Rick Dancer

Background

Rick Dancer was born on June 29, 1959, to Roy and Betty Dancer in Hillsboro, Oregon. He grew up there with three sisters and lived in Hillsboro for his first 24 years, graduating from Hillsboro High School in 1977.

Education

Dancer graduated with a bachelor of arts degree in communications from Pacific in 1983.

Career

A native of Hillsboro, he was a longtime anchor for KEZI television in Eugene. Among his other activities as anchor, he covered the Thurston High School shooting. He later left broadcasting to run as a Republican for Oregon Secretary of State, losing in the general election to Democrat Kate Brown in 2008.

In high school he worked for the local Copeland Lumber store before attending college at Pacific University in neighboring Forest Grove.

The day after leaving television, he official started his campaign for Oregon Secretary of State as a Republican. His campaign focused on advocating for converting the Secretary of State position into a non-partisan position, and also supported Ballot Measure 65 that would have created an open primary system.

He ran on the premise of being an outsider having never been in office before, while Brown touted her experience in public office. Dancer raised around $365,000 in his campaign through late October, compared to around $750,000 for Brown.

The biggest of his contributions came from timber companies.

Dancer pulled within six percentage points in polling in late October. Dancer garnered 785,740 votes compared to 873,968 for Brown. Dancer was mentioned as a possible candidate to run for the Republican nomination for Governor of Oregon in 2010.

Dancer is part of a group of filmmakers who began production in 2010 on a documentary film about former United States. Senator Mark O. Hatfield.

Achievements

• He won the primary unopposed and then faced Democratic state senator Kate Brown in the fall election. Brown won the November general election defeating Dancer and Pacific Green Party candidate Seth Woolley.