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. What I love the most about my summer guests is they come on to talk about all the incredible things happening in Mommoth in the summer. And man we are wall to wall with those things. And today I am welcoming to guests who are going to be talking about the Monmouth music in the park series that has been going on for nearly 15 years in our community. And today I will welcome PJ Armstrong, General Manager of MINET and Mariam Haugen, who is the co owner and operator of Haugens Galleri and portrait studio. Welcome to you both to Monmouth monthly. Well, first Miriam, I'm gonna start a little bit with you. Just tell us a little bit about your time. And tell us about you your background education and what you've been doing here for the last I don't know,
A long time. And so if you want to fill up the whole 25 minutes with me talking about about my history here, I probably could. But I'll try not to I came to Monmouth as a student, and was studying music and I met this amazing young man in the music department named Neil Haugen. And we got married we ended up starting a photography studio because in our ignorance, we thought, oh my goodness! Monmouth doesn't have a photography studio. It must need one. So I came from a family of avid amateur photographers. So Neil had access to cameras in a dark room and he got bitten by that photography bug in a big way. So here we are, all this time later, we had some amazing mentors along the way. And that's why we're still here is because we had help and we just stuck to it.
And how Oregon's gallery was along Main Street. How long did you have that storefront on Main Street in Monmouth?
46 years I think to it was 78 when we opened on Main Street.
Wow. That's incredible. And your studio now has a home studio that you have.
I always bristle about home studio. It's on our home property. But it's a separate building. So it's not in our home. And in fact you can't even see our home from from the studio building. But it's a very cute red barn and I would love to have come people come visit, you just have to call ahead because we are by appointment.
And so you said you and Neil, you started out very young right out of college. Were you doing senior portraits for people? What was what were some of the work that you were doing?
Yeah, we were doing senior portraits and families and children. One of our very first maybe even the very first family portrait that we did was the Jaffer family. So that will ring some bells with people. So it was amazing that they even took a chance.
But you've been in business a long time. And you've probably seen other businesses like yours, what makes your business unique and Oregon are in the community and earn this beyond our state boundaries.
We've always had such a commitment to being the best that we possibly could be and serving people the best way we possibly could we consult with people beforehand and they say, Hey, I'd like to do a portrait. Let's get something scheduled. Well, my first thing is that let's talk about it first, what about what's your vision? What's the let's talk about clothing. Let's talk about makeup and location and what is going to really express something that you're going to be really super happy with that you're going to be proud to share. And so that served us well over over time, something that we're very proud of as we've received the master of photography and craftsman degrees from the professional photographers of America. That probably means nothing to most people. It's you earn them by print competition and through speaking and teaching other photographers. What that just means is that we have we know a lot about posing we know a lot about lighting. We really are experts in our in our field. So I do feel pretty proud about that. But you talked about what makes us unique. Okay, so I have to mention the Santa experience. I have created the Santa experience Oregon and if you Google it, you'll find you'll find me. But it is so much fun. It's a real magical experience that children have with Santa and I create these amazing photographs of them. Really fun.
Oh, they're not just photographs. There's like a whole date. It's like a whole story like it's a whole It's yeah, it's more than that you're gonna have to give more detail.
Okay, the children have milk and cookies with Santa. They find their names in the nice book. They receive a magical gift from Santa. They paint toys, there's there is a whole scripted storybook experience. Yes. And all of that is captured. So all of those moments are being captured in photographs. So it's a nice booklet. One of the things they can get is a book that is really beautiful book that tells us, you know, that you can read to them. It's like in rhyme, like, Twas the Night Before Christmas, and you can read the whole thing to them, and relive that.
Well, I know it's only June, but I want to go ahead and get our audience's information, especially our K amuse the audience who may not know about this incredible service that is so nearby, because I know Miriam does book up for that her online. Booking does start to get a little hectic during that time of year because people have started to hear about this, and I've seen the pictures. They are incredible. And I bet you've got so many we could do a whole podcast just on the stories of kids faces. And some of the experiences that you've seen them have.
Yeah. Oh man. So fun.
I've got chills.
It is so fun. And and you don't have to wait till Christmas. Honestly, I can do this time of year. Santos not very busy in the summer.
And I know that you are involved in so much more than just your your business. You are involved in a lot of different groups in the community. Tell me some about what you're passionate about and why you serve the way you do.
