As a teenager in Seattle, Brandon Roy worked on the docks, cleaning shipping containers while quietly nurturing his dream of playing college and professional basketball. By 2006, he was bound for the NBA, having graduated from University of Washington with a bachelor’s degree in American Ethnic Studies.
Winters are a delight for Lloyd Scroggins, a ski coach at Mt. Hood. Summers are a close second with hikes and mountain bike trails crawling all over Government Camp.
Every morning, Shelley Curtiss hikes the hills outside Joseph and observes the ever-changing lakes, rivers, mountains, buttes and canyons. “This landscape feeds my creativity,” she says. “And I take those creative juices back to my studio and give them visual expression.”
Editor, Kevin Max, caught up with David James Duncan, the author of The River Why, to explore a raft of ideas related to water. In the fall 2009 issue, Duncan tackles the notion of Water as Soul. That piece alone is a wonderful journey across the world, back through time and finally into the flesh of Duncan’s mind. In this interview, he wades deeper into political, environmental and the film based on his novel.
Pedaling through deep mud, sometimes over frozen snow-pack or dismounting to leap wooden barriers with bikes on their shoulders, riders in a growing cyclocross culture are creating an alternate reality for traditional cyclists and a custom mud-and-beer fit for Oregon.
Oregon schools are funded through two mechanisms: the State School Fund, carved primarily from state personal income tax, and local property taxes from homes, businesses and other properties within a school district’s boundaries. The majority of Oregon’s tax revenue (82%) comes from personal income tax, which is a volatile basis for education funding.
An ethnic Greek from Tanzania finds peace in Southern Oregon’s Jacksonville–a town with more buildings on the Historic Register than any other Oregon city.
An interview with Oregon’s LEED-ing lady and what’s next in sustainability. Christine Ervin was the first president and CEO of the U.S. Green Building Council—home of LEED and Greenbuild. Under the Clinton administration, she was the Assistant Secretary of Energy overseeing $1 billion in annual investments for clean energy. Today she runs her own consulting firm, e/co.
Oregon is one of five states that has no sales tax, thus making this topic a biennial favorite when the state budget is in critical condition. State services typically ride the boom/bust cycle with the two-legged property and income tax. Oregon Democrats and Republicans alike have argued for a more stable tax base to fund our public school system, which is often the biggest loser. A sales tax may never happen in this state, but the debate continues to shape this debate for 1859.
