moved to Monmouth and saw these wild birds. I have to admit I have always loved peacocks but I have not owned so many peacock garments. And the moment people find out you're doing a peacock festival. Next thing you know you have peacock jewelry and peacock scarves and peacock wind chimes and now peacock stretch pants. So you are absolutely correct. But they're beautiful. They're majestic. The colors are stunning. I'm a fall color person and those colors are perfect for me, though. You had this idea to have this festival. Did people come to you to throw a festival? Was this something that you came up with? Where did this even come from? So it's it's interesting story. And I'll try to make a long story short, but so concerns about noise and the myths and the you know, the live peacocks in the gentleman's neighborhood. Those concerns have been brought forward to city council at least three times that I know of in the last 20 years, probably more. But each time the complaints come into the city, it falls upon city council and city staff to remind the residents or the or the person with the complaint that peacocks are wild animals just like chipmunks or Robins or hummingbirds or anything else and they can't be controlled. We won't and can't remove them. And so that's how this idea started. Someone came before city council said they were an issue. And we sort of came up with this saying CeCe Kunz our mayor said you know what? Peacocks love them hate them? Why don't we celebrate them? And that's where the idea was born. So about five years ago before COVID We said let's have a peacock festival and we just sort of joked about it and thought it would be a fun idea. And then I started planning it then COVID Hit we took a couple years. But then last year I said Okay, it's time let's have this festival and let's celebrate these beautiful majestic birds. And and we do know saber. Some people don't love them. But that's okay, we're gonna celebrate them.
And I love that you say love them or hate them, celebrate them. So that lets the whole community know that they can come to this event and just enjoy each other's company and celebrate all the really cool things that are going to be happening that day. It's going to be a really busy day in the community action. Oh, there's a spring football game going on that afternoon. I do a lot of businesses are also involved in the peacock festival as well. So this is actually going to be a community wide event. Can you tell us more about the day and location of the actual event and then maybe some more about the things that are going on in the community at large?
Sure. So the event will be May the 20th at Monmouth Main Street Park. So that's the big park downtown by the new city hall that's being built. It starts at nine in the morning runs till four in the afternoon, we start with a fun run, we're calling it the running of the peacocks. And there's going to be a 5k or a 1k. It's really just intended to be a fun way to get folks blood pumping first thing in the morning. So we've got some of the track and field members from Western Oregon University are going to be are the original peacocks. And so they'll start the run. And then folks can follow them so they know the route. And we just think that that's going to be a really good way to kick off the day. So other activities that are happening during the day. There are so many things. It's hard for me to narrow it down. But so starting at 10 o'clock, we're going to have continuous Entertainment. On the amphitheater stage, we'll have music, we'll have karaoke, which is not one person singing karaoke. It's somebody running karaoke, having other people come up and sing. So real mixed variety of entertainment there, we're going to have a peacock calling contest. So start practicing your peacock calls, we're going to have a bird of prey talk given by Western Oregon University professor and ornithologist Jim Dawson. And since we're still taking applications for entertainment, and we're hoping for a group to come and maybe teach the Wednesday dance, which is something that's gone viral. There's an old band called the cramps and they have a song called goo goo muck. And Wednesdays done this great dance. If you don't know what I'm talking about, go to peacock festival.com. And we'll explain it I'd love a group to come and teach that dance. That's awesome.
But you're also going to have some vendors there as well correct and people selling some local items. Do you want to talk any about those folks and what they're going to be selling?
Absolutely. And we have over 40 vendors signed up almost 45 vendors signed up at this point. And they are going to have everything from handcrafted wood items, candles, jewelry, resin art. There's an artist that specializes in bird and feather art coming from the coast. American pottery, folk art handpainted, household items, prints, bags, accessories, crocheted items, vintage upcycled items, and original art and photography. They'll also be booth selling foods and sweets, and desserts. So not only that, but we've also got nonprofits and businesses that are coming, they'll have information about computer service about home renovation, businesses, recruiting employers, and then there'll be several opportunities for kids to do things like make buttons and or make crafts to take home. And one other thing I wanted to add is that we're also having something I've dubbed the finders keepers art rock hunt. So we're we're having local artists that are decorating rocks, and they will be hidden not just in Main Street park, but all within that block area. So not just the park, but all over that area. So this is similar to the glass floats in Lincoln city. If you're lucky enough to find one of these, you get to keep it or you can choose to re hide it somewhere for someone else to find. And so some of the artists that are making these works of art, we have Hannah Morton and Kylie Halawa from the New Leaf tattoo studio. We have fine artist and sculptor Jude Phillips, as well as the recent arts and culture commission art show winner and retired art teacher, Bruce belts and everything. By the way, everyone involved as a volunteer at this, that's helping put it on everyone that's been helping me coordinate. This is a volunteer, the people that are having booths, they've paid a small fee to have a booth at this event. It's not very much it's $25. So if you're interested in having a booth, we are still looking for a couple more vendors, and we're happy to have nonprofits, nonprofits only pay $10 To have a booth. So we're always open to more just visit peacock festival.com. Or you can send me an email at Monmouth peacock festival@gmail.com.
