Think Out Loud

The Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland is celebrating its 90th season. It’s long been one of the most prestigious professional theatres in the nation. But in recent years, it’s faced slings and arrows - from declining audiences and funding to wildfires and the pandemic. Executive Director Gabriella Calicchio began last fall after more than 25 years leading arts organizations in California and elsewhere. She joins us to talk about what OSF will do to appeal to audiences and regain financial footing - in the short and long term future. 

Teams from two Oregon high schools will soon put their hospitality and culinary skills to the test at the National ProStart Invitational. At the statewide competition last month, Crook County High School took the top prize in the culinary competition, while the Salem-Keizer Career Technical Education Center won the restaurant management category. Both teams will compete against schools from across the country at the national invitational in Baltimore next month. 

Riley McCartney is a member of the restaurant management competition team at Salem-Keizer CTEC. Tayah Hagensee mentored the culinary team at Crook County High School after competing for two years. She was also named this year’s Oregon ProStart Student of the Year. They join us with more details about what it’s like to pitch a restaurant or cook a three-course meal in front of a panel of judges.

Students from Sprague High School in Salem and Lincoln High School in Portland are co-champions of a national civics competition that tests students’ knowledge and understanding of the U.S. Constitution. But it’s how they won that has made this year’s “We the People: The Citizen and the Constitution National Finals” one for the history books. 

Sprague High School’s team consisted of just two members, seniors Matthew Meyers and Colin Williams. They won a spot at the national finals in Washington, D.C. after winning second place in the state competition in January, behind Lincoln High School. 

At the finals, Meyers and Williams faced off against teams with 20 or more players in the 3-day competition, fielding questions about constitutional law and Supreme Court cases from a panel of judges and legal experts. When the scores of all 32 teams were tallied, the duo from Salem were initially declared winners on April 11, with the Lincoln team finishing in third place. But according to reporting by The Oregonian and New York Times, Patrick Magee-Jenks, who teaches social studies at Lincoln High and coaches its constitution team, found what appeared to be a mistake in his team’s score.

That prompted officials at The Center for Civic Competition, which organizes the annual competition, to investigate and correct the scoring results, with both Sprague and Lincoln High School prevailing as this year’s national champions.  

Meyers and Williams join us to talk about this remarkable outcome, along with Magee-Jenks and Audrey Farrimond, a junior at Lincoln High School and member of its constitution team.

If you’re dining out in Portland to celebrate a special occasion, there’s a good chance you might end up at Nostrana. The Italian restaurant has been in business for 20 years with six-time James Beard award nominee Cathy Whims in charge. Whims has just released her first cookbook, “The Italian Summer Kitchen,” and joins us to talk about Portland’s food scene, her role in it, and simple Italian recipes for the good life.

Portland has been operating with a 12-member city council and district representation for more than 100 days now. Council President Elana Pirtle-Guiney is responsible for setting council meeting agendas and referring items proposed by the mayor or city auditor to votes. Among other things, the council has wrestled with the city’s noise code, the permit for Zenith energy, rent pricing software and when exactly public testimony should be heard. Pirtle-Guiney joins us to talk about the challenges and successes of the new city council so far.

Children who experience trauma in childhood are far more likely to experience negative health and well-being outcomes later in life. Dr. Nadine Burke Harris has helped to develop a screening tool for childhood trauma in San Francisco. RJ Gillespie, Amy Stoeber, Sue Skinner, Ellen Baltus, and Fariborz Pakeresht all work with children in Oregon. We spoke to all of them in front of an audience in 2018.

Like Oregon, Washington state is what’s known as a sanctuary state. The Keep Washington Working act prohibits local law enforcement agencies from using county jails for immigrant detention and from interviewing or detaining those suspected of not having permanent legal status. Washington’s attorney general is suing Adams County Sheriff Dale Wagner for allegedly sharing inmate information with federal immigration agents and holding people in jail solely based on immigration status. Sheriff Wagner says he is defending the constitution. Jazmine Ulloa wrote about this for the New York Times and joins us with the story.

A team of researchers led by Oregon’s Department of Geology and Mineral Industries recently lasers surveys of the area burned by the Eagle Creek fire in 2017 to better understand how frequent and severe landslides can be after severe wildfires. Much of the landslide research that has been done previously is in dryer desert climates. This new research will help communities understand landslide dangers after severe wildfires in wetter, forested ecosystems like Western Oregon. Bull Burns, engineering geologist for DOGAMI, joins us to expand on why the research matters.  

A growing number of international artists have been rethinking, or even cancelling, their U.S. tours amid rising costs and visa issues. Late last week, Canadian band Shred Kelly cancelled their U.S. shows, including a stop in Portland. British singer FKA Twigs also announced in April they would not be making an appearance at Coachella and canceled their American tour. Both artists cited ongoing visa issues as the reason for not performing in the states. Alex Ashley is a journalist and musician who reported on this story for Rolling Stone. He joins us to share about the challenges artists face when wanting to tour the U.S. and more.

