Men bare all for area schools

JUNCTION CITY, Ore. Cleve Dumdi native Oregonian, respected sheep rancher, husband of a former Lane County commissioner and staring at the wrong side of 70 was walking in this small Oregon town one day when a longtime acquaintance hailed him from across the street.

''Hey Dumdi!'' the man hollered. ''Didn't recognize you with your clothes on!''

It's the kind of ribbing Dumdi has had to grin and bear, ever since he disrobed and perched on his tractor for a 2004 nudie calendar featuring the men of the Junction City Grange.

All proceeds from calendar sales go to the Junction City school district, which has had to get rid of at least three classroom teachers, plus art, music, P.E. and field trips after recent severe state cutbacks in education budgets.

The calendar, on sale at www.grangecalendar.com for $17, is the latest Oregon gambit to raise money for local schools, in a state where teachers have already lined up to sell their blood plasma and ranchers have auctioned off the rights to hunt for buffalo and antelope on their property.

''Anyone who knows fund raising knows you can't make enough on a bake sale, and we have been jog-a-thoned to death,'' said Danuta Pfeiffer, the force behind the calendar and the wife of Mr. March, who obligingly posed holding up a well-placed pot of daffodils. ''We'd do backwards handsprings if we could raise $25,000 from this, but we are dreaming of $75,000 and a movie deal.''

She's not the first: the Helen Mirren film ''Calendar Girls,'' opening this Christmas and billed as a female ''Full Monty,'' tells the story of a group of prim ladies from northern England, who made a tastefully nude calendar of themselves doing various housewifely chores to raise money for leukemia research. The 2000 calendar sold like hotcakes, the ladies got endorsements galore, and suddenly, a pinup girl no longer automatically meant a sultry Baywatch babe.

Since then, their idea has been copied all over the globe, by everyone from firefighters in Vail, Colo., to senior citizen belles in South Carolina, to raise money for causes from new community centers to breast cancer research.

The men of the Junction City Grange think they are the first to drop their drawers for public education, though. Over the years, the local Grange has made periodic contributions to the school district, like a new oven for the home economics class or a saxophone for the band. But the current situation, they thought, called for more drastic measures.

There was some hemming and hawing. Dumdi, for example, had to be nudged into posing by his wife, then tried to show up for his photo shoot wearing swim trunks.

Mr. November, aka 53-year-old mushroom hunter Al Hasselblad, acknowledged that he also felt ''unnatural'' stripping down in front of the male photographer for his shoot, in which he is shown crouching to cut down some especially delectable fungus.

There was some jockeying among Grange men for month position too centerfold Mr. June, for example, scored that prime spot because he was set to pose hoisting a bag of golf clubs, and June is lovely weather for a round of golf. Chris Shown, Mr. September, laid claim to his month because that's when the grapes ripen at his Junction City vineyard; he is pictured artfully draped in grape leaves, holding up a glass of Oregon pinot noir.

The calendar is big news in Junction City, where Pfeiffer plans to hold calendar signings and rallies. The project has drawn a few angry letters in the local weekly, accusing the men of moral indecency, especially after the picture of a local school board member ran on the front page Mr. August in all his glory, naked except for a pair of backless chaps and a lasso slung over his shoulder. Still, there's been far more enthusiasm than complaints; Pfeiffer already has 500 pre-orders from locals.

''This one 80-year-old lady said to me, 'When is that calendar going to be actually published? Because I am a snowbird, and I want four copies before I leave for Arizona,''' Shown said.

The wives, meanwhile, are thoroughly enjoying themselves. Ellie Dumdi, for one, is mulling using her husband's nude portrait as their yearly Christmas card. She said her only regret about the project is that the men insisted on covering up their behinds with caps and cowboy hats when shooting a from-the-rear group portrait for the back of the calendar.

''I thought we were going to have a competition to see who had the best-looking tush,'' she said.

Mrs. April, Joyce Engels, whose husband posed holding a banjo over his unmentionables, is hoping his calendar appearance will help generate some interest in their musical duo, the Tin Ear Twangers.

''We've already got our first paying gig, at a retirement home next month,'' Engels said.

Still, all the men and their wives agree that the calendar is a one-time only offer; they're hoping that by this time next year, the state's school funding situation will have stabilized.

''This is just a Band-Aid until the Legislature gets it right, until the state of Oregon figures it out,'' Shown said. ''Maybe we will set an example for others to do something.''