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ART|
REBECCA BALDWIN
Bend local Rebecca Baldwin has a lifelong passion for the outdoors and the
natural world. Years of backpacking, hiking, mountain biking, skiing, and travel have
fueled her inspiration for painting. Places that are special to her find expression
in her oil paintings. Interpreting landscapes in a realistic way is not her goal, she
paints from the heart, striving to give her art emotion with vibrant colors and cre-
ative brushwork. Central Oregon is especially inspirational to her and local scenery
can be found in much of her work.
Rebecca’s first experience with selling her art for a living was at the Portland
Saturday Market, a weekly outdoor arts and crafts market in Portland, Oregon. This
exposure led to contracts for commercial design work, designing everything from
t-shirts to coffee cups and coloring books. At this time she also started showing in
local art fairs, and later expanded to some of the top art fairs in the northwest and
beyond. Rebecca found this time valuable in many ways, she says, “I learned a lot
about what I most liked to create, and talking with buyers gave me the feedback I
needed to grow. I also gained knowledge about the art business from the commu-
nity of artists I met, many of whom became friends”.
After many years of travelling to sell her work at art shows, she now prefers to
work from her home in Central Oregon on the edge of Deschutes National Forest.
“My hope is that my paintings will spark a connection with the viewer that reminds
them of the beauty of nature and brings them joy.”
SEP/OCT 2019
27
CHRIS HORNER, TOUR DE FRANCE COMMENTATOR|
FROM SADDLE TO BROADCAST TRAILER
BY NEIL KORN
The 106th Tour de France did not disap-
point. With 2018 winner, Chris Froome,
out after suffering serious life threaten-
ing injury the field was wide open. It was
a freak accident when he took his hands
off the bars to clear his nose and a strong
side wind pushed him into a wall at 54 kph
during the fourth stage of the Criterium du
Dauphine in Roanne, France. Chris’ road
to full recovery will be long but there is no
doubt he will be back.
Bend local, Ian Boswell, was also out of
the Tour this July because of injuries he
suffered in a crash in March. Ian went down
hard in Italy and was unconscious on the
pavement. Ian’s scrapes and bruises healed
up but he suffered a concussion, his sixth
in the crash. This would keep him out of
the Tour for 2019. The good news is Ian
healed and was back to racing at the end
of the 2019 season.
The Tour de France began July 6th in Brus-
sels, Belgium for only the second time ever.
For Bend locals the biggest news was that
Chris Horner was in the broadcast studio
for NBC. This was to be Chris’s Tour de France debut for NBC and he didn’t disappoint.
Joining Chris in the broadcast booth was Paul Burmeister and another retired Ameri-
can cyclist Christian Vande Velde. The NBC play by play was anchored by Bob Roll who
moved from studio to call action with Phil Liggett after Liggett’s longtime partner, Paul
Sherwen died December 2nd after being involved with 40 Tour De France’s. events take place in a single arena, stadium, or race course. At every stage there was
a “village” setup for the hundreds of workers involved with the tour. This is where Chris,
Christian, and Paul would eat lunch and go over what they wanted to talk about on air.
The Tour de France is one of the biggest sporting events in the world and certainly one of
the hardest to pull off, especially in the mountain stages.
For Chris, it was four weeks of full on work with a lot of moving parts. A regular newbie
would have been petrified with all these logistics, but since this has been Chris’ life for the
last 25 years he knew what to expect and how to move around and be places on time.
Luckily, there was a bunch of chances for Chris to get back on his bike. Sometimes it was
for transportation to and from his hotel to the NBC broadcast trailer, when stages moved
short distances he would ride, and his most important ride was to preview the last 5K of
every stage so he would know what the racers were up against. In evaluating this years tour, Chris said, “the French man Julian Alaphlippe was the
surprise of the Tour winning stages and wearing the yellow jersey for a good portion of
the tour. His stage wins turned the French fans into a frenzy. Julian had fans chanting his
name at every turn. On the other hand, the 22-year-old Colmbian, Egan Bernal was not a
surprise if you followed the 2019 race season”. The youngster was the first Latin Americ-
can winner ever in the Tour de France. Egan pocketed 500,000 euros for the victory. As
the rest of the 2.3 Million euro purse of was split up with the other top riders and teams.
While Bob and Phil were calling the race Chris and his team were huddled in front of TV
monitors in the NBC broadcast trailers watching the entire race. This is where they would
talk and plan their shows. As soon as the race was over they had a team of three other
commentators who would go directly to the finish to do interviews. There interviews were
used for the post-race wrap up. Multiple producers were always scurrying around the trail-
ers working closely with the team to stay on schedule and to film their shows as needed.
NBC had a crew of 60 people working around the clock from the Connecticut office in
three 45-foot tractor trailers. The 2019 Tour de France was one for the record books. Our own Chris Horner, the oldest
Grand Tour winner in history, at 41, jumped into the broadcast studio and was right at
home, and the youngest racer to ever to win went home to Columbia as a new hero to an
entire country.
Every finish line had hundreds of trucks and trailers from media, television, writers, pho-
tographers, security personnel, and support staff from all over the world. Most sporting
Chris Horner is planning on being in the 2020 NBC broadcast trailer for the 107th Tour
de France, as well in the bike saddle enjoying many rides. Chris follows the cycling scene
big time, and this allowed him to come into the broadcast studio with deep knowledge of
the current race season as well as Tour history. This is why NBC hired him, and I imagine
this part of Chris Horner’s cycling career is just getting started.