by Justin Aufdermauer
Executive Director
It must be Tillamook County Fair season, because lately I’ve been dreaming of elephant ears, Pig ‘n’ Fords and new Tillamook jacket designs!
Here at the Chamber we prepare for the fair by creating a line a Tillamook apparel for the year, which we officially start selling at the county fair. Each design features something to positively promote our town, whether that’s just the words Tillamook, Oregon, or a colorful design with a forest, fish or dairy cow.
The Chamber first launched its apparel line about 8 years ago after noticing that there were limited opportunities for visitors to purchase clothing promoting our town. We saw visitors wearing shirts from Seaside and jackets from Newport, but nothing from Tillamook.
So we started our own line of Tillamook, Oregon, sweatshirts and shirts to sell from our Chamber headquarters. All of the designs are created in-house by our local staff, and we have all of the clothing printed locally at PSI Screen Printing & Embroidery Services.
About six years ago, we started bringing our apparel from our booth at the Tillamook County Fair. What originally started as an idea to fill a gap in our visitor services grew into a way for our residents to show their pride for Tillamook. Local families began buying the sweaters and shirts, and now we see our friends and neighbors happily wearing their Tillamook apparel around town. We even know some families who stop by the booth every year to buy the latest designs, and they’ve never missed a year to update their Tillamook hoodies.
We are excited to continue offering the community apparel they are proud to wear, and we love that you can help us promote this town we love so much with a high-quality hoodie for a reasonable $30 for adult sizes or $20 for kid sizes.
So catch us at the fair Aug. 11-14 at our booth right next to the Tillamook ice cream booth in the Main Pavilion. We’ll have three brand new designs, as well as the 2020 line, which wasn’t available at the fair last year due to the circumstances.
We hope to see you there with elephant ear in hand and Tillamook apparel on!