The FisherPoets Gathering Planning Committee

Jon Broderick made the first phone calls in 1997 that resulted in the FisherPoets Gathering so he's been part of the organizing committee since the beginning corresponding with fisherpoets and press, building the schedule and managing the fisherpoets.org web site. A former school teacher, he's been a commercial salmon fisherman since the '70s and, with his family, runs a set net outfit in Bristol Bay each summer.

Doreen Broderick likely didn't know what she was in for when she married a fisherman in 1980 but she's stickin' and stayin' from gillnetting in Southeastern Alaska to set netting in Bristol Bay. She's a school teacher and runs the Gearshack for the FisherPoets Gathering.

Hobe Kytr knows more about the commercial fishing history of the Lower Columbia River than anyone else we know. A former educator at the Columbia River Maritime and director of the Ilwaco Heritage museums, he long worked for Salmon For All, advocating for commercial fishing interests on the River. Hobe was instrumental in getting the U.S. Library of Congress to recognize the FisherPoets Gathering as a Local Legacy in 2000.

Florence Sage, long active in the Astoria cultural scene and retired from the Social Sciences faculty at Clatsop Community College, has been on our organizing committee from the beginning. She's kept our books, managed public relations, scheduled program and written a lot of copy for us.

Jay Speakman hosts the Story Circle at the FisherPoets Gathering and has been our venue coordinator on the committee for a decade. He's fished commercially in Maine and Alaska. He and his wife Diane own Sesame and Lilies, an interior design shop in Cannon Beach.

Jamie Boyd, who helps design our program cover, our poster and who manages the silent auction, joined the FisherPoets planning committee in 2012. Jamie has been a part of Astoria's arts community since 2004, as a founding member of Studio 11, a board member of the Astoria Visual Arts and a gallery aid at Clatsop Community College.

Pat Dixon helps manage social media, photography and the fisherpoets.org website. He's curator and web designer of our on-line anthology "In the Tote." Pat, now a professional photographer, is a former educator who gillnetted salmon for twenty years in Cook Inlet, Alaska. He also edited Anchored in Deep Water - The FisherPoets Anthology.
Amanda Gladics recently joined us to bring some modern, reliable technology to our pop-up Gearshack and to organize our volunteers. She has worked with fishing communities and studied seabird populations from Chile's Robinson Crusoe Island to the Aleutian's Aiktak. Amanda joined Oregon Sea Grant in July 2016 as a coastal fisheries extension faculty, providing community education programs that foster sustainability of fishery resources and the public's understanding of them.
|
Erica Clark has joined us, too, to bring common sense to Special Event planning. She grew up in Kodiak fishing summers on her family's longliner F/V Dark Star around western Alaska. She's been a hand in Bristol Bay, worked in seafood marketing and the No Pebble campaign. She and her young family came to Astoria from Cordova.
|