BORING, Ore.—Stephen Bates has been a Boring man for 36 years. Now he has a plan to bring excitement to town by adding a little bit of Dull.

Mr. Bates lives in Boring, a rural community with about 8,000 residents about 20 miles southeast of Portland. He is the driving force behind the unincorporated town's new tourism push that centers on a partnership with the even tinier village of Dull, in Scotland.

Mr. Bates started the initiative to inspire a stronger sense of community for his Boring neighbors and to counter misperceptions from non-Boring people.

"It's not always boring in Boring," said Mr. Bates, 60 years old, chairman of the Boring Community Planning Organization, whose literature carries the catch phrase "The Most Exciting Place to Live."

Those efforts got a boost this spring when Oregon Gov. John Albert Kitzhaber signed a law marking Aug. 9 as "Boring and Dull Day." Since then, Mr. Bates and the rest of the Boring planners have been preparing the first "Boring and Dull Day Community Social," set for Friday.