Are You Smarter Than Sedro Woolley & Portlandia?

Apparently there are some residents of a couple Pacific Northwest towns who are slightly offput by a little attention from a couple types of media.

On Friday the Independent Film Channel (IFC) premiered a new comedy called Portlandia that sort of mocks Portland's liberated liberalness.

The YouTube video below is an intro to Portlandia.

And then, north of Portland, up in the Skagit Valley of Washington, the town of Sedro Woolley is being the butt of a Bellingham radio station's idea of a joke.

Two disc jockeys, John Reynolds and Brad Cash on 92.9 KISM, since August, have been running a segment on their morning show called "Are You Smarter Than Sedro-Woolley?"

Apparently the humor is based on the supposed stereotype that a lot of people view Sedro Woolley as a "redneck" town.

I grew up in the town just to the west of Sedro Woolley, Burlington. Somehow Woolley's reputation as a redneck town escaped my attention. I do recollect mention made of Sedro Woolley having some Tarheels in their schools, with Tarheels being people who came from the Deep South and who lived somewhere upriver from Sedro Woolley.

I don't actually understand how this radio contest works. Apparently the disc jockeys call someone living in their broadcast range, but out of Sedro Woolley, asking 2 current event type questions and one Sedro Woolley question that is, according to disc jockey, Cash, "A redneck kind of question."

I have no idea what a redneck kind of question might be. Or how answering these type questions somehow makes You Smarter Than Sedro Woolley.

Seems like a better question might be Are You Smarter Than These 2 Dumb Disc Jockeys?

Anyway, below is the aforementioned Portlandia video......

David Letterman Points Out Sedro Woolley on a Map While Almost Pronouncing the Name Correctly

When you grow up in Washington the names of places do not seem unusual or difficult to pronounce. Often it is names based on the Native American name that are a bit difficult to pronounce.

Like Puyallup. Rather than pronounce Puyallup as Pew-el-up, I have heard many bad manglings, like Pie-a-loop.

Sometimes it can be a non-Native American name that can befuddle someone.

When my mom and dad moved to Eugene, Oregon, where I was eventually born. upon arrival they were embarrassed to find they'd been mispronouncing one of the main Oregon rivers, it being the Willamette. My mom and dad were pronouncing it Will-a-meet-ee.

Mom and dad were born and raised in the Northwest. There is no excuse for them not knowing Willamette was pronounced Will-am-met. A Frenchified version of name for a Clackamas Indian Village.

This morning Betty Jo Bouvier, she known as one of the Wild Woman of Woolley, as in Sedro Woolley, with Sedro Woolley being a town in the Skagit Valley of Washington., sent me a video in which David Letterman tries to say a couple Washington place names, like Sedro Woolley and Anacortes.

Correctly pronounced See-dro Wool-lee and Anna-Cort-s.

The best part of this video is the Osama Bin Laden commercial for Vicks Vapo-Rub that runs before Dave goes into map reading mode...

Sedro Woolley's Loggerodeo

All those people in the old postcard are surrounding a big cedar stump in Sedro Woolley, Washington.

Long ago there were some mighty big trees growing out of the fertile soil of the Skagit Valley. But, they are ancient history now.

Since it is almost the 4th of July that means it is almost Loggerodeo time in Sedro Woolley. The 76th Sedro Woolley Loggerodeo starts up June 30 and ends July 4 with a big fireworks show at Riverfront Park.

The Loggerodeo Grand Parade starts up at 11am.

If you have yourself a big beard you might want to enter the Loggerodeo Beard Contest. I have no idea what constitutes a winning beard, but I do know that the judges are the Wild Women of Woolley.

You can find all you could possibly want to know about the Loggerodeo at the Sedro Woolley Loggerodeo website.