What I was starting to say was … I think that if the Oregon Wilderness Coalition did not exist, who can say, probably more people who became involved with us would have otherwise been in the Sierra Club. It would have been a stronger organization than it was. Holly [Jones] was one of the major advocates, as you know, for the Diamond-Theilson. I guess it was Ron Eber and others who worked to have Holly’s Ridge named. You can see it as you drive across the Klamath Marsh–it’s the north side of a big canyon that runs east-west, perpendicular to the Cascade Range [near Thielson] . It’s also in the latest revised edition of Oregon Geographic Names.
It’s very recent?
Yes. It’s recent because it is almost a ten year process from the time that you make a nomination. I was involved with this for another peak that we named for one of our governing council members who was killed by a log truck. It’s called Dynamo Peak for Dinah Ross, and went through the entire names board bureaucracy. Once you get something named, which is difficult–it’s particularly difficult in the wilderness ironically enough. Nobody wants to name a peak for someone, only to have it logged or mined (both laugh). There aren’t many peaks which aren’t already named and those in the wilderness are more limited still. So it’s even harder to get something named in the wilderness and then the geographic names board for Oregon has to consider it.
Isn’t there another lag with USGS revising the map for an area?
The one place I had personal experience with was the Mount Jefferson Wilderness Area. The Forest Service, assuming it’s on Forest Service land, can definitely help or hinder how rapidly that designation is made. It helps to have the cartographer willing to put it on the map.
Going back to ONRC, James Monteith had a very long run as executive director and suddenly left the organization. There’s not much explanation in print about that.
It’s one thing to be committed to an issue philosophically and it’s quite something else to run an organization. Running an organization is really more that somebody with business experience does. People with strong business experience are out making money by working for the corporation, not running advocacy organizations. I think it’s probably fair to say that the complexities of raising money to sustain the organization became more than what James was able to handle. I don’t have those skills or talents, and don’t aspire to do that [but] somebody needs to (laughs). I think it was a case where for a long time it was robbing Peter to pay Paul, in terms of hoping that the money you need to sustain the effort was going to arrive … that the next mailing or whatever would do it or you’d find a donor to write the check just in time. I think James had just too many plates spinning so to speak, and that led to some conflicts with the board. He’s still very respected by everybody who was ever in the organization and the board members [who served] at that time. I think being a financial manager was not his greatest strength. He was best at masterminding the vision for the organization and what our role should be in terms of conservation.
