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For many years at the main stage area of the Oregon Country Fair, a sign that says “Dick Stewart Memorial Kiosk” has hung above a recycling stand. It’s a nice tribute, but a bit misleading — Dick Stewart is alive and well. Stewart says the sign hasn’t been a favorite of his wife’s. “She said, ‘It can’t be a memorial! Memorials are something for dead people, and you’re not dead!’” he explains. Continue reading
Darcy DuRuz created Girl Circus in 2001, an all-age, almost all-female circus that performs every year at the Oregon Country Fair. Featuring performers in a variety of abilities from ballet to aerial silk, Girl Circus offers high-quality family entertainment. “I really wanted a show that features more girls and women,” DuRuz says. “There’s a lot of underused female talent.” Continue reading
Nothing in this life is certain but death, taxes and the Oregon Country Fair. Here in Eugene, the Fair is part of our very atmosphere; it is the air we breathe. You can feel it coming weeks before it opens, wafting in the breeze like some hippie hurricane about to unleash its (not quite free) love on our stomping grounds. You can see it on the streets, with the increase of young seekers sporting ragged backpacks and dreadlocks and bare feet padding on broiling pavement. Continue reading
The Oregon Country Fair is debuting a new addition: This year revelers can stroll along on the maiden voyage of a new loop that veers off through an as-yet-virginal section of the forested fairgrounds. “It’s taken a huge amount of work to put in the new loop,” OCF General Manager Charlie Ruff says. “We’ve been looking at areas to develop new paths for many years.” Continue reading
Some people go to the Oregon Country Fair to lose their inhibitions, their worries, their minds or all of the above; more often than not, though, they just end up losing their cell phones. “Smart phones have memories,” a Samsung LG phone recently lost at the Country Fair tells me. “No pun intended,” the phone jokes, flicking an ash from his cigarette into the street where we are talking. Continue reading
Sorry folks, there’s actually no definitive evidence suggesting that Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, to whom the reversed title of this story can be credited, ever made it to the Fair, but it didn’t take more than three years — after the Fair’s beginnings in 1969 — for our annual psychedelic parade in Veneta to start taking on other famous faces. Continue reading
Real Oregon Country Fair-goers remember “Field Trips” with the Dead: the magical times when Kesey and his Merry Pranksters pranced around the grounds, ensuring every last face was stolen off Owsley’s freshest batch, coaxing you to slip into the oblivion of one of Jerry’s jams. Sounds molten just thinking about it. Fruition Continue reading