JEFFERSON JOURNAL NOV/DEC 2025

November/December 2025

Oregon Is Digging Deep To Tap Into an Uncommon Renewable Energy Source —

Super Hot Rocks The Members’ Magazine of Jefferson Public Radio

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November/December 2025

JOURNAL

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6 Oregon Is Digging Deep To Tap Into an Uncommon Renewable Energy Source — Super Hot Rocks

By Monica Samayoa Mazama Energy, along with its partners, is trying to prove something that’s never been done in this way before — harnessing heat two miles deep beneath the earth’s surface to generate enough electricity to power homes. OPB’s Monica Samayoa examines Super Hot Rocks, a type of enhanced geothermal system that holds the promise of being a renewable energy source in Oregon and beyond.

11 Test Scores Are Out for Oregon Schools: 4 Takeaways on How Students Are Doing

By Roman Battaglia and Elizabeth Miller It’s that time again: the results of Oregon’s state tests in English, math, and science are out.

And for the first time since the pandemic, things are looking up.

Milt Radford Morning Edition Host Dave Young Operations Manager Liam Moriarty Digital Editor Maria Carter News Director Andrew Crackel News Production Assistant Erin Collins Weekend Announcer

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JEFFERSON JOURNAL (ISSN 1079-2015), November/ December 2025, volume 49 number 6. Published bimonthly (six times a year) by JPR Foundation, Inc., 1250 Siskiyou Blvd., Ashland, OR 97520. Periodical postage paid at Ashland, OR and additional mailing offices.

POSTMASTER: Please send address changes to The Jefferson Journal, 1250 Siskiyou Blvd.

Ashland, OR. 97520 Jefferson Journal Credits: Editor: Abigail Kraft Managing Editor: Paul Westhelle Poetry Editor: Amy Miller Design/Production: Impact Publications Printing: Oregon Web Press

5 Tuned In | Paul Westhelle 15 JPR News Focus: Law & Justice | Khari Johnson 17 NPR News Focus: Law & Justice | Aging & Wellness 19 JPR Seasonal Focus | Heather Arndt Anderson 23 JPR News Focus: Politics & Government | Dirk VanderHart 24 JPR Radio Stations & Programs 26 News Briefs 31 JPR News Focus: Outdoors, Leisure

And Sports | Roman Battaglia

33 JPR News Focus: Wildlife | Justin Higginbottom 35 JPR News Focus: Business | Alina Selyukh 39 Recordings | Dave Jackson 41 Underground History | Chelsea Rose 44 Superabundant | Heather Arndt Anderson 46 Poetry | Nell Neilsen cover: Lava rocks in the foregroud of a barren landscape at Newberry National Volcanic Monument.

COVER PHOTO BY ARTHURGPHOTOGRAPHY, COURTESY OF SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

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Next Steps on a Bumpy Road

A

s we begin the final week of our Fall Fund Drive, it’s clear that our listeners have come through for us once again. With two days remaining in our Fall campaign, we’ve increased the amount we’ve raised by nearly 35% above last Fall’s drive while also significantly expanding both the number of monthly sustaining contributors and first-time donors. Both of these achievements are critically important as we work to make up the federal funding we lost this fiscal year and establish a new business plan for the future built entirely on local support.

Public radio stations are only as strong as their listeners empower them to be, and we are fortunate to serve one of the most supportive public radio audiences in the country.

Make no mistake about it, losing federal funding has been detrimental to the entire public media ecosystem. That said, the NPR Network as a whole has come together in truly remarkable ways to respond and support each other as we collectively seek to develop long term solutions. It’s not an easy thing to do since the network is comprised of hundreds of independently run local stations, which, together with NPR, form a complex federation of sorts. Jennifer Ferro, chair of NPR’s Board of Directors and CEO of KCRW in Santa Monica, recently described the relationship between NPR and local stations as “married but living separately.” NPR public editor Kelly McBride expanded on Ferro’s analogy writing, “I would add that they maintain separate bank accounts and don’t always collaborate on their plans for the future.”

In my experience, that’s not a great formula for long term success. Yet, NPR has stepped forward to lead the network in bold new ways. Within 24 hours of the rescission of federal funding, it created an $8 million pool of funds to reduce programming fees for stations that relied on federal funding for over 10% of their operating budgets. JPR was among the stations that benefitted from this one-time reduction of program fees. In addition, NPR immediately ramped up its collaborative fundraising initiative that has attracted some significant contributions to benefit both NPR and local stations.

Looking beyond the immediate challenge, NPR convened a series of weekly meetings designed to build consensus and create an agenda for finding new ways stations and NPR can more efficiently and productively work together. These meetings continue today and have been regularly attended by the vast majority of station leaders across the country and NPR senior leadership, including NPR CEO Katherine Maher. Maher has stressed the importance of strengthening the local-national partnership between stations and NPR, ensuring that stations thrive and can contribute quality content to NPR’s national programs by including their local journalism, voices and storytelling. “It’s been a key priority of my tenure to strengthen NPR’s relationship with network members and to move the network to a more collaborative, strategic posture,” Maher wrote in an email to NPR public editor Kelly McBride. “A premise of my strategy is that our 50-state national network is mission-critical.”

The effort to create a new coalition between stations and NPR built on common ground and shared purpose is a major step in the right direction. The result will be a revitalized public radio system fueled by a new strategic vision for public service and a business structure that can advance it.

Paul Westhelle is JPR’s Executive Director.

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2025 JEFFERSON JOURNAL | 5

Newberry Caldera showing Paulina and East Lakes, and Big Obsidian Flow

BY USGS PHOTO BY LYN TOPINKA - ARCHIVED SOURCE LINK, PUBLIC DOMAIN

Oregon Is Digging Deep To Tap Into an Uncommon Renewable Energy Source —

Super Hot Rocks

By MONICA SAMAYOA Super Hot Rocks could help Oregon and the rest of the Pacific Northwest get closer to reaching their renewable energy goals

A

bout 13 miles up a winding national forest road near Three Rivers, Oregon, Alain Bonneville stands in the middle of a small clear-cut site called Pad 29. Bonneville is the chief geoscientist at Mazama Energy. It’s a geothermal development company that’s working on developing innovative techniques, approaches and methods to harvest heat from the ground.

Pad 29 sits just above the clouds west of the Newberry Volcano, where it’s surrounded by trees. Though small, it’s a busy and noisy place where loud drills bore into the earth and workers drive huge trucks in and out of the area. There are also two huge water tanks at the site.

But a tall blue cylinder connected to two deep wells billowing clouds of steam is the main attraction of Pad 29.

“What we have done between these two wells, we have created an artificial reservoir where we will be injecting cold water and recovering steam, hot water — and the goal of this project is really to demonstrate that the techniques that we have been using were successful in creating this reservoir,” Bonneville says.

6 | JEFFERSON JOURNAL NOVEMBER/DECEMBER

Mazama Energy, along with its partners, are trying to prove something that’s never been done in this way before — harnessing heat two miles deep beneath the earth’s surface to generate enough electricity to power homes.

But the company is hoping to harness heat from a very particular and unconventional source — “SUPER HOT ROCKS, YEAH!” Bonneville says as he stands near the blue cylinder.

Super Hot Rocks is a type of enhanced geothermal system.

Mazama Energy has successfully proven it can harness heat from a shallow surface. The steam coming out of the blue cylinders indicates success. The next phase is to go deeper into the ground to harness that heat.

Bonneville hopes the company and its partners can use this pilot project to increase the use of geothermal as a renewable energy source in Oregon and beyond.

“This will be sort of a world premiere because nobody has done that so far,” he says. “This is quite unique. So this is really a forefront development for cutting-edge research.”

The ‘world premiere’ for Super Hot Rocks Conventional geothermal has long been used in places where hot water or steam are found close to the earth’s surface

BY Q MYERS, WIKIPEDIA, PUBLIC DOMAIN BROOKE HERBERT / OPB

Lava Butte, a cinder cone produced by eruptions at Newberry Volcano

Aerial shot of Mazama Energy’s Pad 29 on Sept. 9, 2025. The company and its partners are digging deep to harness heat from hot rocks in hopes to generate enough energy to someday power homes.

MONICA SAMAYOA / OPB

and have a natural flow circulating underground. Think of Yellowstone’s Old Faithful or those natural hot springs found throughout Oregon’s forests — they provide clues into what’s happening underneath.

And because geothermal uses the earth’s natural elements, it’s also a continuous and reliable source of renewable energy. It does not depend on wind to blow a turbine or the sun to shine to produce electricity. It’s considered a base-load energy source because it can run 24/7.

The Oregon Institute of Technology in Klamath Falls has been using geothermal energy to heat buildings and sidewalks since the mid-1960s, with a system based around naturally occurring underground hot springs. In 2010, the school built Oregon’s first geothermal power plant, and the university has since expanded it to generate nearly 2 megawatts of power — saving the school about $1 million in heating costs a year.

But conventional geothermal has its limits. It needs natural elements, like heat from a hot spring near the Earth’s surface, for it to work. And because of that, only certain regions are able to use this type of energy resource.

Super Hot Rocks may change that, and the Cascade Range offers this kind of enhanced geothermal system a place where this new technology can thrive.

“Central Oregon is a good place for this kind of project,” Bonneville said.

For the past 50 years, Newberry Volcano has been a hot spot for geothermal exploration. Universities, national laboratories and companies have studied, explored and drilled wells in the area to learn more about how geothermal works and figure out other ways heat can be harnessed.

Since the Newberry Volcano is active — it last erupted 1,300 years ago — there is a magma flow close to the surface, even if steam or geysers aren’t visible.

That’s where Super Hot Rocks comes in, as well as the unlikely help of the oil and gas industry’s technology — drills.

Although it uses the same technology as the oil and gas industry, geothermal is different from fracking in key ways. To extract oil and gas, a company drills into the ground and injects water and chemicals into the earth to create new fractures that pull fossil fuels to the surface.

In conventional geothermal, the drills are used to locate natural water flows underground, which transfer the heat back up. For enhanced geothermal systems like Super Hot Rocks, only water is injected to create pathways in the hot rocks to transfer heat back up to the surface.

At Newberry, Mazama Energy is drilling wells nearly two miles deep beneath the earth’s surface and then injecting water into an engineered hot rock reservoir.

When the water gets that deep, it absorbs the Earth’s natural heat and becomes extremely hot.

As it returns to the surface, it turns into steam and drives a turbine to generate electricity.

Then the steam is cooled, converted back into water, and reinjected into the reservoir, allowing the cycle to continue.

The goal is to not only harness the heat at these depths, but also ensure the system is reliable, efficient and economical.

