The Prefontaine Memorial in downtown Coos Bay is one of the tributes to the late distance runner in the Bay Area. World Photo by Lou Sennick.

Each fall, hundreds of runners honor the memory of Steve Prefontaine with the Prefontaine Memorial Run, the largest annual sporting event on the South Coast.

In the next few months, a new permanent memorial to Prefontaine will be put into place, consisting of a series of plaques along the race course.

The plaques, as well as a brochure about the plaques and about Pre, will be paid for in part through a grant from the Oregon Tourism Commission through its Travel Oregon program.

The Prefontaine Hometown Project is a $21,000 endeavor designed to honor Prefontaine, a Marshfield graduate who held every American record between 2 miles and 10,000 meters at the time of his death in 1975.

“We couldn’t be more excited,” said Bob Huggins, the executive director of the Prefontaine Memorial Committee. “This gives our community a chance to share the legacy of Pre with the thousands of fans who still look up to him.”

While the local focus might  be on the series of plaques, which each will include an image of Pre, along with one of his records or a famous quote, Huggins is equally excited about the brochure, which will include history of Prefontaine’s accomplishments, as well as information about the plaques and points of interest along the race route. It also will highlight the Prefontaine Gallery at Coos Art Museum, the Prefontaine Memorial in downtown Coos Bay, Prefontaine Track at Marshfield High School and his burial site at Sunset Memorial Park.

“I think it will allow us to produce a nice brochure about Pre that we’ve never done before that a lot of people request,” Huggins said.

The brochure will include a lot of information that is available in a number of different places, but has never been combined in one publication, Huggins said.

A lot of the brochures will be kept in the area, but many will be sent across the state to visitors centers and motels, as well as running trade shows, said Katherine Hoppe, the director of promotions and conventions for the Coos Bay-North Bend Tourism & Promotions Committee, who wrote the grant application to the Oregon Tourism Commission.

Formal work on the project won’t begin until next month, when the final grant documents are signed, Hoppe said.

But by next June, the 10 plaques will be completed and in place and the brochure will be ready for distribution.

“Everything has to be completed by June 30,” Hoppe said. “We’ll have it done sooner.”

One thing that excited Hoppe is the community nature of the project.

While a subcommittee of the Prefontaine Memorial Committee will choose the quotes and images for the plaques, the city of Coos Bay will handle the installation. The distance running program at Marshfield will be in charge of doing a deep cleaning of the plaques each year.

“It will give a sense of history for the students,” Hoppe said.

She hopes to work with the Coos Art Museum on a method for visitors to make etchings of the plaques.

Specific locations for the 10 plaques have not yet been determined, though most will be on the race course and one likely will be at Prefontaine Track in Pete Susick Stadium, where the race ends, Huggins said.

In addition, the brochure likely will focus on Pre’s younger days and his accomplishments at Marshfield High School, before he went on to fame through his career at the University of Oregon and as an international runner, including his fourth-place finish in the 5,000 meters at the 1972 Olympics.

The grant from the Oregon Tourism Commission is for $5,000.

To date, another $11,000 has come in through monetary and in-kind donations.

“Every entity that we approached for letters of support all said yes, from the cities of Coos Bay and North Bend to Senator (Joanne) Verger and Nike,” Hoppe said. “We’ve received in-kind donations from the city of Coos Bay for the installation of the plaques, the advertising agency Echo Design in Wilsonville, and John Helfrich, a Marshfield graduate in California, for the design of the plaques,” Hoppe said.

The donations include $5,000 from the Promotions Committee — $500 for postage and $4,500 cash.

“We think it’s going to be a good thing and it’s well worth it,” Hoppe said. “Since it’s funded by the hotel tax, we think it’s a good investment and it’s going to come back to us.”

Hoppe said the project is a perfect way to honor Prefontaine and help the economy by inviting Pre’s fans to visit his hometown.