Students at the University of Oregon are calling for university administrators to take more action to protect international students amid an immigration crackdown on college campuses across the country. At least four international students at UO have had their visas revoked, along with 13 at Oregon State University and two at Portland State. At a rally on UO’s campus last week, students demanded that the university not comply with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, notify students of ICE activity on campus and allow students whose visas have been revoked to remain enrolled, among other things.

Jess Fisher is a steering committee member for the UO Young Democratic Socialists of America, which organized the rally. She joins us with more details on student demands and how ICE actions are changing the mood on campus.

Emily Wilson’s name on the cover of a book is a likely sign that it will be a bestseller. But she isn’t an author, and the books are unlikely fan favorites. Wilson has made a name for herself translating classic Greek texts - most notably Homer’s "The Odyssey" in 2017 and "The Iliad" in 2023. Wilson’s translations have gained a cult following and opened up these classics to a new generation of readers. She joins us in front of an audience of Lincoln High School students.

Portland’s Third Angle New Music will debut a new commissioned piece at its upcoming show on April 16 at OMSI’s Kendall Planetarium. The composition, called “Spheres,” was written for percussion quartet and three American Sign Language performers. Deaf and hard of hearing audience members can experience the program through haptic vests that translate the sound from the instruments music into physical vibrations. The vests were developed by local nonprofit CymaSpace, which aims to make arts and culture performances accessible to Portlanders who are deaf or hard of hearing.

Sarah Tiedemann is the artistic director of Third Angle. She joins us to talk about the new show and accessibility in the arts. 

 It’s been 20 years since Nancy Sullivan, a media specialist at Portland’s McDaniel High School, organized a poetry slam for students in the school’s library. That one slam eventually evolved into Verselandia, the citywide youth poetry competition now sponsored by Literary Arts. The slam allows students from across Portland to bring their original spoken word poetry to the stage of the Arlene Schitzer Concert Hall to be scored by a panel of judges. 

Alex Dang competed in the first Verselandia back in 2012. Qiana Woods won last year’s Verselandia and is set to compete again this year. They both join us, along with Sullivan, to talk about the history of the competition and the importance of slam poetry as a creative outlet.

Tadd Mick, Noelie Achen and Chris Schaffner are the owners of Tradewinds Charters in Depoe Bay. They recently won a statewide award from the U.S. Small Business Administration. The national winner of the Small Business Person of the Year award will be announced in May. Tadd Mick is the president of Tradewinds Charters, and Noelie Achen is the vice president. They’ll head to Washington D.C. next month to receive their award. Achen and Mick join us to share more about their business.

The Yamhill Community Action Partnership has reached “functional zero” for unsheltered families with children. That means more people in that group are exiting homelessness than are entering it in Yamhill County. 

The organization has invested in a liaison who works with landlords and clients to get people into rentals and stay housed. It also expanded emergency shelter capacity in Newberg and has focused on getting vulnerable populations into homes. Alexandra Ball is the executive director of YCAP. Amber Hansen-Moore is the organization’s deputy director. They join us to share more about how YCAP is addressing homelessness.  

More than one in five bridges in Oregon was in “distressed” condition in 2024. That’s according to the Oregon Department of Transportation’s annual bridge condition report. Oregon also has the fewest number of bridges in “good” condition as determined by federal standards compared to six other Western states. Under ideal conditions, ODOT says it would be able to replace 27 of those bridges per year. But with its current resources, it’s only on pace to replace three. 

Tova Peltz is a statewide capital program engineer at ODOT. She joins us with an update on how the state’s bridges are faring.

If you’re accused of a crime, having the right to an attorney - regardless of ability to pay -  is one of your fundamental constitutional due process rights in the U.S. At least in theory. In reality, Oregon - like many states around the country - has long suffered from a shortage of defense attorneys. In 2018 the shortage had become so severe that the nonpartisan nonprofit Sixth Amendment Center, found the state’s system so flawed it could not provide citizens with this fundamental right. Oregon has taken steps to restructure public defense and provide more funding for more public defenders, but the shortage remains. We talk about what state lawmakers are currently considering and more with Carl MacPherson, the executive director of Metropolitan Public Defender, and Kevin Barton, district attorney for Washington County.   

When you think about the Columbia Gorge, a multimedia rock opera might not be the first thing that comes to mind. But that’s exactly the vehicle producer Sarah Fox chose to showcase the unique history, personal stories and ecology of the Gorge. 

“The Watershed Rock Opera” unfolds in five movements that symbolize the cycle of the watershed itself. The journey starts in the clouds, descends into the Cascades and moves through a pear orchard before it ends in a kind of homecoming at the mighty river that connects the people and communities who call the Gorge home. (There’s also a comedic detour and duet prompted by a clogged toilet).  

Fox recorded interviews with five storytellers who provided the narration in the rock opera and inspired its musical score, which 20 local musicians and performers will bring to life this Friday for a series of sold-out shows at the Columbia Center for the Arts in Hood River. Fox joins us for more details, along with Lesley Tamura, a fourth-generation pear orchardist in Hood River, composer and arranger Eric Kaneda and music director and percussionist Leila Kaneda.  