Mazama Energy’s wellhead that’s connected to tubes going thousands of feet deep in the ground, seen on Sept. 9, 2025. The company hopes to tap into an uncommon energy source that could help Oregon and the rest of the region meet its renewable energy goals — Super Hot Rocks.

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2025 JEFFERSON JOURNAL | 7

MONICA SAMAYOA / OPB

The development of geothermal as a renewable energy source is something the Trump administration does support, and it has provided millions in funding.

MONICA SAMAYOA / OPB

A blue cylinder billows steam indicating success for Mazama Energy’s pilot project on Super Hot Rocks on Sept. 9, 2025.

Enegis’ chief scientist Peter Malin stands near a vibrating truck that sends earthquake-like waves to find natural fractures in the ground.

Enegis is a consulting firm for energy and natural resource projects.

The technology the company is developing could make drilling geothermal wells cheaper. Photo taken on Sept. 9, 2025.

“If you are able to collect this heat from Super Hot Rocks, you will be much more efficient in producing electricity,” Bonneville said. “Each well will produce six to eight times the amount of electricity than a conventional one.”

That type of energy can help Oregon and the rest of the Pacific Northwest tap into a new renewable energy source at a time when the region needs to produce more energy.

Using Super Hot Rocks technology, the western flank of Newberry could produce up to 200 megawatts of electricity, according to Bonneville. That’s enough electricity to power double the current residential population of Bend, he said.

“It doesn’t mean that this is our goal, but this is the estimate we can produce here on this part of Central Oregon,” he said.

Drills, waves, rocks and brains Partnerships are an important element of Mazama Energy’s Super Hot Rocks pilot.

The project is currently funded through a $20 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy, which has allowed the 8 | JEFFERSON JOURNAL NOVEMBER/DECEMBER

company to team with businesses, universities and federal research labs. Those include the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, as well as Oregon State University and the University of Oklahoma. Each entity provides the project with a special expertise or insight into how Super Hot Rocks technology might be successful.

“We have aligned research interests and we’re really able to work together to help move this technology forward,” PNNL geothermal portfolio manager Jana Simo said. “One of the things that we bring to this partnership is our expertise in geophysics, seismology and how you go to set up monitoring systems.”

PNNL is also looking into induced seismicity to understand the difference between a natural earthquake and one generated by geothermal drilling, Simo said.

“Having all of us work together with our different resources is super valuable, and that’s what makes these projects go,” she said. “It’s the skills and it is also the collaborative conversations and discussions that we have together as well.”

Enegis, a consulting firm for energy and natural resource projects, is another partner.

The role of Enegis is to find the best place to drill that makes Super Hot Rocks cost-effective, or to determine the cheapest way to do it.

“We’re to drill the geothermal wells to cut down the cost and make geothermal a more viable type of technology for good energy,” said Peter Malin, who is Enegis’ chief scientist for the project and also a professor emeritus of seismology, geology and geothermal energy at Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment.

To do this, Enegis uses a huge truck that vibrates the ground, sending earthquake-like waves, about a 2.0 on the Richter scale, over a span of 30 seconds. Unlike an actual earthquake, which sends sudden jolts, the truck vibrates the ground in waves.

In the surrounding area, there are more than 1,300 geophones, or sensors that detect ground vibrations, to pick up the wave signals.

“It’s used like a fish finder or a focusing device for a camera that allows you to see the interior of the earth and focus on the geological properties so that we can find out where to drill,” Malin said.

This then helps Mazama Energy locate the best places to drill and, in turn, helps reduce the primary cost of geothermal energy — locating and drilling.

“We look forward to developing this technology for the benefit of all in terms of inexpensive energy and adoption of technology that has been developed over the last hundred years in oil and gas, but that can have significant parts transferred over to geothermal,” Malin said.

BROOKE HERBERT / OPB

As of 2023, geothermal energy makes up less than 1% of the state’s electricity mix, according to the Oregon Department of Energy.

Mazama Energy geoscience intern Ashlynn Bowles and Mazama Energy’s chief geoscientist Alain Bonneville discuss Super Hot Rocks on Sept. 9, 2025.

Super Hot Rocks proponents say this work could bring big changes for Oregon and the rest of the Pacific Northwest by diversifying renewable energy sources at a time when the region works to wean off fossil fuels like oil and natural gas to meet greenhouse gas reduction goals.

Geothermal’s potential in Oregon As more people switch from gas to electric appliances in their homes and more power-hungry data centers connect to the power grid, the state needs to add more renewable energy to meet demands. Oregon is already behind on its renewable energy goals, and adding new sources to the grid could take years. The state has mandated utilities to fully eliminate greenhouse gas emissions associated with the electricity they provide by 2040.

President Donald Trump, however, has advanced policies that are often counter to Oregon’s renewable goals. The administration’s attacks on wind and solar production are making it harder to add these renewable energy resources to the grid.

Trump is also rescinding billions of federal dollars previously allocated toward climate action, including funds that would have supported solar development in Oregon.

But the development of geothermal as a renewable energy source is something the Trump administration does support, and it has provided millions in funding.

As of 2023, geothermal energy makes up less than 1% of the state’s electricity mix, according to the Oregon Department of Energy.

If Mazama Energy’s pilot project is successful, it could be a huge breakthrough for Oregon, said Amy Schlusser, Gov. Tina Kotek’s climate and energy advisor.

“We’re talking about renewable, reliable and affordable electricity, which is ultimately what the state is trying to gain access to for all electricity users,” she said. “It’s just a huge game changer.”

Schlusser said Super Hot Rocks also has the potential to boost the renewable energy workforce by creating jobs, from people involved in developing a power plant to those who maintain the facilities.

It would also make Oregon a frontrunner in developing this technology, she said.

“Oregon really has made an effort to be welcoming to new innovative technologies, and we’ve tried to build up a structure so that we can support these types of emerging technologies and emerging industries,” she said.

The state already has regulations in place that provide oversight and directives for geothermal energy production, Schlusser said, but Oregon will need to create a streamlined process to help companies better understand how long it will take to hook onto the grid and get online.

A closed-loop system, reaching a full circle moment Mazama Energy geoscience intern Ashlynn Bowles is excited about the potential. The development of geothermal energy using Super Hot Rocks could help her hometown find a much-needed energy solution.

“We have a lot of data centers in Prineville and those use up a lot of electricity,” she said. “And so looking to the future for solutions for where we’re going to see that energy come from is very important.”

Bowles was born and raised in Bend and recently graduated from Oregon State University. She grew up hiking the Newberry area, picking up all kinds of rocks as a kid, she said. Her interest in geology began when she took an entry-level geology class at a community college in town.

Now, she’s helping Mazama Energy understand the geological and geophysical controls that are needed for geothermal sites.

“Trying to take in context geology and what creates the ideal situations for geothermal reservoirs,” she said.

Bowles said she’s always had an interest in renewable energy and now it has tied in with her love for rocks.

And working up close with a technology that’s inching closer to becoming a reality, a technology that could benefit her community, is something special, she said.

“I’ve had a poster of Newberry in my room since I started studying geology,” she said. “So it’s really a full circle moment for me to be working on a project out here.”

Mazama Energy will continue testing its technology and will conduct a test at deeper depths soon.

If successful, the company plans to build a larger project, big enough to produce electricity.

And if that is successful, Mazama Energy’s Bonneville says, Oregon could someday have Super Hot Rocks powering homes.

Monica Samayoa covers climate and environmental news for OPB, a JPR news partner. Her reporting comes to JPR through the Northwest News Network, a collaboration between public media organizations in Oregon and Washington.

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2025 JEFFERSON JOURNAL | 9

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Test Scores Are Out for Oregon Schools:

4 Takeaways on How Students Are Doing

By Roman Battaglia & Elizabeth Miller The share of students proficient in math, English, and science is up for the first time since the pandemic — but passing rates remain well below pre-pandemic levels.

I

t’s that time again: the results of Oregon’s state tests in English, math, and science are out. And for the first time since the pandemic, things are looking up.

Each spring, Oregon tests students in three subjects from elementary to high school. Students in grades 3-8 and 11 take math and English language arts assessments, while students in grades 5, 8 and 11 also take science tests.

These results, from tests administered this past spring, show improvements in all three subjects, though scores remain below pre-pandemic levels. Based on test performance, students are rated on proficiency from levels one to four, with levels three and four considered proficient.

“Although we’re not satisfied with these outcomes, the takeaway is clear: recovery is happening and it will take time,” said ODE director Charlene Williams.

Williams pointed out that Oregon’s school year is one of the shortest in the country, and that the state wants to continue its focus on increasing early literacy and creating opportunities to learn outside of the school day. She says the state needs to keep building on what it’s already doing.

“It’s not about doing anything new,” WIlliams said. “Our data show us that when we lean into those practices that work, those students perform at and above grade level.”

Tests are required by the federal government, but Oregon has a state law allowing families to opt-out of testing.

Here are four takeaways from this year’s test results.

After years of declines, leaders see positive results DeLee Brown is the principal at Liberty Elementary School in the Salem-Keizer school district. At a press conference Tuesday, Brown shared the story of a current fourth grader who, last year, was two grade levels behind in reading.

“We saw this particular little gal just make almost two years’ worth of growth last year and come in right at grade level at the end of last year, but that was through small groups, and through watching and monitoring her progress,” Brown said.

“Her parents were on board … they helped at home, we had a small tutoring session for a couple weeks at school in the spring for her that she attended.”

The percentage of students “proficient” in English language

arts in Salem-Keizer is up for third graders, from 24.2% to 25.3%, a bright spot for staff after years of declines.

“There’s a lot of work to be done, but our staff are now moving, our kids’ outcomes are now moving in the right trajectory,” said Olga Cobb, the district’s deputy superintendent for elementary schools. “That really confirms for us that we’re doing the right work.”

Statewide, the percent of Oregon students “proficient” in English Language Arts is up 0.2 percentage points, with a 1% increase in third grade.

The percentage of students achieving Level 3 or 4 in Math and Science are also up 0.2% from last year. According to the latest results, 31.5% of students are proficient in math, and 30% of students are proficient in science.

Jeff Bullock at the Klamath County School District credited their improved assessment scores to a renewed focus on pushing kids academically.

“We’ve got to get them engaged in content and skill building,” he said. “So that’s been a focus of our message as a district, and what’s going on in our classrooms.”

How did Oregon schools perform in English?

State assessments are far from the only source of information educators and schools use to determine student achievement. Grades, attendance rates, and other more frequent assessments offer more real-time data.

