About
Welcome to Lorane Oregon’s Community Website!
A special note to Lorane area residents –
This is Lloyd, and my wife Jeri and I have lived here since 1992. Along with her other activities, Jeri has been responsible for the Community Bulletin Board for quite a few years, and it looks like we’ll be carrying on a family tradition by facilitating our Community Web Site as well.
I am very grateful to Lee Erickson and her daughter Effie for their work in maintaining the site, and in making it something that easily holds its own as you look at community web sites from other parts of the country. It is something that can be very useful, and certainly something that we can be proud of.
It’s a beautiful and fully functioning site but it isn’t being used as much as it deserves, and we’d like to see if we could change that. All of us associated with the site would love to see it expand and become a more useful tool to help those of us who live here to stay more connected. We welcome contributions and sharing from anyone else who shares our values and our interests.
We have identified several issues that have limited us in the development. First, we’re aware that many of us are using dial-up connections, and we’re painfully aware that trying to access the Internet to do anything can be very frustrating. That is why a lot of attention has been paid to and will be paid to make our site “Dial-up Friendly”. Sure, we’ll have pictures, but they’ll be placed and sized so that they don’t interfere with accessing the good stuff. If all that you want to do is to keep in touch and see what’s happening, this will be a friendly place to visit.
Another thing that came as a surprise is that there are a number of people here who, for one reason or another, have avoided the Internet. No doubt many are for personal reasons, but it is possible that there are those who could simply use some help in getting a computer, setting it up or maybe just learning how to use it. One of the plans in the works is to make that type of help available. There will be more on that later.
By far the biggest factor that’s going to determine if our web site grows, will be community participation. Community participation will only grow if we can successfully determine what the community wants to see. It would be greatly appreciated if you’d take a few minutes to access our “Contact Us” area at the bottom of the page, and give us some ideas that you feel might be helpful.
In the meantime, how about we start off by making sure that all upcoming community events and happenings get coverage on the site. If you’re considering an announcement on the bulletin board, how about one on the web site as well. If you’d like, you can even add an article giving more information, and we’ll tell people on the Bulletin Board that more information is available. Where appropriate, we might want to follow up with a story about what happened, and how much people missed who didn’t attend. .
Based upon suggestions that we’ve already received, we’re going to be adding a new category to talk about what’s happening at our school, and some ideas that we will all want to be a part of as we work to see that it continues to be a part of our community.
We’re considering doing the same thing for our Volunteer Fire Department, who are the unsung heroes of our community, and really deserve recognition for their efforts, as well as a little more support in some key areas.
Some folks would like to see an unrestricted forum so that we can all join in and discuss ideas that affect us, as well as suggestions that can help us. At this point it looks like it will have to be monitored just because of the incredibly high number of posts that we are receiving that would offend just about everyone. For now, we welcome posts from anyone who would like to share with the rest of us, but they will have to be monitored, at least in the beginning.
We’ve got lots of other ideas, and you’ll see them presented in the Local News section of our site. We’ll have more later, but we invite you to check in from time to time just to see how we’re doing.
And now, a little bit of history
Located 20 miles southwest of Eugene, Oregon, the town of Lorane, is situated among the lush emerald hills of Siuslaw Valley.
In 1887, the pioneers that settled Lorane made their living harvesting timber, raising livestock, farming and tending fruit orchards. Today, with a population of approximately 389, Lorane is now home to award-winning wineries, internationally recognized artists, and quaint bed and breakfasts.
Lorane.us is a place to share what you have, what you know and find what you need. It is a place to recognize, value and support the contributions of our neighbors, businesses and organizations that help to preserve our local economy and rural way of life in Lorane.
About the Webmasters…
Summer 2004, as Lorane’s founding webmaster Bruce Sullivan and his family were relocating to Bend, the Bisch’s relocated to Lorane from Bend. Lee (f/k/a as Cris Bisch) showed an interest early on to help Bruce with the Lorane website, seeing it as a great way to serve and connect with the community. Lee and her husband, Cliff, began construction on their home and B&B in November 2004, completing it in 2006. Lee was the Lorane webmaster from 2004 through January 2010 with the assistance of her daughter, Effie Siverts, web developer and photographer.
Lloyd Porter writes: “I spent almost 50 years doing a very poor impersonation of a city boy, and it wasn’t until I moved out here and found myself in the presence of people who knew the difference between land and real estate, that I really had a chance to realize what was missing. There is a sense of community here, and if this web site can help add to that, it will be worth the effort.”
Lee Erickson writes: ” It was a pleasure for me and Effie to serve the Lorane community by not only maintaining a presence on the Internet for Lorane, Oregon, but volunteer our talents and skills to take the foundation built by Bruce Sullivan and enhance upon it with dynamic website redesigns and utilize online blog tools for making Lorane.us now user-friendly for members of Lorane’s community.”
Bruce Sullivan writes: …“the Internet can still be a place where small businesses and small communities can do something meaningful and sustainable…My personal vision for Lorane.us includes a way for people to find local sources of products and services. Wouldn’t it be great if you could always find locally-grown food, auto repair, livestock, firewood –– just about everything you might need. Lorane may not have everything, but we do have many things that people are now driving 15 or 20 miles to buy. Think Globally, Buy Locally.”