And so local businesses, I heard some some mentioned that local businesses we're going to be getting into the spirit of things that day and doing some specials. Do you know of any businesses that have some things going on like that?
Well, right now we've been all around to the businesses in or near Main Street Park letting them know first the event was happening. About half the businesses didn't even know we had live wild peacocks in town. So it was first an education opportunity. We've passed out over 100 flyers in English and Spanish. And so the area businesses have been posting those so if you go downtown, you can't miss the Big Green poster with the peacock on it that says peacock festival. There's QR codes there on the poster, you can scan the QR code for information about how to join the fun run, or if you want to be a vendor. So the second part of that is that we are going to be giving all of the attendees a schedule of the events for that day at the event. And on the back of that schedule, there's going to be a map with where all of the businesses are and all of the vendors that are there, there'll be coupons and specials on that sheet listed for all the area businesses and there'll be offering specials, maybe it will be a purple colored drink for $1, or a muffin in the shape of a peacock, who knows I've left it to the businesses to decide what makes the most sense for them. But we do know, there are other businesses like across the street from Main Street Park, there's that brand new, beautiful building, I think it's called Monmouth Commons. And they still have some open space there. And so the real estate company that's managing that trying to fill that space is actually going to have an event from two to five that day. So once people have finished with the peacock festival, they can go right across the street, and go visit that the senior centers having a high tea that day. So people can go to the high tea, and then come back over, it's going to be a busy, busy day. But we know it's gonna be so much fun, and downtown is just gonna be humming.
And nobody has to worry about parking. If they want to catch the trolley from anywhere from the riverfront to the university, they can catch the trolley to Main Street Park and they don't have to drive and the trolley is absolutely free. There you go. If so, you said you still have room for some vendors to participate and room for volunteers. And you gave us the address. Is there any other ways that people can get involved in this event and that we haven't talked about yet?
Well, I did talk about entertainment. If somebody's interested, if somebody maybe perhaps wants to do some sidewalk art, maybe there's a chalk artist out there that would really love to draw some peacocks on the sidewalk and do that. Maybe there's somebody that has a TED style talk about wildlife or about something, we're really open, I did not want to narrow this down and say you have to fit a certain structure. I wanted this to be a community event. And so that's why I've opened it up to just about any vendor that wants to be there any nonprofit, maybe somebody has an idea that I haven't even thought of yet. And I would love to talk to people about what their ideas are, we can't do it all. And just speaking of not doing it all, I did want to let people know, just to build expectations or manage expectations. There will not be any live peacocks at this event. And the reason for that is again, they're a wild animal and to capture an animal or even a domestic peacock to bring it in, cage it because they do fly, we'd have to cage it all day. And that would be pretty traumatic for an animal. And we've just decided that's really not the best thing to do for a live animal, we will have what's called a step and repeat, which is one of those really cool banners that has a picture on it that you can stand in front of and take a picture. And I suspect that step and repeat will have live peacocks pictures on it. And you can take pictures with that.
That is a super cool feature. And everybody likes an opportunity to take some photos like that for the older IG and the Snapchat, whatever you kids are doing these days. And does this festival cost any money? Do we have to pay for tickets in advance?
