Ralph McDonald
When Ralph McDonald's job as national sales manager for Eugene's
Percon, Inc., maker of handheld scanners, was eliminated after the
company was sold in 2001, he decided to turn his hobby as an
antiquarian restoration bookbinder into a second career. "Starting
about 1820, masses of people began to read and a hundred times more
books became available," he explains. "No one wants to throw out books
that have been passed down for generations." McDonald buys and resells
antique books online and also works for bookstores, libraries, and
individuals. He recently repaired a copy of Jane Austen's Sense and
Sensibility for a centenarian who had received it from her mother in
1906. "A dog had eaten a corner," he reports. "I found another copy and
spliced them together." An Oregonian since age 12, when his family
moved from Caldwell, Idaho, to Salem, McDonald married Bev in 1971,
graduated from Western Oregon University in 1973, and moved to Eugene
in 1974. He took part in protests against the Viet Nam War in the
1970s, when he spent time in jail in San Francisco, and later against
U.S. interventions in Central America and the Middle East, but he has
recently focused on environmental issues. A river runner and a Sierra
Club member, he served as plaintiff in the Western Environmental Law
Center's legal action to protect the Western Pond Turtle in the Rogue
River. "I consider myself to be semi-retired," says McDonald, who
co-chairs the Southwest Hills Neighborhood Association along with Janet
Bevirt. " I have the time and flexibility to be a civic volunteer."
This year, as a member of the Eugene Sustainability Commission, he
chaired a committee that asked the city to ban the use of
anti-coagulant rat poison that also kills pets and other wildlife.
happening people
photograph and story by Paul Neevel
Eugene Weekly / 16 August 2018
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