School pays price as 'cultural chasm' divides town

Seeing blue-collar area go high tech, foundation yanks scholarships

By PETER Y. HONG Los Angeles Times

Thursday, November 28, 2002

Philomath, Ore. -- Nearly 40 years ago, Rex and Ethel Clemens, a couple with no children and a sizable timber fortune, made a remarkable promise: They would pay college tuition for any graduate of Philomath High School.

Their generosity benefited thousands, helping daughters and sons of loggers and mill workers move on to careers as engineers, teachers, nurses and business executives.

But over the years, the town moved away from its blue-collar roots as timber work dwindled, high-tech plants opened and equity-rich newcomers moved in.

The change is most vivid at the high school, where students have shocked some old-timers by dyeing their hair fluorescent colors, piercing their noses and forming clubs such as a gay support group.

Unhappy with what they were seeing, the Clemens Foundation board of directors decided in October to teach the school a lesson. They yanked the scholarships.

John Ayer, 57, a former School Board member who sympathizes with the action, said the school has sullied "the values of the old timber families . . . working hard, God, America and apple pie. We've had enough of political correctness."

What happened in Philomath resonates across the United States, with once-rural communities, especially those near high-tech hubs, growing into bedroom communities.

The foundation's decision has sharply divided the 4,000 residents of the town, whose name means "friend of learning." Members of some families have stopped speaking to one another. Both sides agree the heated bickering over the school is fueled by deeper resentments built up during the town's transformation.

The town's timber industry was hit hard in the 1980s by economic recession, foreign competition and environmentalist efforts to save habitat for endangered species.

High-tech jobs multiplied at nearby Hewlett-Packard and other companies. Philomath got subdivided and suburbanized, what locals called "Californication."

Wooded hillsides were cleared to make room for cul-de-sacs of look- alike houses. Philomath's population today is more than double its 1970 size.

Newcomers were suspected of moving in expressly for the scholarship. In 1990, the Clemens Foundation limited awards to those who had lived in Philomath for three years; in 1993, it raised the minimum to eight years.