Providing a home for Portland's ethnic arts by Eltubeth Coonrod Sue Busby (,66), director of a new community cultural center in Portland, attributes her current involvement to the quality of life at PSU during the early sixties. "Those were the days when on the way to your English class you heard that Martin Luther King was dead, and on the way to Anthropology you heard JFK had been shol. Busby was part of "the Joe Uris group - always having to do something about things that were going on," Now, "all of us from that group are involved in some type of community activity," she said. Because PSU was a city school. most students had to work and were involved in the community, making them "more aware." Busby and another student started the first Black Student Union at PSU. Now, fifteen years later, she is directly involved in an innovative community project. The new Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center, at 5340 N. Interstate Avenue, is a part of the Park Bureau's renovation of historic sites and conversion of old firehouses. Sue Busby, as director, together with an eleven-member policy board, will provide the first Remodeling of the old firehouse was completed in November, about the same time Busby became Director. She immediately handled the Preview Opening for the handsome structure of brick, wood and glass. The Center was used by the Toy and Joy Makers during December, while Busby spent that month planning for the first year's activities. "Six months got booked up in one month," she said. "I'm afraid 1983 will be gone by January." These bookings include many classes and workshops for the community, in dance, painting, singing, exercise, photography, and writing, as well as special senior citizen classes and parent-child reading hours. Busby is enthusiastic about providing cultural experiences thai reflect the rich ethnic diversity of the Portland area. She has engaged only professional instructors for classes, so the community will receive "the best possible instruction." In the future, amateur instructors may be added under the guidance of professionals. Since the firehouse building is now accessible for the physically handicapped, Busby .. . and a visible community venture culturally-focused center in North/Northeast Portland. It is a community-based facility designed to showcase the performing, literary and visual arts. envisions programs presented by the handicapped or senior citizens. The Center also includes a 11 O-seat theater. During the first quarter, Young Audiences (a group Director Sue Busby ('66) joins dance Instructor Tomlko Yamazaki In the studio at the Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center, Portland's first center for ethnic arts. including mimes, musicians and other artists) will perform for seven different grade schools within walking distance of the Center. January was given an Asian theme and was highlighted by a program of Filipino slick·fighting and Japanese dance. Late in t 983, Portland's Mark Allen players will be presented. A Federal "Innovative" Grant will subsidize the first year (including renovation). After that, Busby expects the center to pay its own way. In fact, "the theater itself will make us self-sustaining," Busby noted. Busby attended PSU for five years, "until they asked me to leave." She then spent a few months in California and returned to Oregon as Assistant Director of PSU's • Northeast Education Center. A storefront on NE Union Avenue, the Center provided adult education and basic college courses that were transferable. Busby handled this project from scratch. At the same time, in 1966, she completed her B.A. in General Humanities at PSU. Once the Center was running smoothly (it continued to operate for four years), she rece{ved an offer from the University of ~ Califomia at Berkeley to start a program for community and correspondence courses. During her five years at Berkeley, she "sent classes all over the world," including to Vietnam servicemen. Busby returned to Oregon in 1975 and entered the corporate sales field. She spent one year with Xerox and five years with Pitney·80wes. "The training that an individual gets from the corporate environment is invaluable," she says, and calls that training her "grad degree." She especially appreciates the "marketing ability to present myself" that she gained from corporate sales. After six years Busby was "ready to leave, because my whole makeup is involved in initiating things." Now that she is again in a position to "gef things going," Busby is excited at the prospect of fulfilling some personal goals. Her hands animatedly tracing circles while she talks, she plucks Portland's many ethnic groups out of the air and shapes them into a new mass, which she calls "world peace," This scenario of cultural harmony is the real purpose of the Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center, Busby believes, as it is a passion in her own life. Ii t'; ,,.; ~ . . ' .. Iv/ , , New logo cre~ted by PSU student IFCC PSU and the Interstafe Firehouse Cultural Center have joined hands in the creation of a business logo for the new center, directed by PSU alum Sue Busby ('66). PSU's art department has a reputation for doing design work for local groups, such as DEQ, the Zoo and OMS I. Professor Lou Ocepek coordinates the projects, which are assigned to his Advanced Graphics Design classes. Twenty talented students from last fall's class came up with designs, and the board found selection to be difficult. But Prof. Ocepek said, "I gave them all A's for their projects." The winner, Pennie Humphreys, whose design is shown here, received a $100 certificate for art supplies from the IFCC board. Humphreys' design features a stage with spotlights forming a star, enclosed in an arched frame that seems to be imparting cultural rays to the community. Busby said she COUldn't find a better explanation of the center's purpose. USE PSU LIBRARY 4.lumm Benehts Card 229-4948 9
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