This summer’s Hells Canyon Motorcycle Rally, which has become one of Baker County’s signature events over the past decade, will be the last under its current organization, but the Rally might have a future nonetheless.

Steve Folkestad of Portland, one of the founders of the event that brings several thousand people to Baker County in July, announced in a Facebook post Sunday that this year’s Rally, set for July 12-16, will be the final one.

Folkestad, 68, said he and other organizers, including Kurt Miller of Baker City, have spent the past two years searching for someone to take over the event.

“We just haven’t found anybody I felt would carry on the tradition in the way I would approve of,” Folkestad said this morning in a phone interview.

But Folkestad won’t preclude the possibility of the event continuing, at least in some form.

He hopes his announcement will “bring people out of the woodwork who might be the appropriate people to carry this forward.”

A potential replacement is the Baker County Chamber of Commerce.

Shelly Cutler, the Chamber’s executive director, said she has talked with both Folkestad and Miller about the Rally’s future.

“We would be interested in continuing the event, with the blessing of both Kurt and Steve,” Cutler said. “We definitely see the value of all the work they’ve put in. And it’s a huge economic boost for the county.”

Cutler said the Rally is the biggest annual event for Baker County’s lodging industry, and its demise would reduce revenue from lodging taxes, which help to pay for tourism marketing.

Cutler said she plans to “shadow” Miller and Folkestad during this year’s Rally to learn more about what it takes to put on the event.

See more in the April 2, 2018, issue of the Baker City Herald.