This year, Oregon made a data change that allowed students who scored proficient on the state’s extended assessment, which are alternative tests for students with significant cognitive disabilities. Officials recalculated past data to include those students, but the changes are small, usually no more than a 0.5% change.

Of school districts with participation rates of 80% or higher, the Oregon Department of Education reports that 75 of 163 districts showed improvement in English Language Arts, while 74 of 159 districts improved in math.

80% is Oregon’s standard for participation, but that number falls far short of the federal participation requirement: 95%. Only 61 of Oregon’s 197 school districts had enough students taking the state tests to meet that level.

Participation is still below federal requirements — especially in high school Participation rates are up slightly in Oregon. 89% of students participated in English tests, with 88% participating in math.

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2025 JEFFERSON JOURNAL | 11

However, 11th grade participation in state tests remains lower than other grades, a consistent pattern since the COVID-19 pandemic. Oregon officials say students who score “proficient” are on track for success in college and career. But without an adequate percentage of high school students taking the test, the state tests don’t provide a very complete picture of college and career readiness looks like in Oregon.

Officials in the Eugene school district say “a culture has developed” where students do not take tests. Participation rates there range from as low as 20% up to 93%. “[Eugene] 4J has the lowest participation rate of Oregon’s ten largest districts, and the fourth-lowest of any district with more than 500 students,” shared district director of communication Kelly McIver in an email.

“This results in lower reported proficiency rates and limits the accuracy of data, while also putting the district’s standing with state accountability requirements at risk.”

Which school districts made the most improvement in Math?

McIver said Eugene’s Superintendent, Miriam Mickelson, plans to work with staff on the approach to testing.

In the Baker School District, where participation rates range from 26% to 71%, district officials have made more of an effort to include information about the importance of testing when sharing opt-out forms.

“Participation matters,” WIlliams said. “Wherever there are pockets of anti-assessment sentiment, or optout practices, it hinders our ability to use these tools in a way that really helps understand, support, and serve students equitably.”

These assessments are not the only tool school districts are using to measure student performance, though.

“It’s one measure of how we help assess kids and whether they’re on track or not,” said Todd Bloomquist at the Medford School District. “So we look at things like chronic absenteeism, we look at rates of completion, of credits. We look at their engagement. Are they involved in something, some kind of activity, and then how’s life at home? That’s a big factor of how kids are going to do in school.”

Middle schoolers are making gains Statewide, scores improved for Oregon middle schoolers in English, math and science.

In math, the percentage of 8th graders proficient jumped 2.1 percentage points, to 28.9%.

In Salem-Keizer, district administrator Ingrid Ceballos credits new instructional materials in math and English language arts for improvements at Waldo Middle School, where she served as principal until this year.

“As building leaders, we were tasked with supporting the use of grade level materials and ensuring there was rigorous instruction in the classrooms,” Ceballos said.

12 | JEFFERSON JOURNAL NOVEMBER/DECEMBER

Waldo saw double-digit improvements for 6th graders in English, plus an 8.7 percentage point increase for 8th graders. The school’s math test scores also improved.

Portland Public Schools officials saw increases in both English and math for elementary and middle school students. The percent of students proficient in 8th grade math improved by almost five percentage points.

“The improvements we are seeing align directly to our Board goals,” shared PPS Senior chief of academics Kristina Howard. “Our continued focus on grade-level, standards-aligned, culturally affirming, deeply engaging, and data-driven instruction in both Literacy and Math remains at the center of our work.”

Not all school districts are seeing improvements for middle schools. Trisha Evans, director of secondary education at Grants Pass School District said they’ve struggled to see gains in 6th, 7th and 8th grade, especially in math.

“We’ve had a reduction in funding and an increase in student need for intervention,” Evans said. “But when you have to reduce staffing, it makes it difficult to find time to intervene.”

At the state level, ODE’s assistant superintendent of Research, Assessment, Data, Accountability, and Reporting Dan Farley said Oregon is “trending toward recovery.”

“There are some signs that we really are becoming healthier as an education system,” Farley said.

National scores tell a similar story Oregon schools on these state assessments were not improving before the pandemic shut down schools in 2020. Neither were scores nationally.

In September, scores from the National Assessment of Educational Progress showed declines for students in math, English, and science.

“The drop in overall scores coincides with significant declines in achievement among our lowest-performing students, continuing a downward trend that began even before the COVID-19 pandemic,” National Center for Education Statistics Acting Commissioner Matthew Soldner said in a press release sharing the data.

quired state exams in English and math. Oregon’s most recent scores are lower than those in Washington. According to Washington’s latest assessment data, 52.6% of students there are proficient in English language arts, and 41.7% of students are proficient in math. Officials there say the rate of progress year to year has “returned to what it was pre-pandemic.”

Oregon officials said they prefer to look at national datasets rather than make state to state comparisons.

“It gives us confidence that the trends we are seeing are aligned with what’s happening in our classrooms,” Williams said.

Which school districts made the most improvement in Science?

While the federal government requires every state to test all students in grades 3-8 and in high school, the results of those exams aren’t easily comparable across state lines. The NAEP test, administered to a sample of students every year, is intended to be comparable. Their results come from tests taken in early 2024 by 8th and 12th graders.

In the future, there may be fewer national assessments to draw from due to cuts at the Education Department.

Both Oregon and Washington use the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium tests for its federally-re-

Roman Battaglia is a regional reporter for Jefferson Public Radio. After graduating from Oregon State University, Roman came to JPR as part of the Charles Snowden Program for Excellence in Journalism in 2019. He then joined Delaware Public Media as a Report For America fellow before returning to the JPR newsroom.

Elizabeth Miller is a reporter for Oregon Public Broadcasting, a JPR news partner. Her reporting comes to JPR through the Northwest News Network, a collaboration between public media organizations in Oregon and Washington.

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2025 JEFFERSON JOURNAL | 13

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JPR NEWS FOCUS

LAW & JUSTICE

KHARI JOHNSON

Amir Mostafavi, told the court that he did not read text generated by the AI model before submitting the appeal in July 2023, months after OpenAI marketed ChatGPT as capable of passing the bar exam.

California Issues Historic Fine Over Lawyer’s ChatGPT Fabrications The court of appeals said 21 of 23 quotes in an opening brief were fake. State authorities are scrambling to grapple with widespread use of artificial intelligence.

California attorney must pay a $10,000 fine for filing a state court appeal full of fake quotations generated by the artificial intelligence tool ChatGPT. The fine appears to be the largest issued over AI fabrications by a California court and came with a blistering opinion stating that 21 of 23 quotes from cases cited in the attorney’s opening brief were made up. It also noted that numerous out-of-state and federal courts have confronted attorneys for citing fake legal authority.

“We therefore publish this opinion as a warning,” it continued. “Simply stated, no brief, pleading, motion, or any other paper filed in any court should contain any citations— whether provided by generative AI or any other source—that the attorney responsible for submitting the pleading has not personally read and verified.”

The opinion, issued on September 12 in California’s 2nd District Court of Appeal, is a clear example of why the state’s legal authorities are scrambling to regulate the use of AI in the judiciary. In early September, the state’s Judicial Council issued guidelines requiring judges and court staff to either ban generative AI or adopt a generative AI use policy by Dec. 15. Meanwhile, the California Bar Association is considering whether to strengthen its code of conduct to account for various forms of AI following a request by the California Supreme Court in September.

The Los Angeles-area attorney fined last week, Amir Mostafavi, told the court that he did not read text generated by the AI model before submitting the appeal in July 2023, months after OpenAI marketed ChatGPT as capable of passing the bar exam.

A three-judge panel fined him for filing a frivolous appeal, violating court rules, citing fake cases, and wasting the court’s time and the taxpayers’ money, according to the opinion.

Mostafavi told CalMatters he wrote the appeal, and then used ChatGPT to try and improve it. He said that he didn’t know it would add case citations or make things up.

He thinks it is unrealistic to expect lawyers to stop using AI. It’s become an important tool just as online databases largely replaced law libraries, and until AI systems stop hallucinating fake information, he suggests lawyers who use AI to proceed with caution.

PHOTO: ADRIANA HELDIZ/CALMATTERS

A

A courtroom at the San Diego County Superior Court in San Diego on Oct. 9, 2023.

“In the meantime, we’re going to have some victims, we’re going to have some damages, we’re going to have some wreckages,” he said. “I hope this example will help others not fall into the hole. I’m paying the price.”

The fine issued to Mostafavi is the costliest penalty issued to an attorney by a California state court and one of the highest fines ever issued over attorney use of AI, according to Damien Charlotin, who teaches a class on AI and the law at a business school in Paris. He tracks instances of attorneys citing fake cases primarily in Australia, Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom.

In a widely-publicized case in May, a U.S. district court judge in California ordered two law firms to pay $31,100 in fees to defense counsel and the court for costs associated with using “bogus AI-generated research.” In that ruling, the judge described feeling misled, said they almost cited fake material in a judicial order, and said “Strong deterrence is needed to make sure that attorneys don’t succumb to this easy shortcut.”

“We’re going to have some wreckages.”

Amir Mostafavi, lawyer fined $10,000 after submitting opening brief filled with quotes fabricated by ChatGPT Charlotin thinks courts and the public should expect to see an exponential rise in these cases in the future. When he startNOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2025 JEFFERSON JOURNAL | 15

JPR News Focus: Law & Justice Continued from previous page

ed tracking court filings involving AI and fake cases earlier this year, he encountered a few cases a month. Now he sees a few cases a day. Large language models confidently state falsehoods as facts, particularly when there are no supporting facts.

“The harder your legal argument is to make, the more the model will tend to hallucinate, because they will try to please you,” he said. “That’s where the confirmation bias kicks in.”

A May 2024 analysis by Stanford University’s RegLab found that although three out of four lawyers plan to use generative AI in their practice, some forms of AI generate hallucinations in one out of three queries. Detecting fake material cited in legal filings could get harder as models grow in size.

Another tracker of cases where lawyers cite nonexistent legal authority due to use of AI identifies 52 such cases in California and more than 600 nationwide. That amount is expected to increase in the near future because AI innovation is outpacing the education of attorneys, said Nicholas Sanctis, a law student at Capital University Law School in Ohio.

Jenny Wondracek, who leads the tracker project, said she expects this trend to get worse because she still regularly encounters lawyers who don’t know that AI makes things up or believe that legal tech tools can eliminate all fake or false material generated by language models.

“I think we’d see a reduction if (lawyers) just understood the basics of the technology,” she said.

Like Charlotin, she suspects there are more instances of made-up cases generated by AI in state court filings than in federal courts, but a lack of standard filing methods makes it difficult to verify that. She said she encounters fake cases most often among overburdened attorneys or people who choose to represent themselves in family court.

