PAM WYLIE: Doug Hollinger, of Park City Clothing Company, regularly gets his picture in the paper and, the good news is, it’s not for robbing a bank! Its’ because he’s done something nice! Often, it’s because he and his wife Margie have helped the Adopt-a-Native-Elder program that presents the annual Navajo Rug Show like the one that just finished last weekend. They've been involved with the program, run by Linda Myers, for about 12 years.
DOUG HOLLINGER: We first started out just giving small donations to Linda, who runs it. Maybe a blanket or maybe a Pendleton bag or something to donate for the silent auction. Then, about four years into it, we finally went to one of the rug shows up at Deer Valley at the lodge and and what an experience! Since then every year we try to make sure that we get up to the rugshowand that we participate in it in some way. And it's just that actually it’s changed our lives. It's a wonderful, wonderful program. You know that your donation or anything that you give to the program - 100% of it goes right back to those people that need it. That's what we really like about the program.
PAM: This year, they went one step further.
DOUG: About 5 months ago, Margie and I decided, “What can we do to help raise money for the program?” We've been Pendleton store for many many years. Pendleton of course is very sought-after by the Native Americans. They love Pendleton blankets, Pendleton bags, and so forth. So Margie and I drew up a design that we thought would be appropriate for the Rug Show and had Pendleton producea a limited edition blanket for us to sell at the Rock Show, with all proceeds going directly to ANE.
PAM: “ANE” being …?
DOUG: Adopt-a-Native-Elder. So far it's been accepted pretty well. We’ve done quite well this weekend. We've had quite a few people call in. Sponsors and volunteers for Adopt-a-Native-Elder are all over the world actually so I think now that it gets out -- it's on our website, on the Adopt-a-Native-Elder website -- we’ll start getting phone calls and emails of “How do I get one of these blankets?” and so we hope for a good response and if that happens maybe next year we can do another one.
PAM: The Pendleton blanket is a beautiful turquoise.
DOUG: It has the Adopt-a-Native-Elder logo in the center which is the meeting of the hands and the rainbow that represents the bridge between Native Americans and the white people. Then around the Border, we’ve put the 11 food runs that they participate in every year. Iit has a border on the sides that’s an old Pendleton 1918-1919 Navajo print that they did back then that we reduced and kind of shrunk it down to size and used that pattern as the border on this blanket so we’ve tried to keep it very Native American and also to where people can relate to it as part of the ANE program.
PAM: Doug and Margie followed Pendleton's example of pulling commemorative blankets at random from their store house so there wouldn't be any favoritism in someone getting a low numbered limited edition blanket. Blanket number one, though, was an exception to this practice.
DOUG: We did take Number One and auctioned it off Friday night. There was only one bid on it. It didn't last very long on the auction but our bid on it was $5,000.
PAM: And that was before it even got to the floor.
DOUG: Before it even got to the floor .
PAM: It was a pre-bid.
DOUG: A pre-bid. And she didn’t get outbid. That bid stood so she received the number one blanket and what a help it was to the program! That was the surprise. It caught everybody’s attention and just took our breath away.
PAM: And she got a loud round of applause.
DOUG: Oh, yes! To get $5,000 for the Number One blanket $2 for the number one blanket was fantastic! We really, really appreciated it. Hopefully, we can sell the rest of them and make a little extra money for the program to help out on food and firewood and if this goes well we would like to continue doing this over the next few years. Maybe every other year we can do a commemorative blanket that either has something to do with the program in a sense as to the volunteers or maybe we can do something that actually celebrates some of the grandmothers and their weavings. That's what our intent is and hopefully we can go forward with that.
PAM: Park City Clothing Company used to be located at the Main Street Mall. Thirteen months ago, they moved down the street to occupy one of the buildings where Chloe Lane had been. Doug and Margie kept the moose that was there.
DOUG: We changed the outfit. We put a western hat and a Pendleton blanket and cowboy boots on her but the moose is still out front.
PAM: To get there, if you’re going up the street, you turn left at the moose.
DOUG: Yup. Left at the moose. We’re right there.
PAM: And if you’re going down the street, you turn right at the moose.
DOUG: Turn right. Yes.
PAM: But don’t be in your car when you do that.
DOUG: No. No. Please walk in. Don’t drive in.
PAM: Park City Clothing Company and the moose are at 558 Main Street. Don’t be surprised if you see Doug Hollinger’s picture in the paper next year about the same time. And don't be surprised if it's for doing something nice!
Pam Powell is an author, playwright and radio personality living in Springfield, OR. Connect with her on Linked In.
© 2014 Pam Wylie Powell