High flying Argay woman captures the imaginations of all

The 82-year-old discount store greeter has a full closet of costumes for every occasion.

By Don Weston

THE Mid-county MEMO

Many Mid-county shoppers do a double take at the sight of Evelyn Benson when they enter the Big K store on Northeast 122nd and Sandy Blvd.

Some just stop and stare, others smile, but few are passive in their admiration. Adults looking for their purchase will halt mid-stride and greet her with a puzzled look, then a smile. Kids will stop and talk to her to get the candy she often passes out.

It usually happens when the 82-year-old store greeter is wearing one of her many costumes. A typical Saturday, once a month, will find customers ogling her in a Hawaiian dress and a large yellow paper pineapple perched atop her head.

Benson doesn't remember when she first developed a flair for the spotlight, but she's always been kind of a ham, she admits.

"As a kid, I was the lead in the class play," she said. "I always liked to dress up. I was always the fun one in the family." It wasn't until after she retired, then decided to go back to work, she began dressing up as an adult.

At age 70, she decided she needed some extra income, so she applied for a job at Big K, formerly K-Mart, only a few blocks from her Argay Terrace home. "I was afraid they were going to put me behind a cash register," she said. "Instead, they told me to stand at the front door and greet people."

The employees told her that everyone dressed up for the holidays, but being new, she decided not to wear a costume for Christmas and New Year's during her first year in 1991.

However, on St. Patrick's Day she came to work as a leprechaun, wearing a green apron with a shamrock, green pants, and green shoes and sporting a beard.

She was a little nervous. "I didn't know if K-Mart would want me to do it," she said. "Everyone said I looked real cute."  Then, in April, the store manager called her to his office. She went with some apprehension. "He said, I've gotten you an Easter Bunny outfit," Benson recalled.

"So, I thought: okay he likes it; I can go from here." And go she did.

 During the last nine years, she's greeted people as Betty Boop, an M&M Peanut, a Dalmatian, a cow, Mrs. Santa Claus, Big Bird, a clown, a cowgirl, and many generic costumes designed to help promote merchandise in the store. "I dressed up as Pocahontas once, and nobody knew who I was supposed to be," she laughed.

Now, one Saturday a month, she wears a costume related to the month, she explained. "I always have candy. The kids say 'there's the candy lady.' Every time I'm not in costume, people ask: 'Where's your costume?'"

Her closet is filled with costumes and they get plenty of use. She dons her Mrs. Santa Claus costume for volunteer appearances at Doernbecher Children's Hospital, Shriner's Hospital for Children, the Meier & Frank Children's Christmas Party and Pacific View RTC, a teenage drug rehabilitation program.

 She wears her clown outfit to the Edgefield Children's Center Annual Carnival. A few year's ago she made a guest appearance at Timberline Lodge as Mrs. Claus. KOIN- TV asked her to join Santa in front of the fireplace for a Christmas special, escorting her there and back.

And when she isn't dressing up, she's looking for a unique way to celebrate her birthday.  You may have seen her celebrating her 80th Birthday as a skydiving grandma on the TV news or commercials. "I wanted to do something different," Benson said.

Yeah, up to then she'd only gone water skiing at age 50, snorkeling at age 55, river rafting at age 65, and riding a Sternwheeler to the Cascade Locks at age 70. She celebrated her 81st birthday by ascending in a hot air balloon.

"Six balloons went up that morning," she said. "It was so smooth. We went up 2,000 feet and bobbed up and down over the wine country in Newberg. We landed on a farm and had a champagne brunch."  Last month she celebrated her 82nd birthday in a helicopter ride over Mt. St. Helens.

A Portland telecommunication business heard about her skydiving jump and bought rights to her video to show it in commercials. "They were new in town and were looking for something to promote their image," Benson said. She gets royalties each time it is shown.

How does she find these opportunities?  Well she has an agent, of course.  He's helped her appear in commercials for Fred Meyers, Izzy's, Qwest and Sprint, and she was in an airport scene in "The Hunted," a movie recently filmed in Portland.

Recently, Benson saw a talk show on television about parents who embarrass their children because of the way they dress. She asked her daughter, Linda Windermere, if she embarrassed her and was relieved to learn she didn't.

Of course her daughter was indoctrinated at an early age. "I used to always dress up the neighbor kids for the Junior Rose Festival Parade, and they always would a win a prize," Benson said. "Every year we made a float. One year the theme was A Rose in Portland Grows. We made a huge rose with petals and my daughter sat in the middle."

Benson also was a driver for the Junior Rose Festival between 1959 and 1972. She still remembers the cool outfit the drivers got to wear. "We had a white outfit with blue and white-striped denim slacks."

Asked if she volunteered as a driver all those years because she got to dress up in the official outfit, she smiled, "I think so, yeah."

A few years ago, Benson won a seven-day trip for two to Dublin, Ireland in a St. Patrick's Day costume contest sponsored by The Refectory restaurant on Northeast 122nd Ave., near Halsey Street.  She came as a leprechaun, of course.  She took her daughter on the trip, which included accommodations.

"The next year, she needed shoulder surgery, but was reluctant because the St. Patrick's Day contest was coming up again. She called the restaurant to see what the prize was going to be.

"They said they weren't giving anything this year because they gave too much last year," she said. She went ahead with the surgery and later that year, at the same establishment's Halloween contest, she won a $500 prize.

Last year she won a $200 prize at the Halloween contest, sponsored by a local radio station and The Refectory restaurant.  She glued a thousand M&M's candies on her hat, eyeglasses, socks and shoes and wore a giant orange shell. It was like taking candy from a baby, she suggested. "Of course those young kids don't really dress up," she said.

Benson's penchant for dressing up in costume has not escaped the notice of Big K, where she works. Two years ago the chain selected eight "All Stars" from the Northwest and Benson was chosen. After being nominated, she sent in a picture of herself dressed as a "Big K" during the grand re-opening of the store in 1998.

The stunt obviously captured the judges, imagination, because she was whisked away to be honored in Detroit, Michigan at the All Star Awards program. Benson, didn't disappoint, she wore her "Big K" costume at the event.

So what's on the horizon next for this busy Lady?

"I think I'd like to go skydiving again."