16 | JEFFERSON JOURNAL NOVEMBER/DECEMBER

She suspects the number of arguments filed by attorneys that use AI and cite fake cases will continue to go up, but added that not just attorneys engage in the practice. In recent weeks, she’s documented three instances of judges citing fake legal authority in their decisions.

As California considers how to treat generative AI and fake case citations, Wondracek said they can consider approaches taken by other states, such as temporary suspensions, requiring attorneys who get caught to take courses to better understand how to ethically use AI, or requiring them to teach law students how they can avoid making the same mistake.

Mark McKenna, codirector of the UCLA Institute of Technology, Law & Policy praised fines like the one against Mostafavi as punishing lawyers for “an abdication of your responsibility as a party representing someone.” He thinks the problem “will get worse before it gets better,” because there’s been a rush among law schools and private firms to adopt AI without thinking through the appropriate way to use them.

UCLA School of Law professor Andrew Selbst agrees, pointing out that clerks that work for judges are recent law school graduates, and students are getting bombarded with the message that they must use AI or get left behind. Educators and other professionals report feeling similar pressures.

“This is getting shoved down all our throats,” he said. “It’s being pushed in firms and schools and a lot of places and we have not yet grappled with the consequences of that.”

Khari Johnson is part of the tech team and is CalMatters’ first tech reporter. He has covered artificial intelligence for nearly a decade. CalMatters is a leading nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom committed to explaining California politics and policy.

NPR NEWS FOCUS

AGING & WELLNESS

It’s much more than biology that puts men at higher risk of death.

ALLISON AUBREY

Why Do Women Live Longer Than Men? A Study Offers Clues to Close the Gap hen it comes to longevity, women are much more likely to outlive men. In the U.S., the gap widened to 5.8 years in 2021. On average, men can expect to live just shy of 76 years, compared to 81 for women.

A new study from researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, shows this gap is true across different species. And the findings, published in the journal Science Advances, suggest there may be ways human males can narrow the gap.

The study found that among 528 species of mammals — including humans’ closest relative the chimpanzee — females often have the advantage. Females live about 13% longer in 72% of species.

A mix of factors explains the gap, including genetics, mating habits — which tend to bring on risky behaviors among males — and caretaking responsibilities.

“What we found is that this female advantage in longevity is part of the evolution of mammals. It goes back millions of years,” says study author Fernando Colchero. Females have two X chromosomes, compared to an X and Y for males, which may provide a protective “backup” against potentially harmful genetic mutations. But the differences extend well beyond this.

Colchero points to the behaviors and physical changes that males in many species take on to mate and reproduce. For example, male deer (bucks) are bigger and they grow antlers during the breeding season to signal dominance and fight off mating rivals in an effort to attract females. “This is an evolutionary pressure, certainly, to be able to pass to the next generation as many genes as they can,” Colchero says. “But that comes at a cost in their survival.”

Risky behaviors shorten life Though these behaviors may seem far afield from the reality for humans, there are some parallels. Men tend to engage in riskier behaviors at higher rates, including smoking and drinking. Though the gaps have narrowed, they are still significant.

“Men are also more likely than women to die of alcoholism, drug use, suicide and homicide,” says Alan Geller, a senior lecturer of social and behavioral sciences at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Geller studies the disparity in heart disease and cancer deaths among men and women. Because men have been more likely to smoke tobacco, they die at higher rates from lung cancer. Smoking also increases the risk of heart disease. It’s a clear example of how risky behavior can shorten lifespan. There are some factors men can’t control. For instance, estrogen has a protective effect on the heart.

PHOTO: PIXABAY

W

Research suggests men could narrow the longevity gap by mimicking some of the habits that women have, like more regular doctor visits and attention to diet and exercise

Men also die at significantly higher rates from melanoma.

“It’s fascinating because the incidence rate of melanoma is a little bit higher in men versus women, but the mortality rate for melanoma is much higher for men,” Geller says. There are several reasons for this, including biology. Men’s skin is different, according to the American Academy of Dermatology Association. It tends to be thicker and contains more collagen and elastin, fibers that give the skin firmness. Research shows these differences may make the skin more vulnerable to damage from the sun’s ultraviolet rays.

But it’s much more than biology that puts men at higher risk of death. Men are less likely to protect themselves from the sun. A survey published in 2022 in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, found only 12.3% of men always wear sunscreen when they spend more than an hour outside on a sunny day.

In addition, men are less likely to screen for cancers. “They are less likely to go to the doctor to ask for a skin cancer examination or examine their own skin,” Geller says. “And so you have a double whammy,” increasing their risks.

Caregivers live longer The Max Planck study found a correlation between caregiving and longevity. The sex that spends more time taking care of offspring tends to live longer. An evolutionary explanation is that the caretaker parent needs to survive until their offspring are independent.

Colchero says the evolutionary pressures that produced this gender gap cannot be overlooked. But, in humans, he’s hopeful the gap can be narrowed. “There are ways in which we can NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2025 JEFFERSON JOURNAL | 17

Aging & Wellness Continued from previous page

reduce it to some extent,” he says, by changing behaviors and norms. Gender roles have evolved, and many men do take care of their children and focus on their own health. For instance, men who earn more money are more likely to wear sunscreen.

“Mimicking some of the behaviors that women have” may be helpful, he says. “Let’s make sure that we go to the doctor,” for example. And Geller says much more could be done to promote the importance of preventive care, including recommended screenings.

And remember, the top risk factors for the chronic diseases most Americans die from, including cancer and heart disease, can be reduced by changing our habits, for both men and women. Here’s the American Heart Association’s Life’s Essential 8 to prevent disease: eat better, be more active, quit tobacco, get healthy sleep, manage weight, control cholesterol, and manage blood sugar and blood pressure. ©2025 “Why do women live longer than men? A study offers clues to close the gap” by Allison Aubrey was originally published on NPR.org on October 6, 2025, and is used with the permission of NPR. Any unauthorized duplication is strictly prohibited.

Allison Aubrey is Food & Health correspondent for NPR News, currently focused on healthy aging.

JPR SEASONAL FOCUS HEATHER ARNDT ANDERSON

How to Eat a Tree A different way to enjoy a Christmas Tree

W

fects. One Japanese study has shown that inhaling the smell of cedarwood reduces blood pressure and heart rate, and another even showed that smelling the volatile compounds in hinoki cypress (Chamaecyparis obtusa, closely related to the C. lawsoniana, or Port Orford cedar that grows along the southern Oregon coast) increased human natural killer (NK) cell activity, showing promise in the fight against cancer. It bears mention here that one Northwest conifer species, Pacific yew (Taxus brevifolia), has for decades been used to produce the cancer-fighting drug taxol. All parts of the tree (except for the fleshy aril) are deadly poisonous — don’t eat them!

Thanks to their preference for a damp climate and tolerance of poor soils, Douglas firs are the most commonly grown trees in Oregon, composing roughly half of all Christmas trees. And although a Doug fir can reach astounding heights, the most interesting parts of its life happen underground, away from prying eyes, where the mycelial networks of fungal symbionts allow trees to communicate with one another.

Continued on page 21

MACGREGOR CAMPBELL, AI ILLUSTRATION/MACGREGOR CAMPBELL / OPB

hen people visualize the Great Northwest, it’s not usually the high deserts of Central Oregon, the palouse prairies of the Columbia River Plateau, or the wet meadows of the Willamette Valley that we see in our mind’s eye; we usually think of lush and mossy evergreen forests dominated by Douglas fir — Oregon’s state tree and sigil of the region. Having coniferous forests may mean that our autumns aren’t the blaze of color that our friends east of the Mississippi enjoy, but we definitely have winter beauty on lock. Except for larches, whose needles turn yellow and drop in the winter, our conifers are evergreen — beautiful and fragrant all year long.

Even if you don’t deck the halls and all that, being around Christmas trees can be good for humans — recent research suggests the alkaloids, terpenes and polyphenols abundant in conifers show important promise in treating an array of chronic conditions like diabetes and cancer. Walking in forests doesn’t just reduce stress because of the views; forest bathing (or shinrin-yoku, as it’s known in Japan) has multiple therapeutic ef-

Image generated by Stable Diffusion AI using prompt “douglas fir, chopped in pieces, served on a dinner plate, christmas, oil painting, by Jan van Eyck” NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2025 JEFFERSON JOURNAL | 19

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JPR Seasonal Focus Continued from page 19

Pine nuts, spruce tips and sugar from a Douglas fir

I

f you’ve ever walked near a riverbank in late summer, you’ve no doubt smelled the spicy, burnt molasses smell of black cottonwood (Populus trichocarpa), whose buds exude the aromatic resin similar to the biblical Balm of Gilead. The aromatic compounds found in our conifers are just as profoundly fragrant; besides the piney smell that we associate with clean floors and car fresheners, conifers’ organic compounds are the same ones responsible for the aromas of vanilla, cinnamon, citrus and balsam. Next time you’re walking around the Klamath Mountains, rub a Jeffrey pine’s (Pinus jeffreyi) needles and note the smell of butterscotch. A grand fir (Abies grandis) smells like tangerine peel; western redcedar (Thuja plicata) leaves are redolent of dried pineapple.

Conifers have an almost altruistic ability to provide food year-round. In early spring, when conifer buds are thrumming with energy and bursting from their papery scales, harvest the tender green tips for flavoring salt, sugar and spirits. Spruce tips make a divine jelly for spreading on buttered scones or brushing on a warm lemon pound cake. The tender cones of a springtime spruce are also edible, as previously seen at Noma in Copenhagen, barbecued like corn on the cob.

In late spring, collect juicy-green baby pine cones and simmer them in sugar syrup until they’re tender and mahogany-brown and the syrup is as thick as honey. The resulting varenye (a style of preserves from the Caucasus) is an old folk remedy for respiratory ailments. The resulting pine syrup, known as mugolio in Italian (and available at better-stocked gourmet shops and specialty grocers), makes an unexpected and complex drizzle for cocktails, mascarpone or ice cream.

Beneath a tree’s bark flows the phloem — the tree’s thin syrup-blood — and when giant conifer aphids (Cinara pseudotsuga) feed on Douglas fir sap on the hot and dry summer days east of the Cascades, the honeydew they produce crystallizes into pale white-gold melezitose on the twigs and needles. Indigenous Northwesterners collected this manna with relish, if they could beat the bears to it. (No exaggeration here; crystallized tree sap is what some scholars believe was the original Biblical manna from heaven.) Anything left behind ends up back in the soil, where nitrogen-fixing bacteria turn it back into food for the tree that shed the sugar in the first place.

