PORT ANGELES — Actor Tom Skerritt and former U.S. Sen. Bill Bradley will share the stage at the Sept. 16 Lower Elwha Klallam tribe’s fundraising dinner to mark the tear-down of the Glines Canyon and Elwha dams, the largest-ever dam removal project.
Although invited, President Barack Obama won’t be there — and he won’t be among those attending the Sept. 17 ceremonies that will mark the beginning of the end of the dams.
“At this time, we’ve been informed that he is not going to appear,” Latrisha Suggs, the tribe’s assistant director for Elwha River restoration, said Tuesday.
Tickets for the 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. Sept. 16 dinner at the Vern Burton Community Center in Port Angeles are $150 and $300.
For $300, “distinguished sponsors” receive dinner, two glasses of wine, priority seating, a $55-value gift and a commemorative program with their names listed, Suggs said.
Distinguished-sponsor tickets will be sold until one week before the event.
For $150, “patron sponsors” receive dinner, one glass of wine and the commemorative brochure with their names listed.
The dinner will include an auction.
The evening’s proceeds will benefit higher education scholarships and youth programs for Native American youths.
Tickets are available at the art gallery at the Elwha Klallam Heritage Training Center at 401 E. First St. in Port Angeles and at www.brownpaperticket.com.
Skerritt, a longtime environmentalist who lives in Seattle, will be the dinner’s opening speaker.
Bradley will deliver the dinner’s keynote address.
Skerritt appeared in the movies “A River Runs Through It,” “Top Gun,” “M*A*S*H,” “Harold and Maude,” “Alien” and “Steel Magnolias.”
He won an Emmy for playing the role of Sheriff Jimmy Brock in the TV series “Picket Fences.”
Skerritt has visited the Elwha River watershed and is a board member of American Rivers, the river restoration organization that helped spearhead legislation calling for the dams’ removal, Suggs said.
American Rivers also is holding its annual board meeting in Port Angeles during “Celebrate Elwha!,” a series of events Sept. 13-Sept. 18 that focus on the dam removals project.
Bradley was a New Jersey Democratic senator from 1979 to 1997 and is an author, Rhodes scholar and member of the Basketball Hall of Fame.
He also was a driving force in passing the Elwha River Ecosystem and Fisheries Restoration Act, signed into law by then-President George H.W. Bush in 1992.
“He was one of our main advocates for the legislation in the Senate,” said Robert Elofson, the tribe’s director for Elwha River restoration.
The 210-foot Glines Canyon Dam — companion to the 108-foot Elwha Dam — will be the largest dam ever removed anywhere in the world, American Rivers spokeswoman Amy Kober said Tuesday.
American Rivers has a database of all dam removal projects worldwide, she said.
The organization has reserved 40 of the 450 tickets available for the dinner, Suggs said.
Catered by the Red Lion Hotel in Port Angeles, the buffet-style meal will include salmon, crab, shrimp, beef, garlic-mashed potatoes and green beans with toasted almonds.
Capping the feast will be a 3-foot- to 4-foot-tall cake symbolizing the project that will be baked by Dream Cakes of Port Angeles.
Events during “Celebrate Elwha!” include a themed poetry reading Sept. 13, the tribe’s hatchery ribbon-cutting Sept. 14, a two-day science symposium beginning Sept. 15 and a lecture by environmentalist and Patagonia outdoor clothing gear company founder Yvon Chouinard Sept. 16.
Dignitaries at the Sept. 17 daytime event will include Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, National Park Service Director John Jarvis, Sen. Patty Murray and Rep. Norm Dicks.
Dicks’ congressional district includes Clallam and Jefferson counties.
The nationally syndicated radio program “eTown” also will broadcast Sept. 17 from Port Angeles with interviews and live performances from the Port Angeles High School auditorium.
For more information about events during “Celebrate Elwha!,” visit http://tinyurl.com/3zysae3.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-417-3536 or at paul.gottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
