<p>Gwen Trice was photographed at the historic Maxville site this past summer for the Oregon Cultural Trust's "THIS is CULTURE" campaign. This image will appear on the envelope in a mailing to Trust supporters this week.</p>

It’s official: Wallowa County’s Gwen Trice is a cultural icon.

Trice is one of 13 Oregonians the Oregon Cultural Trust selected to help promote the Trust’s “This is Culture” campaign, which solicits donations to the Trust from current and past supporters. According to Trust Manager Kimberly Howard, Trice’s image will grace every envelope in a statewide mailing going out this week.

“So we’ll be featuring Wallowa County and Maxville across the state,” said Howard, referring to the setting for photographer Andy Batt’s August shoot with subject Trice, whose father was employed in Maxville timber operations in the 1930s.

Maxville is now a ghost town, but Trice is determined to discover and preserve its history – in part, so that other descendants of Maxville’s past workers can connect with that heritage.

Trice is the driving force behind the Maxville Heritage Interpretive Center, an organization that will probably be headquartered one day at the old Forest Service building in Wallowa.

The Trust’s 12 other cultural icons for its campaign – the lineup includes people involved in everything from music and dance, to comic book production and rock gardens – can be seen in a slide show at the Trust’s website, located at . Batt, an adjunct professor for the New York City-based School of Visual Arts’ Digital Masters of Photography program, performed all the photography.

Howard said the slide show’s photo subjects are “all featured in a place that means something to them – that connects them to Oregon culture.”

Batt photographed Trice in Maxville. The image selected for the envelope was shot in front of the ghost town’s last remaining structure, a log building that once served as logging company offices.

The Oregon Cultural Trust, established in 1999, has received nearly $25 million in donations since it began raising funds Dec. 1, 2002. At least $25 million more has gone directly to cultural nonprofits, however, reflecting a tax credit qualification requirement that Trust donors first give an equal or greater donation to a local nonprofit.