Every two years, more than 100 Smokey Bear enthusiasts from across the country come together so they can catch up with their friends and spend a couple of days celebrating one of the country’s foremost fire-prevention experts.

But members of the Smokey Bear Association are going to do something a little different when they gather for their biennial national convention in Bend this week. They’re opening the event up to the general public so that everybody can join the fun.

For the first time in its 19-year history, the Smokey Bear Association will let anybody who can complete the phrase “Only you can —” get a sneak peek into the world it has built preserving Smokey’s past, promoting his present and protecting his future.

This year’s celebration — which will be held at the Des Chutes Historical Museum and the Riverhouse Hotel & Convention Center — promises birthday cakes, children’s activities, 6-foot-tall stuffed bears and the chance to get a free tattoo.

“There’s just a really strong tie to Smokey here,” SBA President Jack Winchell, of Roseburg, said as he explained the association’s decision to open this year’s convention to the public.

About a bear

During the early days of World War II, the Wartime Advertising Council launched a massive advertising campaign that used slogans like “Loose lips sink ships” to remind people spies could be anywhere and they should keep any military information they had a secret.

This government-sponsored advertising agency teamed up with the U.S. Forest Service in 1942 to run a fire-prevention campaign after research revealed that nine out of 10 forest fires were caused by humans and could be prevented.

While the Cooperative Forest Fire Prevention program’s earliest slogans — “Forest fires aid the enemy” and “Our carelessness, their secret weapon” — stayed close to its war propaganda roots, the CFFP changed directions a little bit when the Walt Disney Co. gave it permission to use a “Bambi” character on fire-prevention posters when that movie came out in 1944.

This short-lived campaign showed the program’s leaders how effective animal characters could be in touting a fire prevention message, according to the CFFP’s website. They set out to brainstorm other animal-based characters to use in future fire-prevention campaigns and revealed the original Smokey Bear poster — which featured a bear pouring water on a campfire — on Aug. 9, 1944.

During the next 10 years, the Smokey Bear campaign’s popularity caught on like, well, wildfire.

The CFFP started using “Only you can prevent forest fires” as its slogan in 1947 and enlisted the help of noted radio personality Jackson Weaver to give Smokey Bear a voice in radio advertisements.

The program even got its own mascot in 1950 when a group of firefighters rescued a bear cub from a forest fire they were battling in New Mexico’s Capitan Mountains. Recognizing the considerable amount of interest this find was generating in the media, the program’s leaders found the bear a permanent home at the National Zoo, where the animal lived until it died in 1976 and was buried at a state historical site.

By 1964, Smokey Bear’s popularity had grown to the point where the U.S. Postal Service gave the fictional bear his own ZIP code — it was the only way it could handle his fan mail without slowing down the country’s mail-delivery system. The only other “person” to receive this distinction is the president of the United States, said Winchell with the Smokey Bear Association.

“They did such a good job (with the fire prevention campaign) that 90 percent of the population could remember his message,” said Winchell, 62. “It was really beat into our heads when we were younger.”

The association

To help the animal’s popularity reach its peak, Winchell said the federal government trademarked Smokey Bear’s image and licensed it to numerous private companies so they could make stuffed animals, belt buckles, toys and other memorabilia that people like Winchell now collect.

“I just like old things,” said Winchell, whose mother started collecting Smokey Bear memorabilia when he was a child because his father had a job working with the U.S. Forest Service. “It’s kind of a throwback thing.”

In 1997, many of these collectors formed the Hot Footed Teddy Association — the group had to use this name because it could not get the rights to use Smokey Bear’s name until a year and a half ago — to promote Smokey Bear’s legacy and remind people of the message he helped to spread. The group now boasts 100 to 150 dues-paying members and holds conventions at various spots across the country every two years.

“We have a long list of people who are very important in the Smokey Bear world,” Winchell said, explaining why he chose Bend for the site of this year’s convention — because a lot of these people live in Central Oregon.

This group includes four recipients of the U.S. Forest Service’s Smokey Bear award: Gary Marshall, community risk and fire safety manager at the Sisters/Camp Sherman Fire District; the Sunriver Homeowners Association; the Bend Fire Department; and the Central Oregon Fire Prevention Cooperative. Also included: an anonymous Central Oregon resident who owns one of the country’s largest collections of Smokey Bear memorabilia and SmokeyZone, a Tumalo-based company that makes large Smokey Bear statues to go with fire warning signs.

Recognizing these contributions, Winchell is expanding his group’s convention so it includes a special party to celebrate Smokey Bear’s 70th birthday at the Des Chutes Historical Museum from 3 to 6 p.m. Wednesday. This event will feature birthday cakes, a cake-decorating contest and a chance for parents to take their children’s pictures with Smokey Bear, firefighters and firefighting equipment.

The association’s members are following this party by hosting an open house from 5 to 8 p.m. Thursday at the River House Hotel & Convention Center, which will give people a chance to view the group members’ individual memorabilia collections, including a 6-foot-tall stuffed Smokey Bear, and will feature a number of raffles and drawings.

Winchell said one of the items he will be giving away at this event is a Smokey Bear tattoo that Dragonfly Body Art has agreed to do free of charge as long as its winner works or volunteers in a fire-related field and agrees to use the classic image in a positive light.

“Bend is a very fire-aware community,” Winchell said. “It has embraced my club and this convention like no one else has ever done before.”

— Reporter: 541-617-7816, mmclean@bendbulletin.com