This year, instead of chucking it to the curb when the holiday cheer winds down, try eating your Christmas tree instead.

Blend the needles with butter into a soft green paste; steep them in vinegar in a dark cupboard; or blitz them in the food processor with kosher salt or sugar, and get more seasoned eating from the season’s greetings.

SPRUCE TIP JELLY Make spruce tip tea:

100g spruce tips 200g boiling water Steep spruce tips and boiling water together at 185° F for 15 minutes.

Strain the tea through a cheesecloth and discard the spruce tips.

Set aside.

For the jelly:

100g spruce tips 100g spruce tea (see above) 10g honey 20g white wine (dry preferred) 2g gelatin Bring the wine and honey to boil, add the spruce tips and cook for 5 min over high heat.

Turn off heat and add the tea. Leave it at room temperature to cool slightly.

Strain the liquid through a cheesecloth.

Hydrate the gelatin in water (if using sheets) and add to the warm liquid. Whisk, then pour into desired container.

Cover and let set for a minimum of 6 hours in the fridge.

Put this over oysters or cold Seafoods to enhance the flavor.

Adapted from a recipe by Josh Dorcak, Chef/Owner of MÄS, NAMA, kandō in Ashland.

OPB’s “Superabundant” explores the stories behind the foods of the Pacific Northwest with videos, articles and a weekly newsletter. Every week, Heather Arndt Anderson, a Portland-based culinary historian, food writer and ecologist, highlights different aspects of the region’s food ecosystem. Her work comes to JPR through the Northwest News Network, a collaboration between public media organizations in Oregon and Washington.

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2025 JEFFERSON JOURNAL | 21

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Amit Peled, cello & Daniel del Pino, piano May 2

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Stile Antico

November 14

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ChamberMusicConcerts.org · 541-552-6154

POLITICS & GOVERNMENT

Lawmakers spent much of the session doing zero legislating.

DIRK VANDERHART

Oregon’s Special Legislative Session Cost Taxpayers $270,000 This year’s star-crossed special legislative session was the longest — and priciest — in more than a decade.

T

he transportation bill Gov. Tina Kotek successfully pushed through the Legislature last week is expected to raise Oregonians’ costs by around $800 million in the current budget cycle.

That price tag is a touch higher if you figure in the cost of passing the bill in the first place.

A star-crossed special legislative session that officially concluded last Wednesday will cost taxpayers more than $270,000, according to administrators at the Capitol. The total could top $280,000 once lawmakers submit mileage reimbursement requests for traveling to and from Salem.

The cost – more than three times what lawmakers were expecting when they gaveled in – will top that of any special session in more than a decade. It’s the result of bad luck and what legislative attorneys say are inflexible laws about how lawmakers are paid.

Kotek and legislative leaders were hoping for a quick session when lawmakers convened on Aug. 29, the Friday of Labor Day weekend.

But while Kotek’s bill, House Bill 3991, passed the House as expected, it sat mired in the Senate for weeks. Democrats in the chamber were forced to delay a vote twice while they waited for a sick member to be well enough to make the trip. Sen. Chris Gorsek, D-Gresham, experienced complications following a planned surgery, and was hospitalized.

The chamber didn’t ultimately vote on the proposal until Sept. 29 – a full month after the Legislature convened.

Lawmakers spent much of the session doing zero legislating. But because state law dictates that members of the House and Senate must receive a $178 per diem when in session, they were paid anyway.

In the Senate, chamber rules ensured those payments went out to all 30 senators every day.

The House, which had already passed the bill, still had to gavel in every four days to satisfy parliamentary requirements while it waited on the Senate. Under House rules, its 60 members were paid any day the gavel fell – a total of 10 times during the entire session.

According to Joshua Sweet, the Legislature’s financial services manager, the total cost of per diems is an estimated $272,340. (Sweet said it would be weeks before he could officially confirm that amount.) If all lawmakers claimed mileage reimbursement – a step that is not required – it would tack an-

KRISTYNA WENTZ-GRAFF / OPB

6

JPR NEWS FOCUS

file: The Oregon state Senate floor, March 1, 2024, at the Oregon state Capitol in Salem, Ore.

other $11,327 onto the session’s bill, Sweet said in an email.

The inflated payments brought on by Gorsek’s illness have inspired grumbling in some corners of the Capitol. In the Senate, Majority Leader Kayse Jama, D-Portland, called on members to donate any money paid for days they didn’t meet in Salem to charity.

Republicans had no such expectation from the top.

“Senate Republican members can decide for themselves,” Minority Leader Bruce Starr, R-Dundee, told reporters Sept. 29.

Whatever they decide, the steep cost of the session is awkward, given the costs imposed by Kotek’s bill.

HB 3991 is expected to raise $4.3 billion in its first decade, via hikes to the state gas tax, registration fees, and a temporary doubling of a payroll tax that pays for public transit services.

It will also require drivers of electric vehicles and hybrids to begin paying for each mile they drive.

Republicans have vowed to refer those tax increases to the November 2026 ballot.

Dirk VanderHart covers Oregon politics and government for Oregon Public Broadcasting, a JPR news partner. His reporting comes to JPR through the Northwest News Network, a collaboration between public media organizations in Oregon and Washington.

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2025 JEFFERSON JOURNAL | 23

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24 | JEFFERSON JOURNAL NOVEMBER/DECEMBER

Ailyn Pérez as Mimì and Matthew Polenzani as Rodolfo in Act III of Puccini’s La Bohème.

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NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2025 JEFFERSON JOURNAL | 25

NEWS BRIEFS ‘Unemployed Zombies’ Protest Sudden Mill Closure in Douglas County

Klamath Tribes Walk Out of Summit Over Lack of Response from Oregon

By Justin Higginbottom/JPR News

By Roman Battaglia/JPR News

Roseburg Forest Products abruptly closed its hardwood plywood mill in Douglas County late last month. More than 100 workers lost their jobs.

The Klamath Tribes walked out of an intergovernmental summit over what they say are issues that the state of Oregon has failed to address.

R

I

oseburg Forest Products has closed its hardwood plywood mill in Dillard four times since 2004, according to Sid Walter, president of Carpenters Local 2949. Each time, workers in the rural Douglas County area — where well-paying jobs can be scarce amid the timber industry’s decline — have had their lives disrupted.

But this time, Walter said, was especially bad.

“They called everybody up late at night and just told them that you don’t have a job anymore,” Walter said. Workers were told to contact human resources about retrieving their personal belongings.

The union organized a picket at the mill on Oct. 13, featuring former workers dressed as “unemployed zombies” in the spirit of Halloween.

“It was just a horrible way to shut down,” Walter said. “Over half these people have been there for 20 years or longer.”

Roseburg Forest Products permanently closed the mill in late September, laying off 107 workers. In a statement, the company said it is leaving the hardwood business altogether, citing competition from lower-cost foreign imports, which now account for 80% of the U.S. market.

“The company’s decision to exit reflects a disciplined approach to long-term competitiveness and product alignment,” the statement said.

Since April 2023, the company says it has invested nearly $700 million in its Southern Oregon operations.

Walter said Roseburg Forest Products froze employee pension plans in 2016. Employees applying for jobs at other company facilities may lose their seniority. It’s a hard choice for those who have worked at the mill for decades, Walter said.

“They’re a little bit too young to retire and they’re too old to really start over somewhere else,” said Walter. “It’s going to have a huge impact on the majority of those employees.”

“Where is the handshake integrity for these employees with sawdust in the veins, and the reciprocated loyalty to the people who helped build this company?” a union statement reads.

Workers are picketing for more severance pay and an extension of pay and benefits beyond what is required by federal law. Walter said they also want a guarantee that the mill will continue as a union shop if reopened.

“We’re kind of concerned that this is a tactic that they’re going to use to just push the union out all together,” Walter said.

26 | JEFFERSON JOURNAL NOVEMBER/DECEMBER

n early October, The Klamath Tribes and Oregon’s eight other federally recognized tribes gathered in North Bend for an annual summit with state leaders. But the Klamath Tribes’ leadership walked out after delivering a statement to state officials and the governor.

Klamath Tribes Chair William Ray Jr. said the state has not responded to concerns the Tribes have raised, such as outfitters and guides infringing on tribal members’ fishing.

“I don’t have any ill will to the state,” he said. “It’s just that I want them to live up to their end of the bargain for us — to honor our treaty and our treaty rights.”

Ray said they want more regular meetings with the governor and for the state to investigate the adjudication process in the Klamath Basin meant to rule on water rights.

Gov. Tina Kotek missed most of the summit on Oct. 7 because of the federal government’s efforts to deploy the National Guard in Portland. But she addressed the absence of the Klamath Tribes in her speech at the summit on Oct. 8.

“We all need to be heard, and we must do better by our tribes,” Kotek said. “It’s okay to be called out when we’re not doing a good job, and we will all get better. And I look forward to talking with Chair Ray and his council.”

Other tribal leaders echoed that the state needs to communicate better and consult with tribes before projects begin.

“Governor, your team constantly says the right things and has good intentions,” said Coquille Tribal Chair Brenda Meade during a summit roundtable. “We need follow-through. We need more communication and just the understanding and expectations of you and your office.”

Ray said the Klamath Tribes are already scheduling a talk with the governor. He said the walkout was meant to push the state to improve its relationship with the Tribes. The Tribes are trying to ensure that native plant and animal species, which tribal members have relied on for thousands of years, remain in the region.

“When are they going to hold that importance in the state?”

Ray said. “To make these changes that we got to make in many things in order to save what little resources we have left to practice our culture?”

PBS Stations Have Been Working to Establish a New Normal After Congress Eliminated Funding for Public Media

By Jane Vaughan/JPR News Small public television stations in Southern Oregon and Northern California are struggling to fill budget gaps left after federal funding was eliminated.

K

IXE PBS in Redding lost 41% of its funding, laid off one part-time employee and left four vacant positions unfilled.

General Manager Rob Keenan said viewers have increased donations this summer, but he’s still preparing for the long haul.

“I think some media outlets are overdoing it. There’s almost a panic, but I’ve been really trying to come across as we’re actually still here,” he said. “We’re trying to get a sense of normalcy.

We’re still doing programming, we’re still doing outreach.”

KIXE also lost nearly $800,000 in grants due to changes at the Federal Emergency Management Agency. They had planned to use that money to upgrade aging equipment.

Keenan said KIXE will apply to the recently created Public Media Bridge Fund to offset some of its losses.

Southern Oregon PBS lost about $1 million a year, about 37% of its budget.

