Santa Claus is Coming...To Tigard

With it being three weeks before St. Nicholas makes his pilgrimage across the world to deliver joy and hope to young and old, his shiny red sleigh is at the North Pole Sleigh Shop getting tuned up and ready for the big event. So when Santa needed transportation to attend the 7th Annual Tigard Christmas Tree Lighting in Liberty Park, the Tualatin Valley Fire and Rescue District stepped up and substituted Santa's red sleigh with a shiny red firetruck.

In between holiday music sung by the Mitch Charter School Choir, Santa and Mrs. Claus greeted the enthusiastic crowd and led the countdown for the tree lighting. As the count hit three...two...one...zero, the star inexplainably failed to light. Being the resourceful person he is, Santa quickly jumped into the bucket of the Tualatin Valley firetruck's extension ladder. The firefighters raised him towards the Christmas Star where Santa applied some Christmas magic to get the star lit to the joy of the onlookers.

After the ceremony, Santa and Mrs. Claus were hosts to children and their parents, providing cookies, hot chocolate and lemonade as they listened to Christmas wishes at the Tigard Fitness Center. It was a fun event to cover for the Tigard-Tualatin Times.

OSAA 1A Eight-man Football Semi-Final

After weeks of pouring down rain in Oregon, the skies cleared last weekend to present a beautiful Saturday afternoon for the OSAA 1A Eight-man Football Semi-Finals held at McCulloch Stadium on the campus of Willamette University in Salem, Oregon. But unfortunately, the number four ranked team from Dufur, Oregon rained on the parade of the second-ranked, unbeaten team from St. Paul. Dufur literally ran away with the game in the second half, scoring 32 unanswered points to top the Buckaroos 52-20 and earning the right to play in the title game against Perrydale the following weekend at Autzen Stadium in Eugene.

Crusader Crunch

Rumor has it, there are still some Lincoln Cardinal players wandering around Autzen Stadium in Eugene, Oregon dazed, confused and wondering what happened to them after the Jesuit Crusaders thumped them in the final minutes to steal the 2005 OSAA 4A State Championship. Lincoln has a lot of company, as Jesuit has picked up where they left off with the Cardinals and rolled through the 2006 season manhandling every team that has stepped on the field with them. The undefeated Crusaders have put numbers on the scoreboard that the school's basketball team would envy by scoring over 60 points in three of their games and over 50 points in three other. Their margin of victory for the season has averaged over 38 points. Challengers walk off the playing field at the end of the game asking that same question..."What hit us?"