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Greensprings benefit festival puts spotlight on elusive mushrooms Mail Tribune / Jim Craven Mushroom hunters on a tour walk past a morel, a fungus that looks remarkably like a fir cone, during the Greensprings Morel Fest in Pinehurst on Saturday. The event raises money for the tiny Pinehurst School District. By BILL KETTLER PINEHURST - Watch out, Muscoda, Wis. The Greensprings folks have their sights set on you. North America's newest morel festival debuted Saturday in this little mountain community 20 miles east of Ashland. They didn't crown a Miss Morel, the way they do in morel-mad Muscoda, but the Greensprings Morel Fest did have 10 gallons of morel leek soup, Cascade spring sunshine, clean mountain air, and enough morels in the woods to give curious newcomers an introduction to the elusive, savory mushroom. "In 10 years, we'll beat the pants off Muscoda," Alison Kling predicted with a laugh as she served up soup on a sun-washed deck. Morel festivals pop up all over the Midwest during May, drawing amateur mycologists to such exotic locales as Boyne City, Mich., and Elba, Minn. But for a few brief hours, Pinehurst was the morel capital of the Northwest. Some 300 people came to the Greensprings Inn to attend lectures, sample morel leek soup, and see morels in the wild. Families who live along the Greensprings Highway organized the event to raise money for the tiny Pinehurst School District. Morels thrive in the surrounding woods, and Pinehurst parents decided the mushroom would be an appropriate focus for a fund-raising program. Pinehurst parents created a nonprofit Pinehurst School Foundation to provide educational enrichments that school taxes don't support. A $10 donation to the foundation bought tuition to "Morel University," where Greensprings mushroom grower Lloyd Jensen shared his knowledge. After class, other Greensprings residents led students into the woods to show them how to look for morels. "I was amazed at how much they look like (fir) cones," said Steve Preston, of Ashland. "I imagine I've been walking on them for years." "Morels are hard to spot," said Greensprings resident Cam Patterson, as he pointed out several mushrooms beside fir cones. "You just have to take it slow. "You have to look at every fir cone and resolve it," he said. "Is that a morel or a cone?" "It's a great opportunity," he said. "Where else could your kid be in a public school where every kid basically gets an individual program?" McGuire has been known to recruit families for the school district. Oregon funds schools on the basis of total enrollment, and in a district where the total student population would fit in one big-city classroom, each new child represents a huge windfall. "If a family with three kids moves in, it increases the size of our school district 10 percent," he said. "That makes a huge difference in our funding." McGuire said Saturday's turnout should provide the impetus for the morel festival to become an annual event. "Our kids are getting excited about it," he said, noting that children were enjoying the flush of visitors. "You know how hard it is to get kids excited about anything!" Reach reporter Bill Kettler at 776-4492, or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.