Beverly Clear-y could be on the case making snow, snow, go away
The renowned children’s author and UW grad’s name is in the running as Portland conducts a contest to name its snowplows.
The late Beverly Cleary, ’39, Oregon’s favorite daughter, has received a zillion honors for her work as one of America’s premier children’s authors. And now her name might get out there even more as the city of Portland conducts a contest to name its snowplows. Yes, snowplows.
Of 4,000 submissions to the Portland Department of Transportation, according to the Oregonian/OregonLive.com, “Beverly Clear-y” is one of the 20 “mostly Portland-centric names” that made the cut. Voters have until 5 p.m. on Jan. 22 to choose their top five names.
The Oregonian/OregonLive says the eventual winning names will be put on five of the city’s plows, but officials were still figuring out if the plows will sport the names year-round or temporarily for times of snow and ice. The city’s 56 trucks are used constantly for maintenance work until the need arises to attach snowplows and sand/salt spreaders when the white stuff falls from the sky.
Portland has always loved Cleary, who received a degree in library science from the University of Washington before she became a children’s author whose books have sold more than 91 million copies since her first book was published in 1950. The Beverly Cleary Sculpture Garden at Grant Park in Northeast Portland has been around since 1995 when Cleary was a spry 79 years old. She died March 25, 2021 at the age of 104.
More information on the contest of Oregon’s creativity is on the Portland Bureau of Transportation’s website. And sorry, the winner won’t win a one-day ticket to Maui or enough dough to buy a spread near Bend. Says the Oregonian/OregonLive: “Winners will have to settle on public recognition of their pun-delivery skills as their reward for a winning entry,” due to budget cuts within the Portland Department of Transportation.
Portland averages 4.5 inches of snow per year, compared to the Keweenaw Peninsula in Michigan, which sees a downpour of roughly 241 inches per year, or the USA’s snowiest spot (the Paradise area of Mount Rainier), where a yearly average of 640 inches of snow (that’s 53 feet!) coats the national park.