Well, one thing that I'm involved in that not a lot of people know about is Family Promise of mid Willamette Valley. And it is an organization that helps homeless families. And it is such an amazing organization. And it served both Marion and Polk Counties. It just really we make such a difference in people's lives. It's very exciting. And then I also very passionate about small businesses and helping small businesses. So that's how I got I got involved in the Chamber of Commerce, first of all, and I got asked by Terry Gregory, former owner of Ma Mears to be on the board as an MBA representative. And so I did that for a number of years. And after I finished my term as president and past president, I said, Okay, now I can devote more time to Mba, so the Monmouth Business Association, I'm a president, or have been President, I am now vice president. Tory Stutzman is president. But it is such a great organization, we do so many good things trying to just support this, this community.
And some of those things are music in the park, which we're going to talk about later. And what are some other things that MBA does throughout the year to engage the community? What are some other activities.
The main thing is to it that we all always think about are the events. And so music in the park is the big one, we have a welcome celebration for new students to Western, that's really great. We have Halloween spooktacular the downtown trick or treating thing is sponsored by the NBA, we have history and mystery, we have the Making spirits bright. Those are all events. We also work really closely with the university and certain departments in the university to make sure that we're communicating and that that we can support each other.
And
And that coalition and that communication has been super helpful for our business community. Because it's good to know ahead of time that a soccer team of you know 2000 kids and their families is going to be in town, we want to make sure our business community is prepared for that. So that work has been noticed appreciated. And I know it's made a difference. So appreciate that. And I'm going to put a pin and music in the park. We're gonna move over to PJ get a little bit of information on him. And then we'll bounce back to talking about music in the park between the two of them. So, PJ, welcome. This is your first time on Monmouth monthly thank you for stopping by. Tell us a little bit about yourself your origin story. How long have you been in town? What have you been up to before you became a part of MINET?
Oh boy born and raised in Salem. So just over the hill out in South Salem, I've been with MINET for about 20 years, but only a mom of for about three I continued to commute in the beginning of my net had kids in the Salem Keizer school district, so I wanted to keep them there.
And I think of you as an avid runner only because I always see running Do you consider yourself an avid runner?
I am yeah, I'm a trail marathoner. I do a lot of those. Yeah, I'd ran my first marathon in 2010. And I finished that and I think I told my wife at the time, I don't know why anybody would continue doing this. But like maybe a couple months later, I realized I could probably do that better. So I did another one. And then it's just gone from there. And I'm probably somewhere between 30 and 40 of them at this point. Which ones are you signed up for next? Boy, I just did. There's a Peterson Ridge rumble and sisters that I just did with my daughter like four weeks ago, it was 40 miles. And that was the longest that she's done so far. She's 24. And then last weekend, I did the MacDonald forest. And that was wet, rainy and muddy. But it was fun. There's a 24 hour one in June that's coming up. And that's just it's a one mile loop and you do as many as you can and 24 hours. Yep. So, got a couple of those.
Oh, that one actually sounds really kind of fun, like Relay for Life and a lot of caffeine.
Yeah, like that. And the cool thing is, you know, you can stage up in the parking lot, do your one mile run, come back to your car, you have your own little aid station, and you just kind of keep going as long as you want.
Okay, that doesn't sound bad at all. Okay, so that's how you keep your head clear after a long day at MINET? Do you find that? Do you have other things that you're into that you do with your family?
A lot of hiking, do a lot of climbing every year, we try and climb Mount Hood. My, myself, my daughter, My son's done it with us a couple of different times. Yeah, so I don't know of physical activity hiking, typical typical Oregonian type stuff.
Yes, I've noticed since moving west of the Mississippi, but outdoor lifestyle has mine has improved greatly. Since moving out west, it's just more more space to do it. The weather is a little bit more cooperative.
So let's definitely that's somewhat relative to music in the park. I play a number of instruments too. So I'm kind of into that have a little home recording studio. So it sort of relates
nice, What instruments do you play?
Piano guitar, various stringed instruments,
I would say do you bring your children into play like a whole Partridge Family thing you tried to get the family back?
When they were in high school, we kind of almost had like little three piece band. My son plays drums. He's really pretty good at it. But they're not as interested as I am. So maybe one day pot, I've told them it's one of our goals is I'm gonna make you guys play publicly with me somewhere. Oh, yeah.
make music Day, which we'll talk about later might be the best opportunity to get the family band out there. And you've got time to think of a really cool name. But I bet you've already thought of a cool band name somewhere in the back of your head. And you said you've been with MINET for quite a while. What were you doing when you started at MINET?
