Jon Koonce appears at Fireside Room

By RODGER NICHOLS
of The Chronicle

    If you like your music strong, smart, and with a bit of bite, you’ll love Jon Koonce’s show Thursday at the Fireside Room in the Civic Auditorium in The Dalles. When he last appeared here in 2004, his show was a real crowd pleaser.
Koonce is a skilled music veteran who has been called “Portland’s all-time rock ’n’ roll hero” by The Oregonian’s Marty Hughley. He flirted with the big time in the early 80s, leading Johnny and the Distractions to national airplay with the singles,“Shoulder of the Road” and “Complicated Now.”
    Koonce also took a shot at MTV in the mid-80s with an album called “Totally Distracted,” which was produced by Al Kooper. Kooper was impressed enough to ask Koonce to sing in his band, though Koonce declined.
    More recently, Koonce led the roots rock outfit Mystery Train and has been playing roots and rockabilly with Jon Koonce and the Gas Hogs. (They appeared in the 2000 Neon Nights concert here, opening for headliners The Kingsmen.)
    Not only can Koonce boogie, he is a powerful singer-songwriter. Armed only with a guitar, harmonica and a bushel of talent, he’s carved out yet another career, performing on recent bills with Nanci Griffith, Joe Ely, Tracy Grammer and Craig Carothers. Recorded in October 2003, his most recent CD, “Accessory to the Crime,” contains what may have been the first anti-Iraq-war song, “Rich Man’s War.”
    Koonce’s concert is a benefit for the Civic Auditorium. Tickets are $10 from Klindt’s Booksellers and Columbia River Music.

Local hiker produces enjoyable first book

By RODGER NICHOLS
of The Chronicle

    Joan (Smith) Stuart, who graduated from The Dalles High School in the same class as Philip Klindt, has written a charming book detailing her adventures as a burgeoning hiker and camper in the Oregon woods.
    With a nicely wry sense of humor, Stuart is willing to poke fun at her novice mistakes, which are many at first: inadequate preparation, inappropriate clothing, backpacks crammed with heavy items and lack of training and preparation.
    Stuart deals with her tribulations, and those of her friends on the trail straightforwardly, admitting to her mistakes and eliciting sympathy.
    But she also elicits the joys of the outdoor life that supersede the bother of blisters and mosquitoes and hungry bears. As the book progresses, her mistakes are fewer, and she develops into a skilled backpacker, to the point of investing in, and training, a pair of llamas as pack animals.
    These are not timid hikers. The first chapter details an initial 28-mile hike from Lost Lake to the Eagle Creek Trailhead near Cascade Locks.
    Later trips would take Stuart up the side of Mt. Hood, around the base of Mt. Hood, the Eagle Cap Wilderness, the Three Sisters Wilderness, and an 80-mile hike along the Pacific Crest Trail.
    Along the way, Stuart and her companions have encounters with hungry bears, a cougar, many deer and elk, and eagles, osprey and even an otter.
    At 120 pages, the book is a quick read, and well worth the time.
It’s self-published under Stuart’s name, and is available for $16 at Klindt’s Booksellers in The Dalles and at The Charbuger in Cascade Locks.
    The book could have benefitted from another run through spellcheck, and there are a few other minor quibbles, but readers will be quickly swept along by Stuart’s narrative and her obvious joy in the outdoors life she has chosen.

Buddy Bowl event set for Saturday

    A fun-filled day of football is planned this Saturday at the eighth annual Buddy Bowl sponsored by the ACTS program.
    ACTS stands for Acclaiming Christ Through Sports.
    Boys may invite their dad, stepfather or mentor to play flag football on their team. If a boy does not have a partner, he will be matched up with one of the ACTS program leaders. Families are encouraged to come and join for lunch and to root for their “boys!” Cost for football and lunch is $5 per person, or $15 per family. The cost for football only is $2 per person.
    In accordance with ACTS policy, no one is ever turned away who can only afford a portion of the cost.
    The event takes place Saturday, Oct. 7 at Calvary Baptist Church, 3350 Columbia View Drive, The Dalles with third through fifth grade boys playing from 10 a.m. to noon, followed by an all-you-can-eat barbecue.
    Boys in sixth through ninth grade can eat lunch with their buddies between noon and 1 p.m., and then play football from 1 to 3 p.m.
    The girls program for third through ninth graders will meet at their regular time from 1 to 3 p.m.
    For more information, call the ACTS office at (541) 298-4277 or visitwww.actsint.
org/events.

Freedom House hosts first big fundraising banquet Oct. 14
Faith-based program helps women battling addiction

    Freedom House, a faith-based program for women battling addiction problems, will hold its first big fundraising event on Saturday, Oct. 14.
    The “Freedom and Joy” banquet, which is not open to the general public, will be at 6:30 p.m. at the St. Peter Parish Center.
    Master of ceremonies is Jan Marshall, who is the director of Shepherd’s Door in Portland, the program that Freedom House is modeled after.
    Freedom House executive director Twyla Smith said the doors opened in April; it’s housed at Solid Rock Church of God on East 12th Street.
    Smith said she hopes the fundraiser helps Freedom House grow and expand.
Many local businesses and individuals have sponsored tables at the banquet at $400 a table. There will be 25 tables so there is the potential of raising $10,000 which will go directly to the program, Smith said.
    Other businesses and individuals have helped pay for the expenses of putting on the banquet. About 200 people are expected to attend.
    Sponsoring businesses have sent out invitations to a selected group of people. Some families of the women in Freedom House have sponsored tables and some family members will be at the banquet, Smith said.
    Two women who currently live at Freedom House will be part of the program.
Kris McFadden has prepared a short video about Freedom House and the two Wasco County circuit court judges, John Kelly and Bernie Smith, have prepared videos in which they talk about the drug problem in the community and the need for programs like Freedom House.
    When Freedom House opened in April it started with three women and it still houses three, but a different three.
    One woman left the program, but “we would probably take her back,” Smith said.
Within a year they hope to have seven or eight women and their children. Currently, no children live at Freedom House.
    Freedom House offers classes on parenting, relationships, co-dependency and more.
    One of the big pushes for women at Freedom House is for them to continue their education, said Smith.
    To that end, all residents take learning asssessment tests from Mid-Columbia Council of Governments and Columbia Gorge Community College. These tests help determine what level of classes they can enter at the college level.
    Some of the women dropped out of school in middle school when they had their first baby and never received a high school diploma or GED certificate.
    Each woman has a computer and has received computer training.
    The goal is to help them live on their own. To do this they need survival skills, Smith said, such as balancing a checkbook, paying bills, budgeting their time and learning to live on a schedule.
    “We are not encouraging them to get paid jobs at this time, not for a year at least,” she said, but they do receive job skill counseling and use these skills in the small jobs they have at Freedom House or in the community.
    Freedom House is still a pilot program, Smith said.
    Shepherd’s Door has 40 women who live there with their children. They recently opened a $7 million facility, which is mostly for homeless women.
    Shepherd’s Door successes led to the money they have been able to raise, Smith said. There have been lots of visits back and forth between the two facilities.
To get into Freedom House, women have to pursue the process themselves — they aren’t referred by the courts. They must fill out an application and then are interviewed.
    “We want women who are ready to change their lives,” Smith said, adding that a strong emphasis on faith is an integral part of the program.

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