Paul Hanneman Remembered

In 2017 Oregon lost Paul Hanneman. He spent 26 years in the Oregon legislature representing citizens of the central Oregon coast. His home was Pacific City and he was involved in two of the landmark environmental  accomplishments of the late 1960s and early 1970s here in Oregon. The Oregon Bottle Bill when first introduced in 1969 was met with stiff opposition, including opposition from future supporter Governor Tom McCall. Eventually Paul Hanneman and Richard Chambers were eventually able to get McCall on board in 1971 and HB 1036 was passed with a lot of opposition from grocery stores and the beverage industry. Hanneman was the sponsor of the legislation.



The other bill he worked on was the Oregon Beach Bill. Both bills he suggested were produced from the hard work of a lot of people and one of his big frustrations throughout his life was that leaders like McCall and Bob Straub got a lot more credit for the passage of these landmark policies that defined Oregon for several generations. Instead, Hanneman believed that the people of the Oregon coast were often overlooked in passing out praise for the passage of these bills. He worked hard at trying to shed light on others involvement with the bills. In 2016 he published a book about his experience working on them and the others who helped shaped them. The book is entitled "The Inside Story: The Beach and Bottle Bills".

Prior to the book I did not know much about Hanneman. I knew that he had been a sponsor of the bottle bill and had worked on the beach bill with other legislators. This past session in the Oregon Legislature, Representative David Gomberg gave a very nice speech recapping Hanneman's life. Here is that speech.



The buttons pictured at the top of the page are from some of his various campaigns for the legislature. I had owned the smaller one for some time and recently picked up the two larger pins. The day his memorial resolution were voted on at the capitol a lot of his friends and family attended wearing some of the larger pins and even some 2.25" pins.

If you have some Paul Hanneman items please feel free to email us and we will add them to the post.