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NEIGHBOR Nov, 25 What's in a name? An elementary school will be named after longtime resident Alberta Ride By LUCIANA LOPEZ THE OREGONIAN Iberta Riderwas dancing the tango in her 80s.
In a svvirling ballroom dress with feathers at the hem, she won awards for her ball- room dancing that now stand on a pump organ in her longtime Bull Mountain home. Though a leg injtuy
has kept her from dancing recently, Rider has remained anything but sedate. Now 91, she has lived in her log cabin almost continuously since 1945, putting down roots and vol- unteering
in the community. Soon her name will grace a new elementary school being built on land she sold to the Tigard- Tualatin School District, which named the school after her. Music and
dance have been a part of her long life since she was 5. Her father died in an Arizona mining accident, and Alberta's grieving mother went to live with Alberta's grandmother. Alberta's
two older sisters and two younger brothers stayed with their mother, but 5-year-old Alberta Craig, sad, confused and uncertain, went to live with her childless Aunt Lottie and Uncle
Winnie. "l stepped into their home, and I heard the most beautiful some- thing," Rider remembers, describ- ing the sound from the hand- cranked Victrola in the living room. "I just
had to start dancing. I had to do what the music told me to do." She stayed nith her aunt and uncle through her college years, and the couple shaped much of her life to come. One day
her un- cle came home early from the meat market he owned and saw her dancing. He taught her the waltz, her first dance. Her aunt also noted the girl's fascination with music and signed
her up for piano lessons at 50 cents each. That musical bent propelled Rider into her first job: playing the piano at a local theater, where the movies were still silent. "I had to
watch the pictüre to see what kinds of music I should be play- ing," she savs. she met Charles Warren Rider, a veteran of World War I who worked as- a sound engineer. He had lied about
his age to serve in that war, and when World War II came, he again answered the call. He and Alberta, whose first marriage had ended in divorce, kept in touch. When he got back, they
married, and his old com- pany offered him several choices of where to live. Alberta had a younger brother in Portland, so they moved to Oregon. Housing was tight, and the Rid- ers
lived in å motel until someone told them about a log cabin on Bull Mountain. They peeked in the front vvindow, and the high ceiling of the living room looked like heaven. It was 1945,
and the cou- ple moved in, along with Alberta's two children from her first mar- riage. The Southwest metro area be- came their home. They had an- other son and put down roots. Al-
berta kept up her music, writing music and playing the piano at weddings, funerals, school and church fttnctions and wherever else she was needed. Sheron Gibb, a friend of Rider for
more than 30 years, says Rider has played at hundreds of wed- dings and productions of all kinds at their church. "You've never known a harder worker than Al- berta, " The Riders left
Oregon for about six years, moving to Mexico after Ren, as he was known, re- tired from his job as a sound engi- neer. They rented out their Bull Mountain home but held onto it for
their eventual return. Her husband died in 1980 after an illness, and his death still leaves Rider at a loss for words. It was after his death that she took up ballroom dancing, taking
lessons at a nearby school. She danced, and won contests, from Seattle to Los Angeles. Several years ago, while search- ing for a site for a new school, the Tigard-Tualatin School District
stumbled on Rider's secluded acreage on Bull Mountain. She and the district began negotiat- ing. Although the discussions sometimes got testy, they eventu- ally came to an agreement:
The district would buy about 11 acres from Rider, who would continue to live in her cabin as part of the deal. 'The district hopes to open Alberta Rider Elementary School next fall.
"I think we wanted her to feel good about selling the land tp us," says Susan Stark Haydon, a dis- trict spokeswoman. "It tumed out to be such a great name for the school after we got
to know Al- berta and how much she valued education and the fine arts. " For Rider, life has been educa- tion, from her first years in Arizo- na to finding her home on Bull Mountain.
"Even the bad things, you learn from each experience," Rider says. "This whole land and its sur- roundings, it's taught me. " Luciana Lopez: 503-2945976; lucianalopez@news.oregonian.com