MASCOT MANIA

PILLARS OF EAST-WEST SHRINE GAME: Ralph and Donna Patterson of Union have worked countless hours as volunteers over the past two decades helping to put on the East-West Shrine All-Star Football game. (The Observer/DICK MASON).

By Dick Mason

Observer Staff Writer

UNION — The CD that Union's Donna Patterson needed could not be found.

In fact it didn't exist.

Patterson, retired Union High School librarian, solved the problem the best way she knew how. She made it herself.

The result — it is now possible to get the sports logo of virtually every small high school in Oregon almost as quickly as one can say "the Mapleton Sailors.''

Patterson has assembled a CD of almost all of the sports logos for each of the Class 3A, 2A and 1A schools in Oregon. She created the CD as a spinoff of a project she completed for the annual East-West Shrine Game, which is played in August in Baker City and features the best seniors in the state from state Class 3A, 2A and 1A schools.

Patterson was putting together the program for 2002's 50th annual Shrine game with listings of all the players from certain schools who had played in the game. Patterson wanted to have a sports logo for each school's page but found that there was no CD or other source available that had them for all of Oregon's 3A, 2A and 1A schools.

Patterson contacted all 174 of Oregon's 3A, 2A and 1A high schools and asked that they send a logo mascot. After much painstaking work, Patterson emerged with an almost complete collection of the sports logos. The process took a year.

"I had to contact some of the schools five or six times,'' Patterson said. "Sometimes it was hard to find the right person to help you.''

Nobody appreciates the work Patterson has done more than Peter Weber, the public relations director for the Oregon School Activities Association.

"It is going to be very useful for us. We'll use it in a lot in our publications,'' Weber said.

He said that the OSAA has not had a collection of sports logos for 3A, 2A and 1A schools before.

"We didn't have the manpower to track them down,'' Weber said. "We have a small staff. We just have not had the opportunity to do it. ... Now that we have it, it is going to be very useful.''

An unofficial survey of Patterson's collection indicates that eagles are the most popular mascot, with about 12 schools. Tigers are the second most popular with nine. Other mascots adopted by at least a half-dozen schools are panthers, cougars, bulldogs and pirates.

Mascots that are particularly distinctive include the Gaston Greyhounds, the Astoria Fishermen, the Bonanza Antlers, the Cascade Christian Challengers, the Mapleton Sailors, the Sherwood Bowmen, the Power Cruisers, the Rainier Columbians, the South Wasco County Redsides, the Pleasant Hill Billies and the Tillamook Cheesemakers.

"These are very individual; they really reflect their community,'' Patterson said.

She is interested in sports logos because of the deep connection people have to their school mascots, even decades after graduating.

"It is a symbol which represents valor and enthusiasm. It is a statement of who we are. It is something that stays with you for life. It defines who you are,'' Patterson said.

Patterson and her husband, Ralph, have been assisting with the East-West Shrine Game since 1984. Ralph, retired as Union postmaster, is now the second vice chairman of the East-West Shrine Game and the West team's personnel manager.

The Pattersons have raised almost $100,000 for the Shriners since 1985 through ad sales to past players. The former players pay to have their names listed in the program.

The programs promote what is the second largest fund-raiser for Shriners' hospitals for children. The football game raises between $70,000 and $85,000 annually for Shriners' hospitals.

North America has 22 Shriners' hospitals, including ones in Portland and Spokane. The hospitals specialize in treating conditions such as cerebral palsy, spina bifida, muscular dystrophy, scoliosis, clubfoot, missing limbs and other conditions of bones, muscles and joints.

The countless hours the Patter- sons puts in helping the Shriners is rewarding.

"It is fun. We wouldn't do it if it wasn't. It is very satisfying; it makes us feel good to be involved in something which means so much to so many people,'' Donna Patterson said.