The station has made minor cuts to staffing, as well as other changes, such as not renewing its Zoom subscription and encouraging donors to use electronic bank transfers instead of credit cards.

CEO Phil Meyer said it’s tricky to plan for the future when there’s so much uncertainty.

“You could use a juggling analogy. You’ve got all these balls in the air, and there might be a gust of wind, there might be somebody distracting you. There could be a dog chewing on your pant leg,” he said. “It’s very difficult to plan in this environment because everything’s up in the air, and it’s subject to rapid change.”

He said last fiscal year, membership was just over half of the station’s revenue. This fiscal year, he estimates it’ll be up to 75 or 80%.

“When we would build budgets, when CPB existed, that was always the first line of the revenue side of the budget because it was stable,” Meyer said. “Building the fiscal ‘27 budget, it will probably start with membership revenue being the first line.”

That’s good news for the short term, but he said economic factors and other changes make membership unstable for longterm funding.

“We have to kind of mentally regroup, restart and think of things differently. There’s the emergency stuff that we’ve dealt with, that we’ve been successful. Great, we covered the gap in

the first year,” he said. “But I’m starting to think in year three, year five, year 10.”

Meanwhile, KEET TV in Eureka lost 50% of its funding and about 30% of its staff through layoffs, retirements and departures.

Board president Johan Pluyter said it’s time for the station to step back and reassess.

“As we talk through these things, we’ve been doing things the same way, quite a few things, for decades. You think, are there alternatives? Can we do this differently, smarter, cheaper?” he said. “Then the final question is, can we afford it?”

KEET TV consolidated its broadcasting operations down to a single channel beginning Oct. 1, although Pluyter said they are all continuing to be broadcast online.

This shift will save the station money and help address some of the technical difficulties it has experienced.

Mobile Clinic Brings Health Care to Rural Klamath County

By Justin Higginbottom/JPR News Reaching a doctor can be difficult in rural Klamath County.

A new mobile clinic is bringing care closer to home.

S

ky Lakes Medical Center has launched a mobile health clinic to expand access to primary care in Klamath County.

The traveling trailer debuted on Sept. 23 in Klamath Falls, providing flu vaccinations. Beginning in October, it will visit areas across the county.

“We can get out to those far-reaching areas of our community to bring care to people and eliminate some of those barriers due to geography or transportation or weather,” said Casey Bennett, director of wellness at Sky Lakes Wellness Center.

Bennett said increasing access is one way to reduce health disparities in rural communities. Studies show Oregon’s rural residents face higher rates of chronic disease and premature death, dying on average four years earlier than people in cities.

“We anticipate that it will operate much like a drop-in clinic, with some basic primary care services, preventive screenings, flu vaccinations, some chronic disease management,” Bennett said.

Another goal, she said, is to provide preventive care so rural residents have alternatives to emergency departments.

“Too often, rural residents rely on the emergency department for routine or preventable conditions simply because other care isn’t available nearby,” Stewart Decker, Sky Lakes Wellness Center’s medical director, said in a statement.

Sky Lakes’ mobile clinic joins a number of other similar initiatives in the state. Aviva Health operates two mobile units in Douglas County. La Clinica in the Rogue Valley hopes to soon reopen its mobile health center after it was damaged in a fire.

For a schedule of Sky Lakes’ mobile clinic site visits, go to www.skylakes.org/services/mobile-care.

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2025 JEFFERSON JOURNAL | 27

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NEWS BRIEFS CONTINUED Shasta County Supervisors Condemn Election Chief’s Exclusion of a Local News Outlet

By Roman Battaglia/JPR News The Shasta County clerk is under fire after excluding Shasta Scout from getting press releases.

D

uring a closed meeting Oct. 14, Shasta County supervisors unanimously voted to condemn county elections official Clint Curtis’ removal of a nonprofit news outlet from his press release distribution list.

Earlier in October, Curtis removed Shasta Scout from the list, alleging the online publication had a left-wing bias and questioning its nonprofit status.

The First Amendment Coalition sent a letter to Curtis on behalf of Shasta Scout, warning of potential legal consequences. Annelise Pierce, founder and managing editor of Shasta Scout, said she wants to ensure reporters can continue covering local elections.

“If we’re removed from the press release list, then it’s very possible in the future we could also be excluded from a press meeting or from reporting at the elections office itself on election night,” Pierce said. “These are things that we don’t want to risk happening.”

Shasta Scout has reported on Curtis since his appointment in May, including fact-checking his claims while in office. The outlet reported receiving a call from assistant clerk Brent Turner, who accused the publication of coming close to “meddling” in elections.

“It does not matter to me what their message is,” said Curtis

via email. “They can print ‘The Communist Manifesto.’ What they should not be doing is operating as a public charity. At some point, someone has to take a stand. This is a great place to do that.”

Pierce founded Shasta Scout in 2021 to focus on government accountability and in-depth investigative local reporting. It’s a member of the Institute for Nonprofit News, which requires members to produce fact-based journalism and avoid advocating for policies beyond freedom of the press and public access to information.

The county did not immediately provide the press release distribution list. Pierce noted that several “citizen journalists” in Shasta County who promote partisan viewpoints are allowed to attend press conferences just like any other journalist.

Pierce said the law is designed to protect all members of the press and that reporters shouldn’t be excluded based on a “public official’s beliefs about their legitimacy.”

The Board of Supervisors agreed with Shasta Scout’s right to equal access to information from the county government.

“We condemn Mr. Curtis’ actions in excluding a member of the press and encourage him to maintain a high level of transparency and access to information,” Board Chair Kevin Crye said during the Oct. 14 meeting. “If it occurs again, the board will move to censure.”

The board itself faced criticism for restricting media access during meetings — a decision it quickly reversed.

Following the controversy, Curtis said he will no longer send press releases by email to any news outlets. Instead, he said all press releases will be published on the county’s website.

He said all press releases were already available there.

Some releases between July and October had been missing.

Curtis said that was because of a staffing transition and has since restored the missing ones.

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JPR NEWS FOCUS

OUTDOORS, LEISURE AND SPORTS

ROMAN BATTAGLIA

“ They’re voted the top Employee of the Month all the time, constantly.”

– Barbara Ray

In Rural California, the Best Sheepdogs Compete to Be North America’s Top Dog In October, the top 150 sheepdogs in the U.S. and Canada gathered in rural Modoc County, California, for the national sheepdog finals. heepdog trials don’t look like most sports. Dogs round up five sheep over and over. Some herders joke that it’s like watching paint dry — but it’s far more engaging than that.

Robin Dean, a judge at the national sheepdog finals from Lancashire, England, said the competition recreates the kind of work the dogs would do on the farm.

“It all started over in the U.K., probably in the late 1800s,” Dean said. “I would probably guess, just a couple of shepherds saying, ‘My dog’s better than yours,’ and the other ones saying, ‘No, mine’s better, so let’s go and prove it.’”

To start the competition, the sheep are released over 500 yards away. Once the handler sets the dog free — usually a border collie — it knows exactly what to do.

“The border collie is quite a unique breed in that it works the sheep by instinct as well,” Dean said. “So they have a certain connection with the sheep that manifests itself when they get behind the sheep.”

The dog and its trainer must drive a small herd of sheep in as straight a line as possible down the field, then show off some other skills before herding the sheep into a small pen.

Scott Glen has won the national sheepdog finals seven times. This year, he placed fourth, losing out to Alasdair MacRae and his dog, Moss. But Glen won first in the nursery competition, where dogs under three years old take part in a slightly easier version of the trial.

Glen said the trick is to get good at reading and anticipating the sheep’s behavior.

“You need a trained dog,” he said. “But you need a good dog to read their stock, and then you have to just fine-tune the reading to do the course.”

Knowing what the sheep are thinking and planning is important in these competitions. The hardy, West Coast Rambouillet sheep used in the competition can be feisty. Handler Barbara Ray said they’ve never seen a sheepdog before, so it’s hard to know how they’ll react.

“The sheep will change completely depending on the weather,” Ray said. “If it gets so hot, they get cranky — they don’t want to move.”

Ray traveled from Virginia, where she owns a farm with sheep and cows. She got sheepdogs originally to help manage the herd, and then, like many people, fell into competitions.

“They’re glad to put in overtime,” she said, sitting next to

ROMAN BATTAGLIA/JPR NEWS

S

Sheepdog handler Barbara Ray poses with her dog Wist at the National Sheepdog Finals, October 2, 2025.

her dog Wist. “They’re voted the top Employee of the Month all the time, constantly.”

Joni Tietjen from Clearmont, Wyoming, also runs a ranch where her dogs help out. She said that over the years, she has found that she prefers dogs that are easier to train and want to be team players.

“I still want talent, and I still want power and courage and all the things,” she said as her dog Ash stared up at her, his paws wrapped around her leg. “But I want the ones that really want to please me. And this one is… I’m going to be honest — he’s almost to a fault that way.”

Tietjen said that one of the major benefits of having the dogs work on a ranch is that it allows them to take a mental break from the intensity of competitions while still doing what they love.

“When I’m ranching and using them for work, I kind of let them have some freedom,” she said. “And it’s really good for their brain, to not be so managed like we do when we run in a competition.”

Ray and Tietjen are part of a growing minority of sheepdog owners whose dogs actually work on the farm between competitions.

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2025 JEFFERSON JOURNAL | 31

JPR News Focus: Outdoors, Leisure And Sports

ROMAN BATTAGLIA/JPR NEWS

ROMAN BATTAGLIA/JPR NEWS

Continued from previous page

Once the sheep are used in the competition, they are rounded up and tucked away until they’re used later in the finals. October 2, 2025.

A sheepdog stares down a herd of sheep during the national sheepdog finals in Alturas, CA, October 2, 2025.

This is the eighth sheepdog competition that Geri Byrne has organized.

“Most of these people have sheep to train their dogs on, not dogs for their sheep,” she said.

People don’t eat as much lamb as they used to, so there are fewer sheep farmers, Byrne said.

But that doesn’t mean there are fewer people entering sheepdog trials. If anything, there are more than ever, Byrne said.

In the past, participants needed to earn about 15 points in other sheepdog trials to compete at nationals.

“This year, I have 19 points, and I’m sitting first on the waiting list,” Byrne said. “I didn’t get in with that, so it took a lot more points, which means there’s a lot more people out there trialing and earning points.”

While more people getting involved is good for the sport, the growing number of hobbyists makes it harder to put on the competitions. Dean said they’re facing the same issues over in the U.K. “Farmers have less time, and there aren’t as many sheep about because of the finances and the farming situation,” he said. “So whilst there has been an increase in the popularity of the sport, it also throws up its own challenges as regards keeping it going.”

