Charity event fills the bill.Byline: MARK BAKER The Register-Guard What a quack up. It's gone on for 15 years now, but it still draws a horde of folks who crowd the Autzen Footbridge to watch as thousands upon thousands of rubber ducks A rubber duck, or rubber ducky, is a toy shaped like a goose that is made of rubber or rubber-like material such as vinyl plastic. Almost all modern rubber ducks are made out of vinyl plastic rather than rubber. are dumped into the Willamette River Willamette River River, northwestern Oregon, U.S. It flows north for 300 mi (485 km) into the Columbia River near Portland. Oregon's most populous cities are in its valley. The Fremont Bridge, a steel arch with a main span of 1,225 ft (373 m), crosses the river at Portland. and float away. And all for a good cause - to fight child abuse in Lane County. But do you know how these ducks got here and what it takes to organize the Great Rotary Duck Race each year? "It's quite an operation to do this," Elyse Meyers, a member of the Delta Rotary Club in Eugene, said Saturday. Indeed, it is. Count them: Fifty-two thousand sunglasses-wearing rubber duckies, rented - that's right, rented - for 32 cents a piece from a Phoenix, Ariz., company called The Great American Duck Race. That's $16,640 just to get the quackers here. The company refuses to sell them, Meyers said. "It's a monopoly," she said. But folks pay $5 per duck for the race, and this year 47,145 ducks were sold (make that borrowed), said Scott Palmer Scott B. Palmer (born November 22 1950 in Hartford, Connecticut, USA) is the Chief of Staff to United States Representative Dennis Hastert (R-Illinois), the former Speaker of the House in the U.S. House of Representatives. , chairman of this year's race. And that brought in $235,725, most of which goes to area agencies selected to receive grants. This year's recipients are Community Safety Net, Birth to Three, Willamette Family Treatment Services, SCAR/Jasper Mountain and Catholic Community Services of Lane County. "That means we get to keep going for another year," said Tracy Brown, a support worker for Community Safety Net, a Springfield program that identifies and assists at-risk children. "That means a lot for this program," added Pat Skipper, development director for Willamette Family Treatment Services, a drug and alcohol rehabilitation rehabilitation: see physical therapy. agency that helps support single mothers and their children as they go through treatment. But back to those ducks that make it all possible. The first 12 that made it to the Ferry Street Ferry Street (Chinese: 渡船街) is a street between Ferry Point and Mong Kok Tsui in Kowloon, Hong Kong. The street was on the shore of old reclamation before the new West Kowloon reclamation in 1990s. Bridge on Saturday won prizes for their (quacker) backers. After being scooped up by life jacket-wearing Rotarians in boats, the winners were caged in a large, clear plastic tube and transferred to the south bank of the Willamette River just west of the bridge. Then they were hauled off by Meyers, driving a Eugene Country Club golf cart, to Duck Central (a mobile home in Alton Baker Park Alton Baker Park is located in Eugene, Oregon, United States, near Autzen Stadium. It features duck ponds, bicycle trails, and a dog park, and directly touches the Ferry Street Bridge. ) to verify the numbers on their ducky bottoms. The rest of the little mallards were scooped up by fishing net and plopped into blue recycling bins, then loaded into a rental truck - backed up to the river - for the long ride home to Phoenix. Rod Alber's duck was the first to reach the bridge and won the Springfield man a 2002 Jeep Liberty The Jeep Liberty (KJ/KK), or Jeep Cherokee (KJ/KK) outside North America, is a compact SUV produced by the Jeep marque of DaimlerChrysler. It was introduced for 2002 with styling inspired by the Dakar[1] and Jeepster [2] concept cars. worth $23,950. Alber wasn't present Saturday when his name was called at Alton Baker Park, but Palmer, decked out in Uncle Sam Uncle Sam, name used to designate the U.S. government. The term arose in the War of 1812 and seems at first to have been used derisively by those opposed to the war. Possibly it was an expansion of the letters "U.S. regalia (he said he was "Uncle Duck"), left a phone message for him. "This is a message for Rod," Palmer said into a cell phone. "This is Uncle Duck, and he won the Great Rotary Duck Race. ... ' The runner-up, Alice Nero of Eugene, also wasn't present. She won a hot tub, even though she just bought one two months ago, said her son, Paul Nero, who relayed the news to mom via cell phone. "She doesn't believe it," Paul Nero said. A quacking shame. WINNING DUCKS First place: Rod Alber, Springfield; 2002 Jeep Liberty worth $23,950 Second place: Alice Nero, Eugene; hot tub worth $7,200 Third place: Pacific Home Funding, Eugene; platinum diamond ring worth $3,000 Fourth place: Martha Davis Martha Davis may refer to:
Fifth place: Teresa Whitehead, Springfield; 50-inch big-screen TV worth $1,500 Sixth place: Dave Hensley, Eugene; surround-sound system worth $1,500 Seventh place: Jeff Hinson, Springfield; Central Oregon Central Oregon is a geographical region lying near the center of the U.S. state of Oregon. It is commonly considered to include Deschutes, Jefferson, and Crook counties. Primary cities in Central Oregon are La Pine, Sunriver, Bend, Redmond, Madras, and Prineville. getaway worth $1,000 Eighth place: Cody Pike, Pendleton; $1,000 shopping spree at Bon Marche and Valley River Center Valley River Center is a shopping mall located in Eugene, Oregon. As the largest shopping center south of Portland and north of San Francisco, this mall comprises over 130 local and national stores and restaurants. Ninth place: Dick Walker, Eugene; $1,000 gift certificate from Collins Cycle Shop 10th place: Doug Ader, Eugene; $1,000 shopping spree at Jerry's Home Improvement Center 11th place: E. Giustina, Eugene; $1,000 home improvement gift certificate from Weyerhaeuser 12th place: Stacie Henderson, Eugene; $1,000 Safeway gift certificate CAPTION(S): Volunteers net and crate thousands of rubber ducks after recording the winners Saturday during the annual fund-raising duck race at Alton Baker Park. A curious youngster tests the bill of a friendly duck mascot MASCOT - Modular Approach to Software Construction Operation and Test: a method for software design aimed at real-time embedded systems from the Royal Signals and Research Establishment, UK. at Alton Baker Park. |
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