I want Benny the beaver at the festival! What do you think it would take to induce a field trip?
‘Benny Beaver’ stars at OSU Day at County Fair
Benny Beaver will be showing his trademark buckteeth and flat tail at the Hood River County Fair. The OSU mascot will be cruising the fairgrounds on Thursday, July 28, starting at 1 p.m. with free photo opportunities and a scavenger hunt with prizes. Benny will help fairgoers learn what Oregon State University is doing in Hood River County.
#Benny has a rich history with Oregon State University and its culture. Beginning in 1908, “The Beaver” was used as the school newspaper’s title and later as the yearbook title in 1916. Benny’s name came from a photograph of OSU students standing next to a beaver statue that was inscribed as “Benny Beaver” in the 1942 yearbook, but didn’t officially become the mascot until 1945. The first performance at an athletic event from the mascot was in 1952.
Ahhh, speaking of having a ‘rich history’!
Things are starting to feel actual, the buttons arrived yesterday (so cute). Here they are decorating my wineglass last night.
Amelia Hunter finished her wonderful brochure and it’s off to the printers for execution. I made it into a flip book for you here. It will take a moment to load but be patient! Make sure you click on the image to enhance the view and scan thru the pages. Didn’t she do an awesome job?
My buddy at NCHEMS helped me again load the county data into a depredation map, and this is the horrific result.
As you can see, the number of unlimited permits has tanked and the number of allowable beavers has skyrocketed. Not exactly the kind of difference I was hoping to make!
But there’s one GRAND new event that eclipses all others and made our hearts sing yesterday.
This whopping willow specimen was at Ward street and had already been chopped down once about 10 years ago. It was such a lovely piece of work we decided to snag the top and bottom chews right away for educational display. Being that it’s July – not the most chewy month (lots of other food available) and such a BIG tree I’m going to guess its the work of our youngish male, who’s definitely strutting his stuff. Maybe the pile driver had something to do with it too – driving them upstream. Currently these lovely carvings adorn our fireplace hearth. I honestly NEVER imaged that we’d have beavers chewing trees upstream again. Did you?
It made me feel like I’d drunk far too much champagne all day.
