We keep our cool as VIPs come and go.

Byline: Bob Welch / The Register-Guard

Word that presidential candidate John Kerry will spend tonight in Eugene brings to mind other famous people from elsewhere who've turned back the sheets, strolled a beach or cast a fly in Lane County.

Frankly, folks around here seem more enamored with natural fibers and primo compost piles than with the rich and famous. But if we're large enough to draw some big names, we're also small enough to at least think it's cool that Elvis' pelvis once rocked McArthur Court, that baseball legend Jackie Robinson once played football at Hayward Field and that Eleanor Roosevelt once addressed University of Oregon students in Gerlinger Hall.

And think it's less cool that singers Sammy Davis Jr. and Paul Robeson, while performing here, weren't allowed to stay at the old Eugene Hotel because they were black. Or that what drew President Bill Clinton to Thurston High in 1998 was Kip Kinkel's tragic shooting spree. Or that the week after he was in Eugene, campaigning for the Democratic nomination in 1968, Bobby Kennedy was gunned down in California.

John F. Kennedy campaigned in Lane County; like in Dallas, he rode in a convertible here, too. Rose Kennedy and Ted Kennedy have been to Eugene. So has Candice Bergen, covering Bobby Kennedy's campaign as a journalist.

The area's earliest VIP sighting came in 1828 when fur trapper Jedediah Smith came through what's now the Eugene area, carrying furs recovered from Reedsport. The latest sighting came Tuesday when actor Sam Elliott was seen at the Springfield Fred Meyer.

Elliott frequents the Brownsville area and sightings aren't uncommon. But, again, when brushing shoulders with the famous, people around here - unless the sighting is someone like Tom Cruise, who came in 1998 for the premiere of the movie on Steve Prefontaine he produced - don't tend to whip out their digital cameras. And, conversely, the stars seem to enjoy our nonchalance.

Like when Woodeene Koenig-Bricker of Eugene found herself waiting in line next to Judy Collins at the Eugene Airport last year. After Koenig-Bricker complimented the singer on her Italian boots, Collins actually introduced herself.

"She saw I was reading `Six Wives of Henry VIII' and said she loved the book and that it had inspired a song," Koenig-Bricker says. "She then invited me to go in front of her because I had only a single bag."

In 2000, actor Ernest Borgnine daily traded small talk over coffee with regulars at the Depot Restaurant in Junction City while work was being done on his motor home. And in 1997, when former Philippines President Corazon Aquino, in Eugene as a visiting prof for a couple of days, showed up for Mass at the UO's Newman Center, she didn't even make the church bulletin.

Near as I can figure, 12 presidents, whether in office or not, have stepped foot in Lane County. In 1880, President Rutherford Hayes became the first, coming by train after a stagecoach ride from California.

In 1911, ex-President Teddy Roosevelt spoke from the back of a train car at the Eugene depot, a Morning Register reporter likening his world famous smile to the "O" on Skinner's Butte.

During the Depression, Herbert Hoover was a frequent guest at the Holiday Farm Resort to fish. "I come to the McKenzie River," he once said, "for a brainwashing to refresh my soul."

Other presidents who have been here include Clinton, John Kennedy, Howard Taft, Warren Harding, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and George Bush Sr., who jogged with residents. He was back last month for what will go down as perhaps the oddest VIP visit, he and wife Barbara getting off a special Union Pacific train in a dirt lot and being whisked to the Eugene Airport to catch a private plane.

Lane County's famous guests range from physicist Stephen Hawking, talking about the cosmos at the Hult Center, to Gary Burhoff, aka "Radar" on M*A*S*H, pitching motor homes for Junction City's Destinations RV.

Ex-heavyweight world champion Jack Dempsey once threw punches at a Mac Court exhibition; John Glenn, the first U.S. astronaut to orbit the Earth, stumped here for Bobby Kennedy; and Martha Graham, the central figure of the modern dance movement, taught classes and performed.

Actors and actresses have left their marks in Lane County. In 1949 or 1950, Clint Eastwood worked at Weyerhaeuser in Springfield before tiring of the rain and mildew - "Enough of this crap," he said - and left for sunny California. (Like he found anything better down there.)

In 1926, Buster Keaton came to Cottage Grove to film his silent film masterpiece, "The General." In 1960, with sexism in full bloom, The Register-Guard assigned nine male reporters to interview and write about actress Jayne Mansfield when she was here.

Jimmy Stewart stayed at the Eugene Hotel for the filming of "Shenandoah" in 1965. Sally Field's first movie, "The Way West," was filmed here in 1967. And three years later Jack Nicholson was in Glenwood to film his famous chicken-salad-sandwich scene from "Five Easy Pieces."

More recently, John Belushi and the cast were here for "Animal House" (1978) and Mariel Hemingway for "Personal Best" (1982).

Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman and Duke Ellington have played in Eugene. Elvis Presley holed up on the third floor of the Valley River Inn on Thanksgiving Day 1976 before singing at Mac Court, where he wore his white, rhinestone-studded jumpsuit and threw 36 scarves to the audience.

Classical pianist Van Cliburn had less fun at Mac. He walked off stage because he hated the acoustics so much.

Ella Fitzgerald and Pearl Bailey have performed here. So has Ringo Starr.

Stokeley Carmichael and Dick Gregory have been here. So have Bob Hope, Jerry Garcia, the King of Nepal and, of course, Australian crocodile hunter Steve Irwin, whose wife, Terri, is from Eugene.

At Hayward Field, athletes like distance runner Frank Shorter, sprinter Carl Lewis and 20-foot pole vaulter Sergey Bubka from the Ukraine have performed.

Tiger Woods has played Eugene Country Club; John Wooden, the greatest basketball coach ever, has been rankled by Mac Court's "crazies," and John Kerry, at 29, rallied UO students to vote for George McGovern over Richard Nixon.

That was 1972. Now, he's back, as more than a wannabe, to join Lane County's VIP parade.

Have you had personal encounters with VIP guests in Lane County? Tell me your stories. E-mail to: [e-mail] or call me at 541-338-2354.