Big news everybody: we have a celebrity amongst us. Bluey the Foothill, a literal walking and talking small mountain, is starting his first year at Whitman College. Son of Gary Erikson, founder of the Cliff Bar, Bluey was born in the Blue Mountains despite his father’s Canadian residence. Freshly divorced, Bluey’s still-pregnant mother moved to the Blue Mountains region believing foothills would never be a large enough land feature to attract anything to do with cliffs.¹²

Bluey became Whitman’s mascot after a region-wide casting call for mountaineers, hilly landscapes and enthusiastic wheatfields. Other mascot candidates included Sweets the Onion and Goldie the Wheatfield. As a seasoned child actor/model, Bluey had done previous work in pamphlets for several local wineries and a handful of Expedia ads. 

Bluey divulged why he chose Whitman.

“In all honesty, I knew it was always going to be a bit hard to go out of state or really anywhere too far from home, I’m too attached. I thought about WSU, but at a recent mascot conference I met Butch T. Cougar and he almost bit my head off, so I decided to scrap the whole idea. When I was a kid I always wanted to go to UC Boulder, so I visited during senior year. Talk about being a small fish in a huge pond. At the end of the day, I’m Walla Walla inside and out, so how could I not choose a school ‘round my parts? ” 

Bluey plans to study Computer Science, but in his spare time assists the Geology department with their research on erosion and material recirculation (he gives them his fecal samples).

¹ Bluey might have daddy issues

² Bluey’s birth literally tore his mother a new one. She was very thankful that the Cliff Bar money she got from the divorce could pay for the reconstruction of her own grassy valley