Recreation program supervisor Kim McManus took over the Eugene coordination role in later years and oversaw an explosion in participation by local youth. Before 2008 about 100 kids per year competed in the meets, she says. Then Eugene Recreation went into direct partnership with both local school districts, conducting multiple meets for 4th and 5th graders. With the Oregon Track Club providing transportation, 2,400 students were participating annually, enough to bring a vice-president from Hershey’s to town to see for himself. The meets required five to eight paid Recreation staff and 30 to 50 volunteers. The 2014 games were the last, however, as Hershey’s discontinued the program.
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Chapter 6
Weathering the Economic Storms A Bubble Collapses A November storm collapsed the bubble top at the Jefferson Memorial Pool in 1981. The pool had a late reopening in 1982 as an outdoor-only pool, only to close down briefly again in July when a circulation pump failed following a shutdown to repair leaks. The 1948 pool had been deteriorating steadily due to age, chemical corrosion, and lack of funds. Federal money administered by the state for parks and recreation repairs had been cut off. A Register-Guard article from January of 1980 noted that the pool needed to be repaired or replaced at a time when alternating closures of the city’s pools were being discussed as a money-saving strategy. A group called “Citizens for a City Center Pool” formed to try to save Jefferson Pool. Parks and Recreation director Ernie Drapela did not sound optimistic. “In five or 10 years people might look at swimming pools like they look at big cars today. They may be a luxury.” The 1982 summer season was the pool’s last, and it was demolished in 1986. The Fern Ridge bike trail now crosses through that area, which is officially called Jefferson Park. The collapse of the pool bubble presents a handy metaphor for the economic recession that struck Eugene in the 1980s. Eugene had once been known as the “timber capital of the world,” but the last privately owned virgin trees in Oregon were cut in 1955, and by the 1980s the availability of public timber was 85