Thank you so much Jackie for your superbly entertaining and informative presentation on Chapter 9 at yesterday’s Social Hour. Thank you Richard for the slideshow, and thank you Sharon as always for scheduling such fascinating speakers! Below is a summary of the presentation, written by Jackie Deal.
By Jackie Deal
What is Chapter 9? For the uninitiated, chapters, rallies, parks etc. are very confusing. So let’s start at the very beginning of Escapees Inc. Escapees started when Kay Peterson wrote, on a manual typewriter, the first newsletter and sent it to her friends and RVing acquaintances. RVers receiving it wanted to get together and thus were born Rallies.
At Rallies folks discovered others from their home area and formed groups called Chapters (there were 57 chapters in the US, 26 are still active).
We, the ninth chapter, were found in Casa Grande, Arizona in 1985 with Don and Pat Kuykendall as the “driving force.” The founders were Oregonians who wintered in Arizona.
Traveling was fun but it wasn’t long before the members of Chapter 9 wanted to park where they could stop, stay for a season, and eventually retire. Thus was born the desire and the search for property to build what became Timber Valley.
In 1986 a land search had begun: Mr. and Mrs. Olson (Secretaries of Chapter 9) wanted a 20 acre parcel in Bandon. Others found sites from Astoria and south on the coast and even into the valley.
October 15, 1988, the news was “The 90.19 acres in Sutherlin will cost $80,000” plus additional costs “for a total of $90,031.” Thus was purchased the land for the wonderful park we now live in. Chapter 9 members provided the money and the “elbow grease” to build Timber Valley SKP Park.
As of 2023 there are four founding members remaining in the park. The rest of today’s Chapter 9 members are more recent ones who want to keep alive the spirit of camaraderie that emboldened those early members to build a park. (The town people call them those crazy old people trying to build a town at the end of South State Street).
Our purpose is “fun and fellowship” (you might add a third “F”: food!). We encourage you to join Chapter 9 and help us keep alive the vision of our founding fathers (and mothers).
Printable Chapter 9 application coming soon on the Timber Valley website.
This is an amazing recount of the Social hour. My thanks to Jackie who told the story of Chapter 9 and to Richard who always enhances the programs with a big screen pictures.