By Brenna Wiegand
Mount Angel’s 2012 Lifetime Achievement Award goes to Orville Roth, founder of Roth’s Fresh Markets.
“My relationship with Mount Angel goes back 46 years, when Paul DeShaw and other local people started a committee to have an Oktoberfest in Mount Angel,” Roth said. “Who would have ever thought it would be what it is today?”
He was a charter member of Silverton Kiwanis Club and jumped at the opportunity to raise funds.
Club members built the booth in Roth’s yard. They made their our own rye rolls and cooked their German sausages in beer.
“A loaf of bread, a pound of meat and all the mustard you can eat!’ – that was our slogan,” Roth said, laughing. “That first year we made $3,000 in four and a half days – unbelievable for a service club.”
Roth moved from Salem to Silverton in 1962, three weeks after opening his store.
“I knew that if you wanted to do business in a small community you’d better move to town,” he said. “I know that because when we went to high school we used to come over from Salem to date the girls in Mount Angel, but we’d get as far as the railroad tracks and those local boys would kick our butts. Small towns were pretty cliquish those days.”
Nowadays, folks in Mount Angel roll out the red carpet for visitors. Oktoberfest is one of several festivals Roth has sponsored in Mount Angel, and he has leant a hand to major projects like the 2011 construction of Mount Angel Festhalle.
“Orville Roth was one of our first donors, giving us $5,000 before we even started the building,” then-Oktoberfest Board President John Gooley said. “At the end he gave us another $5,000 to finish the kitchen.”
“I think the board showed foresight in saying, ‘We need to really reach out and redo this biergarten,’” Roth said. “To have a gorgeous building in a community like Mount Angel, Silverton and what it attracts in functions is unbelievable.”
“The guy is just fantastic,” said Jerry Lauzon, another former Oktoberfest Board president. “He’s out here on the Fourth of July with his little car throwing candy to the kids.”
Roth helped get the Mount Angel Wurstfest going five years ago and is largely responsible for the launch of a first Mount Angel Hazelnut Festival last December.
“He pulled these organizations together like the Oregon Hazelnut Association, the Hazelnut Growers Association and got Nutella to come in as a $5,000 sponsor,” Lauzon said. “He does this type of thing all of the time and he’s really quite good at it.”
A green bow tie and white shirt was the uniform at Erickson’s Grocery when Roth was hired at 16 and he just stuck with it. Now “Green Bow Tie Service” is part of local vernacular.
In 2000, he passed the role of president and CEO of the nine-store grocery chain to his son Michael Roth. Orville’s daughter Linda Roth is vice president and Orville, chairman of the board.
He’s assuming more the role of a cheerleader of a winning team.
In October Roth’s Fresh Markets received the Governors’ Gold Award for its support of Oregon Special Olympics.
