White Cedar Days

The children go first. On the Friday morning of White Cedar Days, after a flag ceremony at Bicentennial Park, the children’s parade forms in front of the elementary school in Powers. In 2015 the city recorder described its usual course: west on Poplar Street, north on Second Avenue, east on Fir Street, and in at Bicentennial Park. The Powers Action Team, a nonprofit, runs a carnival there afterward. Patterson said it “generally” includes “games geared toward younger kids”: ring toss, putt-putt golf, tables for decorating T-shirts. In 2018 Pat Moffett of the Senior Activity Center sold tickets to it. After the 2026 festival, the organizers thanked the Action Team’s women for a carnival that the children enjoyed “completely FREE.”

Powers is a rural community of about 700 people in Coos County, eighteen miles up Highway 242 from its junction with Highway 42. The county describes mountains and ranch land around it, and a 1915 reporter called it “the old logging community.” White Cedar Days is the town’s Fourth of July. The weekend runs Friday through Sunday on whatever dates fall nearest the holiday. In 2024 it ran July 5 through July 7. The Powers Lions Club has long sponsored it, through what the city recorder in 2015 called “the Powers Lions Club White Cedar Days Committee.” The 2026 thank-you notice was signed by Anthony and Candace, who also run a Powers restaurant called The Code. They thanked their staff for keeping it open “while we were running the streets, checking on vendors, organizing the Lawn Mower Races, making sure the Shodeo was ready to go, and putting out one fire after another.”

The Grand Parade on Poplar

The main parade steps off at 11 a.m. on Saturday. In 2015 the city recorder, Stephanie Patterson, gave its typical route: west on Poplar, north on First Avenue along the Powers Highway, east on Spruce Street, then south on Second Avenue. “The best viewing spots are along the highway near (the) vendor row and along Second Avenue near the Bicentennial Park,” she said. The City of Powers delivers the barricades that line the parade route. The 2018 parade carried local organizations, safety officials, and residents under that year’s theme, “Small Town America.”

Before the parade, the 5K and 10K walk-run starts at Second and Fir. Reports from 2015 and 2018 describe the longer course as a race out to Elk Creek Falls. In 2018 the Powers track and field team hosted the run to raise money for its program. The same year’s festival added a pie-baking contest and apple bobbing.

Choker cables at Powers Ranch

On Saturday afternoon the Loggers Shodeo takes over a field owned by Powers Ranch. In 2015 that field was Powers Ranch South, at the southeast corner of Hemlock Street and Fourth Avenue. Adults compete in choker setting, log splitting, a tire-flip race, and the ax throw. Photographs from 2018 show competitors dragging choker cables through an obstacle course while a crowd watches. The logs come from outside the town. For the 2026 Shodeo, Lone Rock Resources lent them, Chuck Bracelin hauled them into town on his self-loading truck, and Braden of Merchen & Reed set them in place. Green Mountain Chipping donated a STIHL weed eater as a prize.

The Shodeo has carried side contests. In 2015 Patterson described the Burly Beard Face-Off as a “short event held at the Loggers Shodeo where anyone with facial hair can compete in a crowd participation judging of their beard’s burliness, bushiness, uniqueness, redneck-y quality or general showmanship.” That year a Lil’ Loggers Shodeo for children ages 4 to 12 offered tire rolling and other games. In the Wacky Wagon Derby, teams of two children raced head to head on a hay-bale track, one child steering a wagon while the other pushed. A 2018 photograph shows Brody Harless, 10, speeding through hay bales. By 2026 the weekend also included lawn mower races.

Biscuits, burgers and chicken-poop bingo

The Powers Senior Activity Center, at 120 Fir Street just down from city hall, serves a biscuits-and-gravy breakfast on Saturday and Sunday mornings. “The funds raised from the two-day breakfast are earmarked to help offset costs for the center to remain open, including utilities,” Patterson said in 2015. “The center’s core group has dwindled in recent years and fundraisers have been difficult to pull together with fewer and fewer volunteers.”

At the baseball fields, the Lioness Burger Shack sells burgers all three days. In 2018 the Lioness Club served food and drinks during a two-day co-ed softball tournament on the Lions Softball Field, raising money for local scholarships and town projects. On Saturday afternoon in 2024, Chicken Poop Bingo was played at the gas station. Ordinary bingo followed at the Senior Center at 5 p.m., and a car and bike show filled the gas station lot on Sunday.

The music runs late. In 2024 the Friday program held a radio block party with 97.3 KSHORE at the blue shelter in Powers County Park. The band Good Vibes played the Powers Tavern that night, and Face Plant played Saturday. In 2015 the tavern booked a band called Done Deal for both nights. The same year, disc jockey Sonny Love played a teen street dance by the tavern’s picnic area. Sunday that year brought gold panning for children, the Berry Pickers playing in the city park, and a horseshoe tournament. The Pioneer House Museum gave tours on the holiday.

Fireworks over the County Park

The weekend’s last act on Saturday is fireworks at Powers County Park, which lies within the city limits. In 2024 the Lions Club presented them at 10 p.m. In 2018 the Lions Club sponsored the show and the city fire department put it on. The show depends on donations. In 2015 the club set a $4,000 budget and asked residents for money, citing rising costs.

Spectators gather in a county campground of 70 sites and three cabins. A steam logging yarder, a “steam donkey” used in Coos County logging in the early 1900s, stands on display there. A hand-carved totem pole, 20 feet tall, stands along the walkway. The park’s south end borders a man-made pond of more than 30 acres, stocked with trout, bass, catfish, and crappie. The South Fork of the Coquille River is within walking distance.

A fire chief in 1976

The town keeps little paper on how the festival began. “White Cedar Days was first held in 1976 with the City of Powers Volunteer Fire Department’s chief, Pete Petersen,” Patterson said in 2015. “We don’t have any documented history in the city records on the event unfortunately.” Forty years on, the committee opened the 2015 festival with local youth singers and Matt Rowe of Coquille, under the slogan “Cheers to 40 years!”

Each year a grand marshal rides at the head of the Saturday parade. For the 42nd celebration in 2017, the committee chose Kenneth and Phyllis Stevens. Kenneth was born on Birch Street in Powers in 1922. He served in the Navy in World War II and survived the attack on Pearl Harbor. The couple pastored the Powers Church of God for two years by driving in from Myrtle Point, then moved to town in 1962 and lived in the same house afterward. Kenneth worked in logging and joined Ray Bartley and Darwin Pullen in forming BPS Logging Co. The couple led a campaign to build a new church, which burned shortly after completion, and they led the rebuilding that followed. They retired from the pulpit on June 30, 1997. Kenneth also served on the school board and the city council, and two of their children, Kayleen Hofsess and Sam Stevens, became teachers in the Powers School District.

The next year’s grand marshal was Rhett Davis, who came to Powers in 1998 and retired as police chief in December 2017. Pat Moffett had been helping with the festival since moving to town more than 30 years before. “Some of my favorite things about the event is the main parade and helping with the carnival,” she said that summer.

The organizers closed their 2026 notice with a line and three emblems: “Until next year… ❤️🌲🇺🇸”