and become part of the official logo for the Oregon Bicycle Racing Association.
Last Thursday, maintenance crews painted over a memorial stencil that had been created by friends of Brett Jarolimek. While the stencil’s creators (who went to art school with Jarolimek) consider working with ODOT on a permanent memorial, the moving image will live on in other ways.
One of the co-creators of the stencil left a comment over the weekend that said:
“We are going to be working on ways to give it a permanent legal home — hopefully where he was killed. It was a stencil so it can repainted anywhere, anytime we choose. We will see his image return soon enough.”
(Photo © Jonathan Maus)
On Saturday, the Oregon Bicycle Racing Association’s (OBRA) director Candi Murray, sent an email to members to gauge feedback on the possibility of using the stencil/silhouette image on the official OBRA logo. She wrote, “I thought about how we might keep his memory alive for our members.”
One reader replied and wrote that Murray’s idea, “completely transcends any need for the involvement of state or local bureaucracy to make it live on.”
Another idea Murray received in response was to “take it a step further” and create special edition hats, stickers and t-shirts with the image and give all proceeds to the Brett Jarolimek Memorial Fund.
Nothing is finalized yet, but I have talked to one of the stencil’s creators and he has already expressed willingness to work with OBRA on the project.
I also heard from Bike Gallery owner Jay Graves over the weekend. Graves said Jarolimek’s bike hangs from the ceiling of the Hollywood location (where he was an employee) and they plan to paint the stencil on a nearby wall.