Yeah, almost 20 years. So I started telecommunication in the telecommunication industry in like 1994. I spent about seven or eight years with an engineering company and we were redesigning cable TV systems and doing mapping like traditional cable TV systems. That company shut down and I did software QA for a couple of years snooze. Pretty boring. But I ran into one of the people who was originally with my net in the store before mine, it became my net. And they were looking for somebody to oversee the contract installation crew. And he's like, are you interested? It's a fiber to the home company. It is municipally owned by the two cities of Monmouth independence. And at that time, which was 2004, something like that, like unheard of. Municipalities weren't doing that. And I was like, oh, yeah, I've seen this on paper and an engineering place. But I've never seen it out in the field. And I was all about it. So that's how I ended up in my net.
Are you seeing it more now?
Oh, yeah. Yeah, it was cutting edge at the time that this network was built in, you know, we turned up customer one in the spring of 2006. So it was very cutting edge at that time. And now it's being done everywhere.
Are we kind of considered or were we a case study in those early years about how to make it work?
Yeah, I think so. Yep. You know, I know here it was us and Ashland. And Ashland has been through a number of different iterations. But yeah, absolutely.
It's such incredible value and having you in our community, a rural community, having the level of internet service that we get is off the chart. Most definitely. Yeah. I hope that people recognize that just what a gift that is. Living in other cities have not had that.
Yeah, definitely. And I think it's, it's way more notice now because of our reliance on you know, internet at the time, I think it was not everybody understood what we had fibre to the home. That's incredible.
What was 2020? Like for you guys? The work about the load now, people working from home so much, how did y'all manage that?
Yeah. Do you mean like during the COVID time,
but times just like now, all of a sudden this influx of need for your service and home offices? I mean, did that cause disruption to y'all? Did y'all have to come up with plans? Or were you kind of built for this?
Well, technically, we were built for it during COVID itself, like everybody else. I mean, it was a challenge. You know, we were honestly at some points, we can't go in your house to troubleshoot, but we can kind of talk you through things at the door. And that didn't last very long. But we did have to go through that part. That was a challenge for sure. But technically, we're covered. Yeah, we wonderful Yeah, that's that's the infrastructure that we have. That's the beauty of fibers the home is that same single fiber that delivers your 500 meg or gig or now 2.5 gigs service that we offer to your house, that same piece of fiber the same size also delivers 100% of the bandwidth that comes into these two cities and provides all of the internet for the two cities. It's kind of future proof. And not only do you have impeccable service, but I've also heard your customer service is next level that people still come in to pay their bills in person just to connect with your customer service all the time. Yeah, I mean, that's one of the things that I really love about MINET is I feel like, generally speaking, the customers understand what our goal is. And that there's two things, it's it's the level of service that we provide. And it's the level of support and you will hear that from any internet company, I'm sure, but we really try and make that true here. Yeah, we get repeat customers coming in on foot all the time. When you call in for a trouble call, 99% of those are resolved the same day, oftentimes, within two hours, you're seeing the same technicians arrive at your house. We have 25 employees, we support 8000 subscribers. So you're seeing the same technicians at your house all the time, you're seeing the same customer service representatives in the front offices. So that's kind of the benefit of being a provider in a small town.
And I know that y'all are involved in a lot of different community event events. I know that you provided Wi Fi in the parks during COVID and helped allow for people to be more mobile and be outside but still be connected to schoolwork. That was huge.
Yeah, yeah, there's a number of parks throughout Monmouth independence that we provide Wi Fi. And you know, there's signage at those parks that tell you how to connect to it, you'll see like a little metal sign, and it's pretty easy, pretty easy to connect to. And we also provide Wi Fi on the My trolley system, which is a very cool thing because we have so many students using that trolley to get to and from school to get to and from places after school.
It just is amazing to see folks and yeah, I've been known to get on there and get on the Wi Fi as well. So it that's an incredible service. So you also have a summer event that's open to the community in August your luau, which is always well attended. Tell me more about that
community appreciation appreciation event. It'll be later in August. And that's the mindset luau. Historically, we kind of have games there. And it's a chance for us to interact with our customers and for customers that don't normally come in and meet the team there. And especially some of the team that works in the back or the outside plant people that are doing construction that they may not normally get to meet. Historically, we have like a free shaved ice event there. So a lot of fun and it's always the perfect time of year because it's been dry, it's hot.
