For 14 Jamborees Walter Ray has sat at the backstage entrance, the man between the eager fans and the country music stars in the tightly secured lot behind the stage.
He takes his job personally.
“That’s my gate. Nobody else’s,” he says, matter-of-factly.
After all those years of keeping order at the gate to the stars, he has his job down to a science.
“I make sure everyone has the proper pass to get through my gate,” Ray said. “When we have Meet-and-Greet, I make sure they’re in a straight line. Before they come in I make sure they have their Meet-and-Greet (pass) on them.”
When the fans exit, he makes sure he marks an X on their pass with a black marker so there’s no chance the pass will end up doing double duty in the hands of someone else.
“I don’t want somebody coming up to me, saying, ‘I’m late for the Meet-and-Greet. Can I go in?” he said.
“Oh, you wouldn’t believe some of stories: ‘I’m his biggest fan.’ ‘I belong to his fan club.’ ‘My meet-and-greet didn’t arrive in the mail.’ I hear all kinds of stories.
“If they don’t have a Meet-and-Greet or laminated official pass, they ain’t coming through my gate.”
Ray, 54, lives in Yuba City, Calif., and spends most of the rest of the year working as a security guard at a Rite-Aid in nearby Woodland. A police officer and firefighter in Ottawa, Kan. for 10 years, he left there after “a bad divorce” and went “home” to California, he said.
He works the Jamboree for Elite Universal Security, which provides uniformed security guards for the event. His girlfriend, Laura Crumley, also works security for Elite at the Jamboree, often in front of the stage or helping with the Meet-and-Greet crowd.
Though he doesn’t approach performers, who often leave their tour buses and walk around backstage, he’s had some star encounters.
“Sammy Kershaw was talking to me one day and I didn’t even know who he was because he was wearing an old Tennessee sweatshirt and a dirty old ballcap,” Ray recalled. “I didn’t know who he was until later on, when he came out of the bus and smiled at me and gave me a thumbs-up.”
Ray’s had photos taken with Aaron Tippen, Terri Clark and Gretchen Wilson.
“Last year Neil McCoy’s manager came up and said that when I went on break there was someone who wanted to see me backstage,” Ray said. “It was Neil McCoy.”
He said he enjoys just listening.
“I’m a country boy,” he said. “Pam Tillis tried to get me to go up on stage one year. I had to decline. She was up there on stage singing and I was at my gate. I kept shaking my head ‘no.’ We can’t talk to them unless they talk to us.”
He’s been a fan himself. A couple of years ago he went to the Colusa Casino in northern California to hear Clark perform there.
“I talked to her manager and he took a photo of her and me back there and she autographed it,” he said. “It was the picture of us together, arms around each other, taken at the Oregon Jamboree.”
He said getting that photo was one of the highlights of his experience at the Jamboree.
He said he appreciates watching the whole operation that makes the Jamboree happen.
“If it wasn’t for (Festival Director) Peter (LaPonte) and his staff and all those volunteers, there wouldn’t be an Oregon Jamboree. That’s what makes the backbone of Jamboree.”
After all these years he clearly feels part of it all.
“This is mainly the only concert I really do,” Ray said. “Years ago I used to do different concerts. But I love going up there every year because it’s like family. When you keep going back to the same place every year, people expect to see you. They say it wouldn’t won’t be same without you.”