Calendar sales raised how much?

Byline: Mark Baker The Register-Guard

JUNCTION CITY - Tonight, they'll "bare" the bottom line.

The Men of the Long Tom Grange will announce just exactly how much money their seminude calendar has raised for Junction City schools during an invitation-only dinner celebration at the Shadow Hills Country Club.

With almost 20,000 calendars sold, Danuta Pfeiffer, creator of the calendar and the wife of Mr. March, Robin Pfeiffer, said the amount is more than $200,000. And a spokeswoman for the Junction City School District said the total is $225,000.

In case you've been living on another planet, 12 men from the Grange came up with the idea last summer of posing nude - their private parts obscured only by the props of horse saddles, wood stumps and golf bags, among other things - to raise money for their struggling school district, which has cut teachers and programs in the past couple of years.

Their goal was $25,000, but the popularity of the calendars has resulted in orders from as far away as Poland. Just before Christmas, the men announced that they had raised $100,000, but that more than doubled with sales through the holidays.

Although it's controversial with some, the Junction City School Board fully intends to accept the money and has formed a committee to decide how to spend the funds. The committee, which includes Superintendent Kathleen Rodden-Nord, board members and school principals, met Wednesday but came to no conclusions, district spokeswoman Jill Case said.

The committee will meet again after the Feb. 3 Measure 30 income tax surcharge vote "to see where we are at that point," Case said.

The men's story has landed them on the pages of USA Today, on NBC's Today Show and most recently, on 60 Minutes II. The idea came from a group of women in London who posed nude to raise money for leukemia. That story has been made into a film, "Calendar Girls," that is playing in theaters and receiving rave reviews. The Men of the Long Tom Grange plan to see the film together in Eugene on Monday night, said Danuta Pfeiffer, who is writing a book about the men titled, "The Bottom Line." And Home Box Office has expressed interest in making its own "calendar" film about the men, she said.

Tonight, they'll do "a little dance and swing around with their posters," she said, referring to enlarged renditions of their calendar shots.

However, they'll be fully clothed behind those posters, she added.

THE MEN OF THE

LONG TOM GRANGE

There are still about 1,000 calendars left. You can order them online for $17 at www.grangecalendar.com.