And we've had so many of these 100 plus degree days that is perfect timing to spend time out there. Now you're relatively new to the Monmouth Business Association board. But now you're going to be a part of music in the park and now Marion wood will bring you back in and I can't wait to talk to you guys about this lineup. The lineup is incredible. in case folks are not aware of in the month of July and August every Wednesday night and Main Street Park in Monmouth we have a concert series called mom with music in the park and our mamas Business Association. Alongside the city of mama do a great job of getting these bands booked. Volunteers run the soundboard. They set it up they break it down every week is such a gift. So PJ and or Marian both of you. Let's talk about the music in the park series. Do you tell me what I need to bring when I show up like I'm going to show up to the park on a Wednesday night at 6:30am? Is the music gonna start? Should I get there a little early and get a good spot.
You can certainly get there early. You can you can wander in late. It's a very laid back atmosphere. It is really relaxed and so pleasant. You should bring your chairs. Bring your chairs or blankets or whatever you want to sit on. If you have a favorite spot. Yeah, get there early. But every spot is a good spot spot is Park.
Yeah, there's a lot of dancing. You said Bring a chair please bring a no animals. Correct. Unless it's a service animal. Please We ask that folks leave animals at home. That's right. And a lot of dancing a lot of food. Can I bring food in?
Yes, a lot of people bring their own picnic baskets. Of course, I would really encourage you to order food from one of our local restaurants and bring that right because there's several dry town has food trucks. We have coyotes. We have so many Habiba. I mean goodness, crazily. Oh my goodness, I can eat. I see people bringing in ice cream from the mainstream for their ice cream. Yeah, very popular stopped during the week,
but I cannot bring alcohol in correct. That's right. That's right. Drink your hooch at one of the local restaurants and then come over and have some fun just drive down is right there. And PJ you since you're relatively new to the board, you haven't done a lot of working at this event, but you've attended these events before the events.
Yeah, a lot of fun. I'm looking forward to BombBomb beyond. So I think they're called New Orleans swing and that's that's really good description of what they do. They're called all kinds of horns. It's a lot of fun lead singer as a guitar lead singer sings through a megaphone sometimes. Yep, I got drummers got a bunch of different crash cymbals with random holes in them. And it's just a cool sound.
And I think they're kicking off the series this year, which the date of that is July 10. Okay, so that is our very first concert week, and then it's going to go to August 28. What are some other bands that you guys want to talk about?
Okay, I have to talk about Ben rice it awesome, awesome blues musician. He's, you know, we're going how long is it going to be before he's going to be too expensive for us. But he is a fantastic blues musician. I really encourage people I don't remember what date he is
actually the second person and I agree Ben rice is a return guest because he was just so good and just high energy. So I'd recommend folks is Miriam's right, he's about to get out of the atmosphere. But it's Ben rice in the PDX hustle, and that's on July 17. And we have a couple of more return visitors who else has come in?
I will add coming up threes. I'm interested in seeing them again. That's a Celtic band. I'm an Armstrong. So there's something Celtic back there. So I'm looking forward to seeing those guys coming up through us. They close this out. They've closed this out for several years now. Right area.
Yeah, he that is one of the most popular concerts I think is coming up threes. They have a lot of energy there. So fun. And lots of dancing. Yeah, and that one's August 28. And I love it. Because every week we have folks just cutting a rug out there all ages. I mean, it is just nuts. How many folks are just enjoying the music. We also have a couple of other folks who've been with us before several sisters riveted by the Schinkel band local favorite. And then the Tuesday string band who I lovingly call the house band of Monmouth who will be my guest next month, so we'll hear more from them. But what goes on for music in the park. The sponsors sponsors who participate in sponsorship are able to table at the event correct and are able to participate hanging out. And it's an added benefit of sponsorship as you get to connect with folks. So how do people sponsor this event?
If they're interested in that, go to the MBA website for information, MBAmonmoth.com, you could send an email to MBAmonmoth@gmail.com have monthly NBA meetings, which are typically the first Tuesday of every month. And we're doing a couple of different sponsorship levels. There's a $450 sponsorship. And we have a big set of banners at the park, a big display banners, I think they're three by five. So that sounds about right. The cool thing is that they're up. They go up before July 4, and they're just in the park through the whole summer.