Absolutely not. This is 100% free to anybody that wants to attend. We hope we will always keep it that way. If this continues, which it's looking like it's going to If this continues, we may ask that people bring some kind of a donation, it may be for a wildlife fund or perhaps for elocon food bank, but this year Nope. 100% free. We just want folks to come down and have a good time and we just want everybody to ask that it doesn't rain that day, or it's not 100 degrees that day. But either way rain or shine. We are going to have this event because we've planned it we've got the park is reserved. We've got lots of vendors, lots of entertainment. There'll be lots of food not necessarily right there in the in the festival. But there's so many businesses downtown that have great food. We figured we don't need to compete with them. We do have some folks bringing some sweets and some treats and things but for the most part, we want people to get downtown, enjoy themselves in the park and then go out and look at the businesses and figure out what is downtown that they may not have ever seen before.
There are so many great businesses in Mainstreet Monmouth we have a great walkable downtown so we invite everyone to please come and join us on May the 20th from 9am to 4pm Main Street Park in Monmouth for the peacock festival. Again Today, my guest is Roxanne beltz. Thank you so much for joining us and being a part of this and being the lead on something that I hope will continue year after year.
It has been my pleasure to be here. Thank you for asking me so many great questions and I look forward to seeing everybody on May the 20th
All right. Thank you and coming right up. It'll be Suzanne Duffner on historic preservation month with Ron Woodruff.
All right, welcome back to Monmouth monthly. We are here for the second half of our podcast. This month, we are celebrating Historic Preservation month and I have two incredible guests to talk about historic preservation month. I have community and economic development director for the city of Monmouth, Suzanne Dufner. And I also have Ron Woodruff, who is a community volunteer and a member of the Monmouth historic Commission, which is part of our boards and commissions for the city of Monmouth. Welcome both of you.
Thanks for having me. Thank you.
So let's get down to it. Suzanne, I would just love to get to know a little bit about you like how long you've been living in Monmouth. What some of your work history. Have you always worked for city government?
Yeah, sure. Thanks for that question. So yeah, I've been in Monmouth working for the city of Monmouth community and economic development for about five and a half years now. And I do just kind of a my route of different community economic development activities, from planning to historic preservation, to working with local businesses and downtown revitalization tourism efforts. So a lot of fun things that projects that I get to work on then before that, so I've been a Polk County residents, since gosh, I think it's going on 12 years now.It goes by fast for sure. But then land use planning community development for 20 years in the Willamette Valley and Oregon. So this is home.
And Ron, tell me a little bit about you. You're an architect by trade, is that correct?
Right.
And where did you spend a lot of your time did you grow up in Oregon,
I grew up in Portland, Oregon. And so what community was born there. And then in the mid 60s, I went to high school graduated and just started up real estate, fooling around, didn't know what I wanted to do. Someone said, you might not try the art departments, I found the art department. And that was a that was a fit. Then they had a pre Architecture Department world state, did that for two years, went down the University of Oregon and finished in the early 70s. So I was in school for about eight or nine years, spent a lot of time you knew Jane, about 15 years, getting my education, got married, start a family and then moved back up to Portland, and then later on back down here.
So you've been in this community for how long? About eight years, eight years, and you've only been working with the historic commission for about six months or six months, you're a good get for them, I'm glad that they were able to get somebody with your background as a part of that team. Suzanne, how many members are on that board and commission?
Well, you have seven volunteer spaces on the Monmouth historic commission. And currently five of those spaces are filled. So it's actually a little plug for if anybody has a passion for history, and all things historic preservation, come and talk to me at the city. And we'd love to have you get engaged and work with this really fun group of volunteers who are also very passionate and just this fun people to be around. So I've just done a lot of cool projects right now in the city on historic items.
And of course, we will link to the this board and commissions webpage on our show notes. So you can fill out the application online, if you are interested in serving folks listening may not know why they would be so interested in doing this kind of work. So I'd like to ask the both of you talk to me about historic preservation and why this is important. And I know this is a hugely broad question. But just what what triggers that for you, Ron?
Well, historic preservation, I think if it's done properly, it can be a tutor to the younger upcoming generation. Number one, it shows that adaptive reuse and preserving buildings that are historic in nature, or any building for adaptive reuse is a really good use of resources. Because if you consider a turn down a building or rebuilding again, you end up having, you know, a really large carbon footprint of what kind of energy it takes to throw it away and rebuild it again. But if you can keep it building for 100 150 200 years, you're on the winning side of the whole sustainable argument. And that can be an example for people coming through the educational system who want to get into the building trades or design or professions that have to do with that to where they it's kind of a model of how they can change our practices to have a more sustainable environment.
