Posted: Friday, April 3, 2009 12:00 am
Co-op service connects owners with lost sports items
By KYLE ODEGARD
Gazette-Times reporter
Lose a flying disc in the bushes while disc golfing at Willamette Park or Adair Park?
There's a good chance it will land at the First Alternative Natural Foods Co-op in south Corvallis, 1007 S.E. Third St., which has operated a disc golf lost-and-found spot for more than three years.
During the summer, the business often will have 30 to 40 discs that were found on courses from throughout the mid-Willamette Valley, said Shannon Thompson, a First Alternative stocker.
"So far that I've found, we're the only disc lost and found," she said.
Discs usually are found by golfers rummaging in the blackberry bushes and brush for their own throws that went awry, Thompson said.
The course giveth, and the course taketh away.
If there's a phone number on the back of discs, First Alternative workers will call it to try to find the owner. "People are always so happy to get their discs back," Thompson said.
And some get emotional at the reunion, such as one man whose favorite plastic flying object had been missing for four years.
Discs that stay in the lost and found bin for more than two months are donated to a local disc golf teacher.
The disc golf lost and found started because First Alternative has workers who play, and because the co-op is less than two miles from Willamette Park, one of the most popular courses in the state.
Thompson said the lost and found makes people feel safe, because they don't have to worry about meeting a stranger who found their disc.
Arranging a meet also is taken out of the equation. People often are busy, but disc owners can just stop by the counter at the co-op during normal business hours.
And the southtown First Alternative also has nearly 400 new discs for sale - right next to poison oak and sumac treatments. Some people would trudge through the Amazon jungle to find a favorite disc - one that flies just right.
Benton County is a something of a hotbed for disc golf, with courses at Willamette Park in south Corvallis, Adair Park at Adair Village and Marys River Park in Philomath. Everyone from children to grandparents and college students to professionals play disc golf, and there are even some professional players in Benton County.
"It's big," Thompson said.
Kyle Odegard can be contacted at kyle.odegard@lee.net or 758-9523.