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Widmer Brewing Company contributes to record Rossi event
LEE PERLMAN
THE MID-COUNTY MEMO
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| Misty Dicks and Ryan Schulenberg hang out at the Barn Bash. |
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| Desperado Tom Mannen takes aim at a bad guy during the Wild West show. |
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| Darl Stuvick pitches horseshoes at the 7th Annual event. |
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| MEMO PHOTOS: TIM CURRAN |
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| Presenting Mr. and Mrs. Tom Mannen – Turkey Creek Productions founder Tom Mannen and Jannette Busch exchanged real wedding vows at this year’s Barn Bash. |
| Photo credit: Phyllis Bernard |
Both the old and the good were retained.
Once again, there was all the chicken anyone could eat, plus green and potato salads, baked beans, rolls and strawberry shortcake for dessert.
Once again, the Parkrose Lions generously volunteered the organization’s time as staff.
Once again, the Last Rodeo Band provided music for line and other dancing.
Once again, there was a western town set that included the name Bitar, Bob Brown’s Wagon Wheels, and even the Mid-county Memo. (Well, someone had to “print the legend” in the old pioneer days.) Once again, it was used for a little recreational gun fighting by folks in western clothes firing blanks. And, once again, an original home movie about the early days of Parkrose, and the good folks triumphing against the forces of evil, was shown.
But within the formula there were a few changes as well.
Rossi meets Widmer
This year, for instance, the Rossi clan found a new set of partners, like themselves a family rooted in tradition and who, like themselves, take genuine pleasure in aiding worthwhile community enterprises.
The Widmer Brewing Company contributed 24 kegs of their microbrew product. Barn Bash organizer Joe Rossi was equally impressed by the attitude they displayed.
“They were great,” Joe Rossi, the main manager and inspiration for the event, recalls. “They acted almost as if we were doing them a favor by letting them participate.”
“It was an honor to participate,” Widmer’s Andy Boone says. “We were contacted by Rossi Farms, and they told us about their event to support their high school. It was a fantastic event. It was great to see the large-scale support from the community. We like to be included in grass-roots efforts for small communities.”
Kurt and Rob Widmer run their operation from what was once the old Albina community, out of an authentic historic landmark they saved from the wrecking ball, and newer structures carefully designed to fit in. They were a major part of the celebration for the opening of the Interstate MAX light rail line, which goes by their window, earlier this year.
Boone says the Widmers are considering renting part of Rossi Farms for their annual company picnic, and perhaps of hiring filmmaker Tom Mannen and his Turkey Creek Productions to make a film for them. “We’ve done our own corporate videos before,” he says, “but we were pleasantly surprised by the quality of this movie.”
Several Widmer employees were on hand at the dance. They almost became part of the movie. Their product did in fact make it onto the big screen; some local gunslingers turn up their noses at this strange brew called hefeweizen, served with lemon slices, for God’s sake!
This year’s film, “The Tale of Nick Rose,” followed the pattern of its predecessors, “The Legend of Parker Rose,” and “James Prescott and the Legend of Parker Rose.” The bad guys try to muscle past the good guys, the good guys are “challenged,” even take their lumps, but in the end emerge triumphant. Also, as in previous years, it featured a mostly local cast from the Parkrose community.
A switch was that while the star of the two previous films, Parker Rose (Joe Rossi) is still in the picture, the main character is Nick Rose (Joe’s brother Nick.) Other family members got involved too. Joe’s daughter Gabrielle not only participated but was in one fight scene, displaying an unarmed combat technique that should stand her in good stead all her life.
A cowboy wedding
It was definitely a special production for director Mannen. At the Barn Bash, with so little advance word that many of their friends were taken by surprise, he married Jeannette Busch, his sweetheart of 20 years, in a genuine cowboy wedding. In lieu of rings, the bride put on the groom’s prized Stetson hat and the partners put their lassos around each other. The “preacher,” Rabbi Howie Rubin, got into the spirit by dressing in western clothes. When he asked if anyone wanted to speak against the union, one of Mannen’s cohorts made a staged drunken protest from atop the western set - and he was blown away by gunfire delivered by the wedding couple and all their friends.
“A cowboy wedding is all I’ve ever wanted,” Mannen told the Memo. “That’s the only way you can fire guns and make some noise.”
For all the tomfoolery, the occasion had a touching sincerity and sweetness that fit well with the occasion, a gathering of the community to share a special moment. This despite the fact that on a larger scale the Barn Dance was hardly intimate. It attracted 1,700 people and netted $16,000 for the Parkrose Youth Activities Association. Both marks shattered the records set at this event last year. Are Mannen and Rossi already at work on plans for next year’s event? They’d have to be to top this year’s affair.
>>View more photo's here
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