Vancouver resident June Mulford will appear on OPB’s “Oregon Experience” at 9 p.m. Wednesday.
Mulford recounts the adventures she and her late husband, Don, experienced as they rode their horses from Mexico to Canada on the Pacific Crest Trail in 1959. June Mulford turned 32 on the 2,485-mile trip.
The couple averaged 20 miles a day to became the first horseback riders to complete the trip in one season. They completed the trek in five months.
The Mulfords subsisted primarily on Dinty Moore stew, hotcakes and coffee. They had to stop along the way to buy grain for the horses.
Don Mulford died in 1991, but the OPB program tells the story in Don’s voice, taken from the original film they made of daily life on the trail. A recent interview with June rounds out the story.
She said the trip started as a jaunt, but when they saw how poorly marked the Pacific Crest Trail was, they showed their movie around the country to advocate for the trail’s improvement.
“We need this to be kept up so other people could do it,” she said.
Local culinary educator surprised by honor
Larry Mains had no idea he was being honored when he arrived at the Columbia Edgewater Country Club in Portland for the Chef de Cuisine Society of Oregon’s Chef of the Year dinner earlier this month.
Mains, director of culinary arts at Clark College, received the chefs organization’s Chef Emeritus award. The honor came with a trophy and a medal.
“It was a shock,” said Mains, a 64-year-old Vancouver resident. “It was amazing. I was ready to faint.”
Mains has been cooking professionally since he was 16. He has taught at Clark College for about 30 years.
This wasn’t the first time the Chef de Cuisine Society of Oregon honored Mains. He received the group’s Chef of the Year award in 1985, the Instructor of the Year award in 2002 and the Charles Altorfer Professionalism award in 2005.
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