So people it's not just at the concerts, you get to get that exposure all the time. And they're beautiful banners that are made it Mungo design and they're gorgeous high quality. Yep, yep. And get on some promotional material.
I'm sure there's verbal mentions that happen as well. And then we're also doing a super sponsor. So the normal sponsorship is $450. The Super sponsorship is $1,000 mine, it just contributed to that as the first Super sponsor. And in addition to what you get as the normal sponsor that gives you verbal recognition during the show that you're the the super sponsor of you will have a large banner at the front of the stage advertising your business and during the show at a break an opportunity to speak about your business to everybody that's attending. That's very cool. And, and we get normally I would say about a few 100 People at each of these shows when you say Maryam Yeah, yeah, yeah. 300 ish.
And but it's a hidden gem. I think that it is just such a wonderful atmosphere. It's not too loud. I don't know, I've been to a few other outdoor concerts where it was just a little painful. And this is never painful. And this is at no cost to folks. Right. They can walk up walk in, you just walk in. It's very relaxed, and it is in such a great variety of music. I think it's just a very family friendly event. Yeah, you're absolutely right about that. Because you do truly see all ages at this thing. And and they are all sharing that dance floor. I can't say it enough. It is a real hoot. And so it's more than just music, right? You walk in and you get to hear great music. But there's also like a raffle right? Oh, that is people are surprised. They come in and volunteers will wander through the crowd and give give everybody this they're a little raffle ticket and they go What's this for? Well, it's for the giveaways that we do during intermission well how much is it no charge. It's just free stuff. And so there will be free a free ice cream it means free ice cream or a t shirt from the city or you Different businesses have donated little giveaway items and some of them are not little actually we had what a season ticket to season tickets to Smith Fine Arts that just to every show like they weren't donating tickets to every one of our concerts that month. That's huge. So it's, you know, it doesn't I don't think that's the main reason when would come to the music in the park series but it certainly makes it fun.
It's just it's a little added value in for folks who are curious how to support if you wanted to support music in the park financially outside of sponsorship if you're not a business owner, they do pass a little hat around it's very much a pass the hat situation and folks are able to donate if they would like to and and all those proceeds go to the Monmouth Business Association to help us fund more events just like music in the park and these these great activities that we get to do at no cost to folks who want to come. All right everybody. Well you heard it here first or maybe not first. You probably heard it here again. But don't forget music in the park is going to start July 10 and end on August 28. It's going to be eight weeks of music every Wednesday night Main Street park at 630 is when the music is going to kick off. So get there a little early if you have a favorite spot and Main Street park but there is not a bad seat in the house. So we hope to see you throughout the entire summer the concert series. We plan on having Tuesday String Band join us next month and they'll talk a little bit more about not only their performance in music in the park, but also the upcoming Fourth of July weekend coming up and they're going to be performing during that as well. Speaking of Fourth of July, if you wanted to have a float in the parade and mommoth and independence, you don't want to miss being a part of this parade. The Monmouth independence rotary puts on that parade every year you can go to their website Am I rotary.org To find out more about how to sign up get a float or get involved and volunteer. Always use more hands volunteering. We also have Smith Fine Arts has their final show on June 8 That's Maka hos sons so why in music hope that you will get tickets visit Smith Fine Arts website to learn more or go to the box office on the day of show and get pick up your tickets then. We also want to mention Western Oregon University graduation is June 15. So if you have a business in town, we hope that you will be ready have your whoo banners out and welcome those families that are celebrating the accomplishments of their young people. Also just a reminder Make You Sick Day. It's on June 21 And it is an exciting time in Polk County we have a lot of our local businesses, hosting musicians. If you have a band like PJ and his family, go on out and participate and make music they be a part of that. You can sign up there at the go to the chamber website to learn more about that. Thank you again to my guest on Monmouth monthly I appreciate the time they took and we look forward to seeing all of you in our summer concert series and the multitude of things that are happening this summer in town please check out the city's website learn more about that. Please rate review subscribe tell a friend and we will see you all next time.
Thank you for joining us for Monmouth monthly My name is Sabra Jewell. Our music is catching up by chill study and we record at Indy Commons which is a co working community in independence Oregon. Please find us wherever you find podcasts rate review, tell a friend and we will see you next month.