Byrne said they needed to source 800 sheep for the competition, so that every competitor in the preliminary round could herd five fresh sheep. It can be hard to find that many sheep nowadays. She’s also going to be hosting the national sheepdog finals next year.

But the sheepdog community is nothing if not determined.

Tietjen said there’s something addictive about the sport.

“You can have 100 bad runs,” she said. “But you can’t lose what it feels like to have one come together like that, and that’s what keeps you working in it.”

Roman Battaglia is a regional reporter for Jefferson Public Radio. After graduating from Oregon State University, Roman came to JPR as part of the Charles Snowden Program for Excellence in Journalism in 2019. He then joined Delaware Public Media as a Report for America fellow before returning to the JPR newsroom.

JPR NEWS FOCUS

WILDLIFE

JUSTIN HIGGINBOTTOM

“We are seeing people who are losing their housing and can’t find pet-friendly housing.”

— Karen Evans, Executive Director, Southern Oregon Humane Society

Herding Cats in the Rogue Valley: Volunteers Care for Cat Colonies as Prices for Animal Care Soar PHOTO: JUSTIN HIGGINBOTTOM/JPR NEWS

Rogue Valley animal shelters are often at capacity, desperately trying to find foster families. And there’s a growing population of stray and feral cats. But a hidden group of volunteers are on a mission to help the region’s forgotten animals.

B

efore daybreak, off an empty and dark road in Medford, Diana Moissant gets to work. There are only a few types of people to be found at this location at this time.

“It could be either somebody looking for trouble, somebody doing something illegal or a cat person,” she said.

Moissant is a cat person.

The back of her truck is filled with supplies: cat food, water and wire animal traps.

“This is what I use and it’s cost me a lot of money,” she said.

“This is sort of what a cat person has in the back of their truck.”

Moissant looks after five cat colonies. This site is her biggest, with around 60 stray and feral cats. She wants to keep its exact location secret to prevent more people from dumping pets there, hoping she’ll look after them.

“I don’t want a bunch of riffraff and a bunch of problems,” she said. “It’s a quiet area, and I want to keep it that way.”

She’s not the only one on this mission. Moissant said there’s a hidden network of people taking care of cats in the Rogue Valley, each with their own territory.

“There are people like me who do this kind of work, and you don’t hear about them,” she said. “But they have their little populations and stuff like that.”

The cats notice Moissant’s truck and start appearing from their dens, hidden in bushes and culverts.

“This is usually pretty dramatic, because there have been times where I fed, and there have been 30 cats on this road,” she said. “It’s pretty dramatic.”

Soon, dozens of cats calmly strut toward Moissant, looking like they just woke up in time for breakfast. She said she feeds around 120 cats on weekdays and up to 200 on the weekends.

It’s more than a hobby. Being a cat person is in her blood, Moissant explains. She would help her father take care of colonies in her hometown of San Francisco decades ago. They kept up the work when they moved to the Rogue Valley. But her father passed, and she became busy raising children.

Then, a few years ago, she got word of some kittens in this area of Medford.

“So I came, and I investigated,” Moissant said. “I discovered a whole new world here.”

Not everyone is as grateful as the cats for her work. Some accuse her of enabling the cat colonies. But Moissant said that feeding cuts down the cats’ need to hunt wildlife and prevents them

Feral and stray cats gather for breakfast at a colony in Medford on Sept. 29, 2025

from becoming unhealthy and potentially spreading disease.

And she explains that feeding is only part of her work. She finds foster families for kittens in the colony. She’s also on a constant hunt to spay and neuter. In cat person-lingo, it’s called TNR — trap, neuter, return. The goal is to stabilize and shrink the populations.

“My populations, for the most part, they’re not bad,” Moissant said. “They’re pretty much under control, because this is all I do.”

It’s a service the Rogue Valley desperately needs.

“In the 10 years that I’ve been here, we’re probably in the most critical situation we’ve ever been in in terms of people bringing animals to us that they can no longer care for and people finding stray animals,” said Karen Evans, executive director with the Southern Oregon Humane Society.

Evans said the population of stray animals has grown in the region. One reason is the record cost of animal care. Some people just can’t afford to keep their pets.

“We are seeing people who are losing their housing and can’t find pet-friendly housing,” Evans said. “That’s a big one here in the Rogue Valley.”

Even if a pet owner has the money, it can be hard to find an available veterinarian.

“There’s a national shortage of veterinarians,” Evans said.

“If you go onto a job board for animal welfare jobs, there’s just shelter after shelter after shelter looking for veterinarians.”

Moissant, in fact, will soon drive over an hour away for basic animal care.

“I have to go to Selma this week for two cats just to spay and neuter, because I can’t find it here in the area,” she said. “I have to go up to Grants Pass. Sometimes I have to turn myself into a pretzel.”

Besides a trickle of donations, Moissant pays for everything herself. She’s not a non-profit or affiliated with any organization. But she is the only local cat person on TikTok. She said she likes the independence.

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2025 JEFFERSON JOURNAL | 33

Wildlife

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“I’m not doing anything wrong. I have receipts,” Moissant said.

She has help. Cat people seem to find each other — like Christopher Headrick, who is assisting this morning.

“I’ve been connected with cats my whole life,” Headrick said.

He’s trying to capture a couple of kittens today for deworming and vaccination.

“Then hopefully find them a forever home,” he said.

Moissant and Headrick set a trap in a patch of tall grass where they think the kitten is hiding. Soon, they catch something.

“We got a cat!” Moissant yells.

“Wrong cat,” Headrick replies.

It’s not the kitten. It’s another cat that’s already spayed — they can tell by a small clip in the cat’s ear. They let the cat loose after getting an earful of annoyed hissing. They’ll try again soon, hoping to catch the kittens before winter.

But for now, their work is over. The sun is rising. The cats, full and content, slip back into the bushes, just as the first joggers and rush of cars heading to work pass by.

Justin Higginbottom is a regional reporter for Jefferson Public Radio. He’s worked in print and radio journalism in Utah as well as abroad with stints in Southeast Asia and the Middle East. He spent a year reporting on the Myanmar civil war and has contributed to NPR, CNBC and Deutsche Welle (Germany’s public media organization).

JPR NEWS FOCUS

BUSINESS

ALINA SELYUKH

Major food brands are pledging to phase out synthetic dye from snacks, candy and cereals: Kraft Heinz, Nestle, Campbell’s. Even Mars says it will try a naturally colored version of M&M.

Food-Makers Are Phasing Out Artificial Dyes.

The Problem: Americans Love the Color upcake icing and sports drinks — in all their crayon-like colors — are the final frontiers for Nick Scheidler’s team.

Scheidler leads product development at Walmart’s Sam’s Club, which in 2022 committed to — by the end of this year — remove dozens of ingredients from its store brand called Member’s Mark. That includes high-fructose corn syrup, some preservatives and artificial dyes.

The latter proved the trickiest.

“Color has been a challenge for us,” says Scheidler. “We’re not going to send muted colors out into the market, right?”

Right?

The race is on now, under pressure from Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and some states. Major food brands are pledging to phase out synthetic dye from snacks, candy and cereals: Kraft Heinz, Nestle, Campbell’s. Even Mars says it will try a naturally colored version of M&M. And they’re spending millions to keep shoppers from noticing the switch to natural dyes, striving for vibrancy and saturation to match the old look, bright and vivid.

Is this investment of time and money — to make natural colors look less so — worth it? To this food executives would say: heed the saga of Trix cereal.

How Trix got trounced Ten years ago, General Mills made a splashy pledge to remove artificial dyes from cereal and released Trix colored naturally with fruits and vegetables. The new version was duller in color than the original and missing the bluish puffs.

And many shoppers hated it. One man told The Wall Street Journal the new Trix was “basically a salad now,” as people took to social media and the news to complain.

General Mills capitulated and brought back the original Trix, artificial dyes and all.

“And this is really a problem because General Mills framed this as a consumer demand issue: This is what consumers want,” says Thomas Galligan with the Center for Science in the Public Interest, which advocates against synthetic dyes over health concerns, particularly in children.

The Trix flip set the tone. So when Kellogg later dyed Froot Loops with spices and juices, it did so in Canada, but not the U.S. Mars phased out artificial colors in M&M’s in Europe, but not the U.S. The all-American, neon-yellow Kraft Mac & Cheese removed synthetic dyes stealthily, boasting in an ad campaign that neither moms, nor kids, nor anyone else noticed.

ZAYRHA RODRIGUEZ/NPR

C

Scientists at Sam’s Club replaced artificial dyes in this star-shaped iced cookie with natural alternatives, but in a way that would keep the treat just as vividly colored.

Is love of bright foods nature or nurture?

Food dyeing dates back centuries. Think dairy farmers adding spices to cheese to turn it more yellow.

In the U.S., railroads and the spread of processed foods made a big impact, says food historian Ai Hisano. When Florida farmers had to compete with California farmers, they started dyeing their oranges to look more orange. When butter had to compete with margarine, its yellow color got a boost to appear richer.

The introduction of color advertising and of the modern supermarket began to train the American shopper what to expect, says Hisano, author of Visualizing Taste: How Business Changed the Look of What You Eat. “Marketing and also eating processed foods regularly educates consumers how food should look,” she says.

We learn that strawberry drinks are paler than real strawberries, store-bought pickled peppers are more colorful than homemade ones, mint ice cream is unnaturally green and blue raspberry is a recognizable flavor, despite not being an actual berry that exists.

Childhood snacks, in particular, form lifelong habits — and children are famously fond of brightly colored things. (Remember Trix?) Recent research by Galligan and other scientists found synthetic food dyes in nearly 20% of packaged food and Continued on page 37 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2025 JEFFERSON JOURNAL | 35

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drinks sold in the U.S., especially those marketed to children.

Over time, between natural instincts and nurture by marketing, data shows that people do eat with their eyes first — and colors change how we evaluate taste before ever taking a bite or a sip.

“People think food tastes better if it’s brightly colored,” says Marion Nestle, a longtime public health nutritionist who’s tracked research on food dyes. “Brighter colors are perceived as tasting better, whether the taste changes or not.”

No dusty dullness When Scheidler’s team at Sam’s Club began testing natural dyes in snacks and sweets, they turned to some of the tried-andtrue options. Turmeric makes things yellow; beets produce red; a seed called annatto can give orange; blue can come from spirulina, an algae.

But adding savory-tasting dyes to treats like cakes or candies often requires masking their flavors with sweeteners or other new ingredients. Natural dyes tend to be costlier and more finicky, less stable.

