Ducky flotilla offers big prizes; event to benefit four high schools in county
Cluster duck
Come noon on Saturday, Sept. 22, some 25,000 plastic ducks will set off on a madcap race down the Rogue River in Grants Pass.
Approximately 30 to 40 minutes later, the first 15 ducks to cruise across the finish line at Riverside Park will have garnered for their adoptive parents a bevy of cool prizes. They include $20,000 toward the purchase of a new car, and a $4,000 Alaskan cruise.
Adoption forms are available at Home Valley Bank, one of the event’s sponsors, and Bi-Rite Auto Parts in Cave Junction. Ducks also are available at many of the sponsoring and prize-donating businesses in Grants Pass.
The cost to adopt one duck is $10, and there are packages available. They range up to $250, including hats, shirts and other goodies, to adopt multiple ducks.
The 2007 Rogue Duck Derby, sponsored by the Grants Pass Rotary Foundation, has become a popular annual fund-raiser.
In this, the fifth year of the event, proceeds are slated to help match funds for capital improvements to athletic facilities at the four high schools in the county.
An all-weather track has been built at Hidden Valley High, and new tracks are being considered at Grants Pass and North Valley High schools. Funds generated by the Illinois Valley Booster Club, for example, could be matched by the funds to help build a new press box at IVHS this fall.
The ‘07 duck adoptions reportedly are outpacing previous years. Volunteer efforts of high school students who sold entry forms at the Josephine County Fair were cited by Home Valley Bank’s Jill Gleysteen as instrumental.
Re-establishing Illinois Valley Booster Club and imminent chartering of a Rotary Club in Illinois Valley have made it possible to bring the benefits of some Duck Derby receipts to the valley community.
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