BIG NEWS: A new book about Pilot Butte in the works

This is the big news I alluded to a few days ago.  PBSS/SMB has found a professional writer who is writing a book for us that will be sold at SMB 2014 as a fundraiser.  Tentatively titled, Tales, Tall Tales, and Outright Lies About Bend's Iconic Pilot Butte, the book will be a collection of stories written to provide maximum entertainment value.  Far from being a historical reference, the book will take into account the fact that stories change a bit with each telling.  The writer will combine that truth with her
writing skills to capture the essence of each story and then tell it in an interesting way.  To put it bluntly, its going to be one humdinger of a book for people who are interested in Pilot Butte.  It will also include other content besides the stories giving everyone a lot of what they would want in a book like this.

The writer is Linda Orcelletto who happens to live very close to Pilot Butte and has a great love for camping and hiking with family and friends, especially in Central Oregon. She is a Bend resident of nearly 20 years.  We couldn't have found a more perfect writer for this book.  Many of you will soon be getting to know her personally because guess where the stories will be coming from.  They'll be coming from all of us!

Use this link to submit a Pilot Butte story: https://www.emailmeform.com/builder/form/9HaeOtJbZX

You can submit as many stories as you want and we need as many as we can get.  Please submit only one story per form.  We anticipate getting a lot more stories than we can use.  The book this year will be more of a booklet, maybe 60 pages long.  As you might imagine, we are under a time crunch to get it published in time for SMB 2014.  So we have to limit its size and then be very selective on the stories so that it is as interesting as it possibly can be.  If a story you submit does not make it into the book for SMB 2014, it may for SMB 2015.  Yes, you heard right.  There will be a second edition that will be a full-fledged book.  Linda is with us through the entire 20 month project!

This is the first of many projects you will be hearing about that will raise money to help pay for the SMB event each year and also raise money that will be used directly to make improvements on the Butte.  Most of these projects raise money through things like royalties paid by a company for something we have developed.  In other words, they aren't about asking you to buy something.  But this one is cool because the book will help fulfill other parts of our mission while raising funds at the same time.  Eventually, we hope that all memberships will become life memberships and the money needed to fund the event will come from sources like these.