Suzanne, did you have something to add to that?
Yeah, no, I'm really glad that Ron pointed out that, that we have this thing and historic preservation that the greenest building is the existing building that's already built because all of the resources have been sunk in that to create that building and new buildings, you have to extract all the energy in the building materials, labor to build those. So that's it's a really good benefit of reason or an argument why to preserve our historic buildings, thinking also, more broadly of, you know, what is historic preservation. It's this conscious act or intentional act of preserving not only our buildings and structures, but our historic stories about our past who we are where we come from, and our are in our landscape. So it doesn't necessarily have to be buildings either.
Suzanne, can you talk about some of the projects that your commission has worked on in the last several years and things that you're particularly proud of?
The historic Commission has just been super productive and busy in the last five years and cranking out some pretty amazing work. So I'm thankful for the opportunity to get to share some of those with you and I think one of my favorites, which was also the most nerve racking, the projects that we worked on was the Historic Railroad mural that recently was painted on the side of the PCL, the partnerships and community living building. They're on cavitron streets just one block off of Main Street. And it's so nerve racking because this project, you know, we cut around in history, like it's just used to things taking a long time, but it's took over two years, from the initial inception of whenever, beloved, historic commissioners, Jim Mannion, who loves trains. So we started down that path of pursuing a mural on the site of the new Ross gross store building. And unfortunately for a number of reasons that site location didn't work out, and I was pretty discouraged and defeated. We had a fabulous city council liaison that sits on that historic commission at time. Rebecca Salinas, Oliveros fleet know it, we're gonna have his homework assignment. And we're gonna we're gonna go out and we're going to look for other sites in Monmouth, where we can put this mural and we're glad you have Kleenex is close by because this story always brings tears in my eyes of just the working together and not giving up and the community connections were, Rebecca knew somebody that was on the PCL board and reached out to them as a neighbor. And they're like, yeah, that's, that's a great idea. We'd be honored to partner with you on that. And so working with a local nonprofit, PCL was amazing. They offered up their wall. They wanted to get involved in helping us with the art and the design and making sure that it reflected our community values of diversity, equity inclusion. So, you know, we worked with a local artist Eileen Henkel just out of Corvallis, who's done murals all around the world, extremely talented, she caught the vision, she was passionate about trains. But she also saw this side, I think that we forget about in telling our stories, sometimes we get focused on just one ethnicity, or one person's telling of history. And you know, it's just about trains and when trains came here, and it's like, well, who built the railroad tracks so that those trains could operate and function and provide that important transportation connection through time. And so, through research, were able to find that, you know, it was the lot of Chinese immigrants and Mexican immigrants that built those railroads through very tough working conditions. And so this mural has a photo montage, and it includes a picture of Chinese immigrant workers that that helped build the railroads during that important time in history. So it's just a really beautiful, I think, example of telling a more inclusive story of history, celebrating that with a work of art that we can all go and treasure in our community. And again, just that community organizing and tenacity, if you will, persistence and getting funding partners involved. The Polk County Cultural Trust was very generous and worked with us, and some grant funding, and then the city's urban renewal also contributed to that. So it's a lovely example of working together to build that community and tell a pretty cool story. Other examples we've had, what what we believe to be the oldest is residence, the oldest dwelling and Monmouth was recently listed on the National Historic Register or places. And again, that was a long process, but we learned a lot of amazing things. It's called the Burford Stanley house, at 342 in Monmouth Avenue. And you know, that's the ultimate gold star, I think of historic preservation because it's the owner of that property, the noise or the family that own that house recognize the importance of that house in history. There's no other buildings of that particular style left and Monmouth most of those have been demolished. And so to go through the process of getting it listed on the National Register is a really rigorous process that you have to show how it's meets the significant tests. And so that was that was pretty exciting project that's recently happened. So those are just a couple of examples, or I could probably talk all day about all the wonderful things going on, but there's just a little enticement to encourage folks if they're interested to come work with us on some other projects, and enticement for us to have you back for another round. Are we talking about this?
Ron, this is not your first rodeo being a community volunteer for city government Historic Preservation type work. Can you talk about trends that you see in historic preservation things that you're seeing emerging in the work that you've been doing?