Multnomah County’s Preschool For All program has overshot its goals in each of its first three years, and this year is no exception. The county's coal was to support 3,000 slots, but it expects to have capacity for 3,800 3 and 4-year-olds in the 2025-2026 school year. Still, that number is far below demand, with nearly double the amount of applications filed every year than there are slots available. Backers hope capacity will be sufficient by 2030, when the county aims to offer 11,000 slots and meet its goal of universal access.

County voters approved the Preschool For All ballot measure in 2020 and the program opened in the 2022-23 school year. The preschool effort is funded by a 1.5% marginal tax on earnings of more than $150,000 per year for an individual and over $200,000 for households. 

Leslee Barnes, director of the Preschool and Early Learning Division at Multnomah County, and Patrick Earnest, director of the St. James Child Development Center, join us to talk about the program.

From notes of affirmation to gift cards, Portland nonprofit Wildly Kind aims to spread acts of kindness to strangers 

LONG SYNOPSIS: Wildly Kind is on a mission to spread acts of kindness to strangers, not only in its home base of Portland but also across the nation and around the world. The Portland Tribune recently profiled the three-year-old nonprofit and the national media attention it received for a pop-up event it held in February, which involved setting up a phone booth for people to record anonymous messages of hope and encouragement for others to hear. 

Executive director and founder Kayla Lamoreaux says Wildly Kind grew out of a desire to affirm and maintain her sobriety from alcohol through fostering “a community of kindness” by handing out flowers or self-care kits or paying for a stranger’s groceries at the check-out line. Wildly Kind has now grown to include volunteers, corporate sponsors and more than 100 “ambassadors” who go out to perform acts of kindness in more than 20 states and six countries. Ambassadors pay $20 a month to receive a branded t-shirt, a monthly newsletter with ideas for spreading kindness, priority sign-ups for pop-up events and other perks. Lamoreaux joins us to share more details about Wildly Kind and its unique nonprofit model. 

From 2021 to 2024, the Oregon Mortuary and Cemetery Board, the state agency that oversees death care, saw a whopping 79% increase in repayment claims from funeral homes for indigent remains.

Indigent remains are the bodies that go unclaimed, have no next of kin or lack financial means for the handling of the body that may have been left in the deceased's will. Oregon is one of a few states that have an established program to reimburse funeral homes for handling these cases. The number of funeral homes that received payment has also seen a big increase, with a rise of about 114% since 2021. The program is not meant for everyday Oregonians who cannot afford a funeral or other services, but for those whose wishes after death are unknown or uncertain.

Chad Dresselhause is the executive director of the Oregon Mortuary and Cemetery Board. Wally Orderman is the executive director of the Oregon Funeral Directors Association. They both join us to share what this increase has meant for the state and what it means for the individual funeral homes that take on these cases.

An unassuming house in Southeast Portland’s Buckman neighborhood was recently added to the National Register of Historic Places. Once known as “Juniper House,” the building served as one of the first end-of-life care homes for AIDS patients in the Pacific Northwest in the late 1980s. An OPB documentary at the time explored the lives of some of the patients in Juniper House and the neighboring Assisi House, which provided a range of care for patients with HIV/AIDS.

Jan Weyeneth is one of the co-founders of Juniper House. Cayla McGrail is a former associate project manager for Portland’s LGBTQ+ Historic Sites Project, which sponsored the house’s listing. They both join us to share more about Juniper House and the importance of documenting queer history in Portland.

Lawmakers are considering a bill that would give agricultural workers a seat at the table. House Bill 2548 would establish a board made up of voices representing farmworkers, farmers, government agencies and labor law to help establish working standards and conditions. Reyna Lopez, executive director of PCUN, which is supporting the bill and Jenny Dresler, spokesperson for the Oregon Farm Bureau, which is opposed to the bill, join us to share their perspectives. 

It’s been five years since the pandemic shut down cities and towns across the country and changed the daily lives and routines of many people. From virtual workplaces to outdoor dining, COVID-19 also changed how we use and see our cities. Nico Larco is a professor of architect and urban design and is the director of the Urbanism Next Center at the University of Oregon. He joins us to share what has and hasn’t changed in our cities since lockdowns began. 

In its attempt to end birthright citizenship, the Trump administration has cited a 19th century lawsuit that denied U.S. citizenship to Native Americans. The president’s executive order has been blocked by multiple federal judges, and his use of Elk v. Wilkins to justify the order is generally deemed invalid by legal scholars. But the use of the lawsuit has raised concerns over immigration enforcement in some Indigenous communities, even though Native Americans were granted citizenship in 1924.

Nazune Menka is an assistant professor of law and director of the Center for Indian Law and Policy at Seattle University. She joins us to share more about Elk v. Wilkins and the lasting impact it’s had on relations between tribal and federal governments.