Boring: anything but dull

Celebrities performed Saturday on an amplified concert stage on the playing field at Boring Middle School

By Jim Hart

The Sandy Post, Aug 18, 2009, Updated Oct 30, 2009

Jim Hart / Sandy Post

With the video camera raised high above the crowd, Boring residents gather around the concert stage set up at Boring Middle School for the MTV Network Toshiba Set Me Free Summer Event. On stage in this photo is Amy Schumer, a stand-up comedian from Comedy Central.

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Forty years after the first Woodstock festival, two more events sent the sounds of music and cheering across open fields.

This time, however, the scene was not in New York state; it was in Boring, Ore., and Normal, Ill.

A week after the event in Illinois, the community of Boring avoided boredom Saturday night as MTV Network and Toshiba came to town and set up a concert stage and game lounges, bringing familiar celebrities to a town Toshiba has dubbed affectionately as mundane, dull and bland.

Emceed by Dave Scott of KINK-FM, the MTV Network Toshiba Set Me Free Summer Event entertained the crowd on the field at Boring Middle School with a comedy routine by Comedy Central’s Amy Schumer, the MTV band that calls itself “The Lives of Famous Men” and UFC Fighter Nate Quarry.

The entertainment reporter for MTV Networks and Toshiba was Toby Turner.

The event was first staged from 5 to 8 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 8 in Normal, Ill. During the week that followed, several motorhomes and other vehicles as well as a huge semi-trailer carried everyone and everything needed for the event from Normal to Boring – a continuous 40-hour trip for a long-haul trucker.

There’s still time to vote

The event was staged with about a month left in the voting. The ballot question is: Which town is making the most exciting and interesting use of its laptops? Voting ends Sept. 13 at noon, with results announced Sept. 14.

Even though Normal is about eight times larger than Boring, the Oregon town currently has a slight edge of votes over the Midwesterners.

Local residents may see the videos each week and cast votes weekly by visiting the Web at http://laptops.toshiba.com/boringvsnormal.

In the contest, six specially selected residents from each town were assigned to show who could harness the power of Toshiba’s laptops to break through boredom and earn their local schools a technology upgrade of $15,000 worth of the specific computer technology most needed by the schools.

Here are Boring’s entrants

Boring’s half-dozen included Garrett Eisert, an 18-year-old punk rocker; Elizabeth Fournier, an undertaker affectionately known as the “green reaper”; Mike McGuire, a 57-year-old volunteer firefighter just starting his training; Amy Morrison, the only female firefighter in Boring; Codi Sorenson, a 15-year-old budding documentary filmmaker; and Andy Welk, a firefighter and the de facto mayor of the unincorporated community.

The reason the small towns were selected for this promotion wasn’t just because of the wordplay.

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