Isaac Laquedem

Margie Boule yields her crown

Tonight at the Fifth Annual Celebrity Spelling Bee of Schoolhouse Supplies, Margie Boule (a two-time winner) of the Oregonian finished a close second, yielding her title as spelling champ to Nicole Vogel, publisher of Portland Monthly.  "Isosceles" was her downfall, and "diaphanous" (not a word usually associated with January clothing for Portlanders) gave Ms. Vogel the crown.

The celebrity contestants included two more members of the print media, Don Hamilton of the Tribune and Jonathan Nicholas of the Oregonian, and two broadcasters, Tony Martinez of KPTV and Pat Boyle from KPAM.  When one of the broadcasters asked the judges if phonetic spellings would be accepted, Mrs. Laquedem commented that the print media people would no doubt outperform the broadcast people.  And she was right: Messrs. Martinez and Boyle hit the ground early in the bee.

Mayor Potter was one of the other good-sport contestants, and Commissioner Adams was one of the two judges (the other was Rob Smith of the Business Journal), leading to a burst of laughter when, after being given a word he found challenging, the mayor intoned, "Commissioner Adams, what bureaus would you like?"

The crowd filled the Melody Ballroom, and the silent auction was a success for the organization and its new executive director, Nick Viele.  Schoolhouse Supplies' mission is to collect supplies for the public schools and then to distribute them to teachers and classrooms.  It has a simple and effective distribution method:  a teacher who needs supplies goes to the warehouse, selects what he or she wants, and takes the goods back to the classroom -- all free.  Mr. Viele said that a $6,000 cash gift can be stretched to buy $30,000 of supplies, good value for the dollar.  And the spelling bee was great fun -- I secretly wished that I was one of the contestants, until the MC called the words "furfuraceous" and "oppugn."  Look for the sixth annual Bee this time next year.

Gorging on casinos

The Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs, operators of the casino at Kah-Nee-Tah, wants to build a casino in the Columbia River Gorge, either near Hood River or at Cascade Locks, 20 miles closer to Portland. Warm Springs needs the governor's approval to build at Cascade Locks, but not at Hood River, because the site near Hood River is tribal trust land. The Cascade Locks site is not.

Reading between the lines, Warm Springs strongly prefers Cascade Locks. The Hood River design is an 8-story casino with restaurants built into a hillside. The Cascade Locks design includes a casino and restaurants, and also shops, a pool, a spa, a conference center, and a hotel, none of which is apparently in the Hood River design.

Diane York, the Hood River county commissioner who presented the plans to the Gorge Commission, also prefers Cascade Locks to Hood River, and she may have good reasons for her choice. But I was struck by her comment that locating the casino in Hood River could be "disastrous, economically and scenically." (Her words, as quoted by the Oregonian on April 24.)

I understand how a casino could be disastrous scenically (which may be government-speak for "look ugly"). I don't know how it would be disastrous economically (meaning, maybe, cause Hood River County to lose jobs) if it's in one place in the county, but not if it's in another place. Any ideas?