Oregon Jamboree volunteers keep coming back for sense of family

SWEET HOME - Over the course of just a few days each year, the sports fields at Sweet Home High School are transformed into the grounds for a music festival featuring some of country music's biggest stars.

A stage is built on the softball field, vendors' tents and portable toilets materialize where nothing but grass stood before, temporary fencing surrounds it all and everywhere you look there are signs.

Entrance signs, exit signs, banners welcoming patrons to the 15th Annual Oregon Jamboree. Signs pointing the way to RV parking, tent campsites and wheelchair access. Signs that proclaim wristbands are required and signs that promise pop and water. Most of the signs consist of red paint on bright yellow boards, and many feature just one simple red arrow, pointing the way.

Donna Poirier of Sweet Home supervised all of this signage, working 12-hour days since Tuesday as a volunteer to make sure patrons of the Jamboree can find their way around.

Poirier has volunteered with the three-day country music festival since it began in 1992, and is one of hundreds of community volunteers that pull together to set up and operate the Jamboree and then clean up after the fans leave.

"It's a lot of fun," Poirier said. "It's a lot of work. We're like one big happy family."

Actually, it's many big happy families.

Going over his roster of volunteer workers, site crew supervisor Bob Sullivan pointed out the various families on his crew. Many of these were easily identified, each family member bearing the same last name, but Sullivan - a retired accountant who grew up in Sweet Home - also knew who was related to who by marriage, girlfriends and boyfriends who had been encouraged to join the effort, and other extended family groupings.

It is a family affair for Sullivan as well. His wife, Betty, is in charge of the backstage hospitality tent.

"There are so many families who work here," Sullivan said. "These people are so regular and so good that they keep coming back every year. A lot of them don't even do it for the free tickets. They do it for the camaraderie."

Though many of the volunteers are retired, homemakers, or otherwise flexible to work their lives around the festival for about a week, quite a few spend their vacation time working for the Jamboree, said Sullivan.

"It's one of the things that has really made this festival a success," he said.

At this point it seems clear that the festival - conceived by the nonprofit Sweet Home Economic Development Group as part of a plan to help the town cope with severe reductions in timber revenues - is an unqualified success.

Attendance has increased each year, and last summer the festival sold out a month in advance.

Festival director Peter LaPonte expects the Jamboree to fill to capacity - 10,000 people per day - this weekend.

Proceeds from the festival - $300,000 last year - are funneled back into the community. A range of projects have been funded with Jamboree dollars, from Meals on Wheels and children's reading programs to park bathrooms and a median strip complete with plants and flowers on Sweet Home's Main Street.

LaPonte believes this is part of why volunteers are so engaged.

"They understand that this event benefits the entire community," he said.

According to an economic impact study conducted in 2001, the Jamboree also brought about $2.1 million to the regional economy, with lodging, the sale of gas and propane and spending at restaurants and grocery stores and other local businesses, LaPonte pointed out.

Since that time, Jamboree attendance has increased to the point that "I would estimate that by now that number has tripled," he said.

Another reason volunteers get involved is pride, said LaPonte.

"No other town can do what we do," he said. "They want to. They have tried. We get calls from people all over the country who want to do this in their community and they want to know how. It takes a lot of car washes to raise $300,000."

Sign crew member Shauna Baxter signed up for her second stint as a volunteer at the Jamboree simply because "We have fun," she said.

"We see a lot of our friends," she explained. "I wasn't necessarily a country music fan. I'm social."

Fred Germain, retired from his job in the production department at Entek, has been volunteering for the Jamboree for seven or eight years - he couldn't remember exactly how long - and is motivated to join in the effort mainly by his daughter, Joy, who is the festival's assistant manager.

"It's a fun week," Germain said as he staked down black plastic tarps meant to keep the wind from blowing dust up onto the main stage. "Now that I'm retired, I've got time I can devote. It's a lot of work, but it's rewarding."

Not far away, Germain's wife, Jo, was getting the crew's lunch ready under a tent off to the side of where the stage was soon to be.

Jo Germain appreciated the chance to take a break from her job working in billing for the City of Sweet Home.

"My motivation is to get away from my regular job and be outside and enjoy the weather and be with people," she said.

Volunteer Gail Gregory, a 50-year Sweet Home resident and a retired Sweet Home High School art teacher, is very active in promoting local arts and culture, and she spends nine months out of the year supervising merchandise design, budget and sales.

"My husband and I went to the first Jamboree," Gregory said. "I became bored just sitting there on the blanket just listening. I thought 'I can work at the same time,' and I started out helping sell merchandise."

When asked why they keep coming back every year, not once did a volunteer mention free concert tickets.

They talked of friends, fun and admiration of their community.

"This is a wonderful story of community-project success, and the biggest part of the story is not the country music, it's all of the things that go on behind it," La Ponte said.

Regarding stacks and stacks of yellow signs that still needed to be put up Tuesday, Poirier said, "There must be something to it or we wouldn't come back every year."

CHECK IT OUT

The 15th Annual Oregon Jamboree begins Friday and runs through Sunday. Reserved and general admission concert seating is offered. General admission is first-come first-served, and patrons in general admission areas are allowed to carry up to four chairs per person into the concert.

A wide selection of food and beverages is promised at the Jamboree, as well as beer and wine available inside the concert area.

No outside food, beverages or coolers are allowed into the concert.

Free drinking water is available.

Tickets are $75 per day for adults or 115 for a three-day pass. Children ages 7-to-12 get in for $25 per day and children 6 and under are free. Additional fees apply for camping and premium parking.

OREGON JAMBOREE SCHEDULE

Friday

Gates open at 1:30 p.m.

The Higgins, 3 p.m.

Riverbilly, 5 p.m.

Steve Holy, 7 p.m.

Dierks Bently, 9:15 p.m.

Saturday

Gates open at 10:30 a.m.

Hal Ketchum, noon.

Lorrie Morgan, 2 p.m.

Bucky Covington, 4:15 p.m.

Aaron Tippin, 6:30 p.m.

Trisha Yearwood, 8:45 p.m.

Sunday

Gates open at 10:30 a.m.

Dale Watson, noon.

The Grascals, 2 p.m.

Neal McCoy, 4:15 p.m.

Jo Dee Messina, 6:30 p.m.