Yeah, when I was at Portland, I was following the fire foundation called Bosco Milligan historical foundation. And what they do is they do tours around the Portland area of historic building types. And and sometimes they'll follow certain architect maybe in the 30s 40s, or even in some of the early post war era, and they have a newsletter and a website. And they encourage volunteers to help with various projects for restoration projects. Also, there's a movement in Albany that, you know, is a citywide voluntary movement that's been pretty active in the historical information and teaching and tours, it's a pretty large housing stock, historical buildings. So what I've noticed is, you know, more community involvement over the past 2030 years of people, you know, actually doing something about it, getting into a volunteer group, and then sponsoring walking tours throughout various communities in the Portland area. So that's kind of what I've been seeing,
and what are some of the upcoming events or presentations, public meetings, anything where folks could get involved into the work you're doing?
Yeah, so may is historic preservation month, it's nationally recognized. And so that's an opportunity, where the historic commission hasn't chance to engage with the community, share the work that they've been doing, and invite the community to learn a little bit more about Monouth's history. And so I'm excited to announce that on May 6, it's a Saturday. And it's after the cherished tradition of our Monmouth senior community centers, pancake fundraiser breakfasts, so you can go and get your breakfast there in the morning at 830, the senior center, and then right after that 1030, we'll be doing a historic preservation Month event. So we're fortunate to have Ron's expertise as an architect to be able to help us understand and appreciate some of the trends through history that have influenced the buildings that we see in downtown Monmouth and independence. So we'll learn a little bit about that. And then we'll also have the opportunity to go out on a guided walk historic walking tour, and see some of those buildings. So it should be a fun opportunity, again, to learn a little bit about historic building styles and different designs through time and some of the historic trends that influence those. And hopefully, by the end of the month, we'll have an updated historic walking tour brochure. So that is another project that the commission is working on. We have a self guided walking tour brochure that has three different historic walking tours. So there's one for Western Oregon University campus, there's one for the downtown. And then there's also one for what we call the East Main Street historic district. So we've partnered with a student from the Western Oregon University Art Department, Juliana Tinker, who is an amazing graphic arts student that's helping us with the design of that. So I've seen a couple of sneak peek drafts of that. And I'm really excited to see that the final product because I think it's going to be a nice activity that we can share throughout the year that people can go on their own leisure and find some of these wonderful historic buildings and learn a little bit more about the stories of them and who, what businesses were there and how they've changed over time.
Shout out to Jenn Bracy. And all of her amazing students at Western we're so grateful, Jen for you constantly letting us sharing your students with us because they always put out such incredible work. So glad that's going on. And you said that may 6 event was at 1030 at the Monmouth Senior Community Center. It is open to the public went public and free and free even better. And you can catch a ride on the free trolley if you want, because it does stop right outside of the Monmouth Senior Community Center. So that's a good reminder there. So before we wrap up, I just really want to know is there any other projects you all want to talk about things are going on in town?
Yeah. So one of the really exciting projects that we're currently working on right now is the Ross theater restoration. So the city of Monmouth and the Monmouth Business Association are part of the statewide which actually it's a national wide Main Street program. And we were fortunate to obtain a grant a $200,000 grant to help with the restoration of that building. The Ross theater for those who might not have been in Monmouth in the 60s or before that it was a very popular date location from what I understand from the EU students at the time. Well, I didn't call it blue, but whatever. Western Oregon University was called back in the 50s. In the 60s, there used to be a theater and so this is the building on Main Street that is located next to the tan Republic and Huggins portraits studio. So there is actually a beautiful theater in there that is in the process of getting restored and open. It will open back up as a theater also be able to do live performances with the stage and be able to be rented out for special events and then have a sit down restaurant next to it with an art gallery that would connect there so their wine bar.
