Jazz in the Rose City is blossoming with youthful innovation these days in a Pacific Northwestern cult fueled by creativity. While expressing the independent spirit of Oregon, this emerging jazz culture also remains connected to the past.
Jill McClaran wears her blonde hair to her waist and spurs on her cowboy boots. The 27-year-old spends her days in the saddle herding cattle along the basalt rims and airy benches of Hell’s Canyon. Out of cell phone range and hours from the nearest town, this University of Idaho graduate looks over a thousand McClaran Ranch cattle as they graze the rugged and wild eastern Oregon grasslands.
At this point in his bizarre life much is known about Dwight “Danger” Schrute III, an under-appreciated second-tier paper salesman in NBC’s hit series “The Office.” Actor Rainn Wilson plays the socially awkward, confrontational character who plies children with true/false questions such as, “The black bear is the greatest known bear alive,” only to blurt out, “False! All bears are the greatest known bears alive.” Like many aspiring salesmen, Dwight’s wardrobe is an ill-advised étude in mustard-colored shirtsleeves. Perhaps more troubling than his fashion sense, are his supernatural claims. Foremost among these is his power to recall his own singleton birth after he “resorbed” his twin in utero. A little-known fact about actor Rainn Wilson is his connection to Oregon. Wilson’s wife went to high school in Portland, and the couple and their young son are also part-time residents of Sisters, Oregon, where they own a small cabin. Wilson was…
While vestiges of the Heppner Flood remain everywhere, the small rural town at the foot of the Blue Mountains is channeling the luck of the Irish with a Celtic history that remains today. Its St. Patrick’s Day celebration is great shillelagh and shenanigans.
Problem solver and potter Douglas Sigstad abandoned aeronautics for classes in clay and glaze at Portland Community College. Since then, he has begun creating and cataloguing a library of stunning glazes that challenge the status quo.
Bill Stoller never pictured himself settling down in his hometown of Dayton, Oregon, but an interest in wine and a passion for farming brought the multimillion dollar business owner back to his roots. “You can take the boy out of the country,” Stoller says, “but you can’t take the country out of the boy.”
Over the past three years, the U.S. economy flew off the tracks and along with it Oregon. There was the housing crisis in which no one could say definitively who owned their mortgage; the credit crunch in which banks were given free money but would not lend it; the overt failure of the financial system in which Wall Street once again reminded us that it cares for none but its own and owns Washington; the once-a-decade failure of credit rating agencies, building on their Enron and Worldcom successes and still well compensated by the businesses they objectively scrutinize.
Columbia River Bar Pilots put their lives—and millions of dollars of commerce—into play each day as they jump aboard commercial vessels trying to navigate the turbulent mouth of the Columbia River and a narrow channel where inches are the difference between success and failure.
Along the Rogue and McKenzie rivers across the past hundred years, the famed Oregon drift boat was born and refined. From yesterday’s bathtubs with oars to today’s sleek custom models, this vessel has become synonymous with Oregon rivers.