I know it's you can't really say when when we're this far out, but what are you thinking? If you what are they giving you as far as a timeframe
there, there's a lot of moving pieces, obviously to project of this magnitude. And since it's doing being done kind of as I call it a labor of love, where you want to make sure you have the right skilled craftspeople to be able to work on it, it was probably will span at least another year, potentially another two years to go through this process. And that kind of lines up with with the grant as well. And there's some, yeah, just a lot of moving parts. And Ron's been involved in that with the architectural side of things. So let him share kind of his perspective on that,
yeah, my responsibility is going to be the architect of record to submit that to the city for the permit application. And I'm working with the developer owner of that property. And I've worked with him now for quite a while. And we've actually become friends over the whole thing, because when I first moved here, eight years ago, that was a coolest building in town. And so I took it upon myself to go down there and just measure the whole building and draw really big quarter inch per foot scale of two sides of that building. And that time, they didn't even know I was doing this. And so I was just because I just had a passion for this. So I just spent, I don't know, probably 2034 hours doing that, counting the bricks and getting all the details down. And then I finally met the developer owner, and, you know, shared with them what I did with his building, I showed him a picture and couldn't believe it. So that started our, our relationship, different projects here in town. And so we're kind of worked as partnered up to put together some respective skills and talents and passions to put this theory together. And so that's kind of how I fell into it just by having an active interest in that type of structure. So it's a moving target, but it's, it's worth the effort.
Yeah, no, I think it's really neat about this project is that it's actually a couple of different things. One, it's, it's helping, reinvigorate revitalize part of our Main Street where there may not have been as much foot traffic and activity going on in this block of our main street. So I'm excited to see it helped invigorate this particular block. And I think it fits in really nicely with a lot of our overall vision and goals of where we're trying to go with our downtown and activating it as this arts and cultural events space. So on the other side of this block is the newly open prisons gallery that PCL runs and has art classes in there and also a pieces that you can purchase and they routinely have events in there. So I'll be on one side of the block, then we'll have this beautiful theater, cultural space. And that I know there already are groups in the community like the apple box Children's Day there that's excited to have an indoor performing space and space where you can do live music during you know, not so good weather events. So just partnering that up with what's going on with Smith Fine Arts and other activities. In anchoring kind of the other side of Main Street across from the park. There's just a lot of really great momentum and helping kind of achieve this vision of an arts and cultural destination for the city, downtown Monmouth.
There's a couple things I'm working on. I've been working with Rick rail Grange, and it used to be an old schoolhouse and it's built in I think about 1910 1912 and I baby working with them, we have to get it on historical register and try to help them restore that building because it could be a really cool asset for the town of Rick real.
So another project that we're working on with the historic commission is restoring the it's called the Monmouth evangelical church, a church built in the late 1800s believed to be the oldest church in Monmouth known as the I think it's called the Monmouth abundant life, church. And so the church members that own that are interested in how they can repurpose that building. So still keep it with the religious use as a gathering space. But being able to invite the community into that beautiful building space and do it in a manner again, that is inclusive through Ada and accessibility since and also trying to keep up with some of the maintenance. That's the tricky part on a lot of these older buildings, right? They don't produce some of the materials, it's hard to find them so and they just wear down over time. So that's one that we're working with. The historic commission is working with a historic architect Peter mitre out of Portland, and also the church and we're fortunate to have somebody on our historic commission, Amy Lemco, who is a member of that congregation and she is also a history minor and a creative writer. And so she's been able to uncover some pretty amazing stories about the people over time that have been involved in the church's history and kind of poring through their historic documents. So I think it's it's just another ongoing example that we see of try of identifying the building cars that are special and make Monmouth unique as a sense of place of community and how do we collectively as a community strive to preserve those and prevent them from being torn down and turned into a parking lot or something else. So that's just kind of what fuels my passion for you know why we do this work? Well, I thank you both so much for coming on.
If you haven't been told lately, we are very lucky to have you in our community doing the volunteer work you're doing that's amazing. So thank you for bringing your talent and your time to the projects that we have. I am so excited about the things that you're working on, especially the opportunity for a theater in town and some other things cooking that is going to be incredible. Once again, I want to say thank you to my guest. It was Ron Woodroof, a community volunteer for the Monmouth historic commission, Suzanne Dufner, who is the city of Monmouth Community and Economic Development Director. We also had earlier on the show Roxanne beltz to talk about the peacock festival next month we're going to be talking about the upcoming fourth of July celebrations if you can believe it. We're going to have some members of the rotary as well of some city volunteers who are getting that together. Thank you again for listening to Monmouth monthly Do not forget to rate subscribe review and tell a friend have a good one. Thanks everybody.
Thank you for joining us for Monmouth monthly My name is Sabra Jewell. Our music is catching up by chill steady and we record it in the comments which is a co working community and independence Oregon. Please find us wherever you find podcasts rate review, tell a friend and we will see you next month.