“There were so many revisions,” Scheidler says. Sometimes, natural dyes wouldn’t stick. Or sometimes, “the colors were muted, and they got continuously lighter over time.”

ZAYRHA RODRIGUEZ/NPR

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JPR News Focus: Business

Sam’s Club used beet powder and spices to give its quinoa tortilla chips their reddish color.

In one instance — a frosted star cookie — it’s taken 30 times more natural color concentration to achieve the right vibrant hue, Scheidler says, because of how dyes react to the fat content of the icing.

Is the fuss really worth it, still, in what seems like a new turning point on synthetic dyes in the American zeitgeist?

The irony is that without vivid color, many snacks and cereals look faded and, well, obviously processed. Sports drinks can look murky and dusty. And as long as rival options look as brightly colored as ever, many food-makers aren’t willing to be the first to go dull.

As of June, Sam’s Club was 96% of the way to its goal of ridding its food of artificial colors and other ingredients. Scheidler expects to hit the end-of-the-year deadline. Along the way, his team has run a regular survey of shoppers on updated ingredients — and their comments are unwavering: “Color and appearance are still very important parts of what they’re searching for in a product,” he says. ©2025 National Public Radio, Inc. NPR news report “Food-makers are phasing out artificial dyes. The problem: Americans love the color” by Alina Selyukh was originally published on NPR.org on September 8, 2025, and is used with the permission of NPR. Any unauthorized duplication is strictly prohibited.

Alina Selyukh is a business correspondent at NPR, where she covers retail, low-wage work, big brands and other aspects of the consumer economy. Her work has been recognized by the Gracie Awards, the National Headliner Award and the Society of American Business Editors and Writers.

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2025 JEFFERSON JOURNAL | 37

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RECORDINGS DAVE JACKSON

If you’re not familiar with it, but are a fan of the Fleetwood Mac self-titled album, and Rumors, it’s a great listen back to what was about to happen to the Fleetwood Mac sound.

Fall Picks

T

his fall there have been some intriguing new full-length releases we’ve been spinning on Open Air.

The Marcus King Band – Darling Blue The South Carolina-born singer and guitarist was 18 when a YouTube video of him playing at a guitar store went viral. From there, he caught the attention of Warren Haynes of Gov’t Mule who helped promote him, and musician/producer Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys who produced his 2020 album El Dorado and the 2022 follow-up Young Blood. He went on to tour with Phil Lesh and Friends in 2022 and 2023.

His new album, Darling Blue, credited with to The Marcus King Band with members he’s performed with for the better part of a decade, is as close to a country album as he’s released to date.

It includes guest appearances with Kaitlin Butts, Jamey Johnson, Noah Cyrus, Billy Strings and Jesse Welles and songs co-written by country singer Hillary Lindsay. It was produced by Grammy winning producer Eddie Spears who has worked with Sierra Ferrell and Zach Bryan. In addition to the electric guitar work we’ve come to expect from King, he also plays acoustic and 12-string guitar, banjo, electric mandolin and bass, showing the depth of a now veteran musician. For fans of his previous work, there is plenty of his signature blues and Southern Soul. Carolina Honey and No Room for Blue, are big band soul/blues tunes that sound like they could be on a Tedeschi Trucks Band album. Levi’s & Goodbyes is a straight up Southern rocker. I see this record fur-

ther cementing his place in contemporary blues and soul, and attracting new audiences as well.

Buckingham Nicks – Buckingham Nicks In 1973, Before they joined Fleetwood Mac, Lindsay Buckingham and Stevie Nicks recorded an album of California folkrock tunes. It was not well received at the time, and until this year, had never been commercially remastered or released in other formats. The original pressing is a valued collectible. In spite of not doing well on the charts, it did catch the attention of Mick Fleetwood (drummer and founder of Fleetwood Mac). He asked Lindsay Buckingham to join Fleetwood Mac, who said he would only do it if Stevie Nicks was invited too. The rest of that story is history. Buckingham and Nicks dramatically changed Fleetwood Mac’s sound in the ’70s and ’80s.

I had sort of forgotten about the Buckingham Nicks album but recalled liking it (in retrospect) in the ’90s. Last year, Andrew Bird and Madison Cunningham reimagined the album, and the songs, though much different, held up to reinterpretation.

Rhino records, just released the remastered original Buckingham Nicks album. If you’re not familiar with it, but are a fan of the Fleetwood Mac self-titled album, and Rumors, it’s a great listen back to what was about to happen to the Fleetwood Mac sound. Originally from Buckingham Nicks, Crystal later appeared on Fleetwood Mac, and others like Crying in the Night, and Don’t Let Me Down Again could have just as easily wound up as Fleetwood Mac songs.

I’m partial to Frozen Love, weighing in at over 7 minutes. It too would have fit on Rumors, or Fleetwood Mac, and gave the band, including sought-after drummer Jim Keltner (Traveling Wilburys among others) a chance to stretch out. It showcases the tight harmonies that Fleetwood Mac was known for, and like so many other of their later songs, it’s about the drama of love. Though it isn’t new music, it’s interesting to go back to the roots of a sound that defined the latter part of the 20th century.

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2025 JEFFERSON JOURNAL | 39

Recordings

Continued from previous page

Anna Tivel – Animal Poem Originally from Washington, now in Portland, Anna Tivel writes like a poet with a philosopher’s approach to observation.

Many of her songs are about people in her neighborhood or things she sees on long walks. Animal Poem, her 7th full-length studio album was released on Portland’s Fluff & Gravy records.

The concept of Animal Poem revolves around what it means to be human highlighting the beauty and sadness of everyday life. The title track was inspired after Tivel saw a woman and

her child on the side of the road sitting on a milk crate. The woman was looking through her things to find an activity for the child to help pass the time in their unfortunate situation. It ends with the line “you can be someone who loves or you can be somebody else. I tell you kid, the first one is the hardest.” It’s a bleak look at life and our situations, but one that offers hope.

In addition to her in depth lyrics, I’ve always been drawn to her sound. A lot of folk music can be described as “three chords and the truth.” A simple structure as a platform for words of wisdom. While the bones of Tivel’s songs tend to be rather simple, her creative nature goes beyond just her lyrics. Her multi-layered sound incorporates violin, subtle but complex percussion, and distorted keyboards. Recorded live with minimal overdubbing, and arranged pretty much as it was played, her sound has dimension and puts the listener right in the room with the musicians.

This, like a lot of her music is best heard when you can set aside the time to absorb it. Hear her latest JPR Live Session at ijpr.org.

Open Air airs weekdays, 9am–3pm on the Rhythm & News Service of JPR. Dave Jackson curates the music on JPR’s Rhythm and News Service, manages music staff and hosts Open Air, JPR’s hand-picked house blend of music, JPR Live Sessions and Open Air Amplified. The exploration of music has been one of his lifelong passions.

Theadore Scuitto, Grants Pass · 1978 Ford F-150 “I remember driving with my dad… we were coming back [to Talent] from Jacksonville and he was talking about needing a truck. We drove by this [1978 Ford F-150] with a for-sale sign and he said ‘Something like that’ … and came back later to buy it. In 1999 he started building a house in the mountains above Talent and needed a truck to haul materials. It was 20-year project designed and mostly built by himself with the help of 3 generations of family who — by the way — all listen to JPR. It was a big two-story house on a full basement… all concrete and steel. There was a lot of material being hauled. [My father] wanted to donate it to JPR. Whenever I’m driving around, I have JPR on the radio too. And it’s always playing in the house.”

Hassle Free · Tax Deductible · Free Pickup

UNDERGROUND HISTORY CHELSEA ROSE

Perhaps unsurprisingly, conspiracy theories have surrounded the Martin family disappearance since the beginning.

When the Case Goes Cold, Hit the Archives f you are behind on the Underground History podcast, you are going to want to run, not walk, to catch the recent episode on how one of Oregon’s most famous cold cases was closed using archives, archaeology, and a lot of time in a wetsuit. The Martin family went missing on December 7, 1958 after heading east from Portland in search of greenery for holiday wreaths.

The following spring, the bodies of two of the three daughters were recovered from the Columbia River but, despite search efforts, the fate of the rest of the family remained a mystery. Fast forward several decades to 2025, and enter Archer Mayo: artist and professional diver with a penchant for solving mysteries. I was joined by Mayo on a recent episode of Underground History, and what followed was an unbelievable tale of ancient and modern floods, maritime history, underwater archaeology, and a humble photograph stored at the Oregon Historical Society.

Mayo has spent years diving in the Columbia River, experience that has given him unique insight into the complex environmental and cultural history of this powerful waterway. The mystery of the Martin family has received extensive coverage over the years and really piqued Mayo’s interest when he realized there was something unusual about the way 19th century infrastructure changed the river bottom near where the family was last seen. He suspected it might be why previous searches had failed and could lead to the discovery of the Martin’s longlost tan 1954 Ford station wagon. When a local mentioned that a box of potentially relevant historic photographs had been taken to the Oregon Historical Society, Mayo hit the archives and made a critical discovery only he was likely to make.

Construction on the Cascade Locks began in 1878 and was concluded in 1896 as a means to improve the navigability of the river. The picturesque locks were a popular roadside attraction and remained functional until the Bonneville Dam was completed in the late 1930s. The area was formally developed for recreation in the 1950s, and for decades there were no barriers along the steep cliffside that provided the best view of the locks. Improvements to the nearby dam in the 1970s raised the water level and safety improvements to the viewing platform made it safer to visit.

Piecing together this timeline, adding in construction details visible on the photographs, along with dates of flood and weather events, allowed Mayo to hypothesize that the Martin family vehicle was buried in several feet of sediment in an infilled pit at the foot of the locks roughly 50 feet under water. Working closely with local law enforcement, state and federal agencies and Tribal governments, Mayo received the needed permissions and permits to ground truth his theory. And it paid off—after a complex endeavor

CREDIT: ARCHER MAYO

I

Archer Mayo: artist and professional diver with a penchant for solving mysteries.

with a few false starts, Mayo and his colleagues were able to confidentially identify the vehicle and recover the personal effects and remains of Kenneth, Barbara, and Barbie Martin.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, conspiracy theories have surrounded the Martin family disappearance since the beginning—featuring ex-convicts, stolen guns, and many tales involving the surviving Martin child, Donald Martin, who was out of state at the time. But not all cold cases are the result of a crime, and thanks to Mayo’s tireless work, it is clear that the death of the Martin family was a tragic accident. Evidence supports the theory that the vehicle entered the water at the Cascade Locks Continued on page 43 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2025 JEFFERSON JOURNAL | 41

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42 | JEFFERSON JOURNAL NOVEMBER/DECEMBER

mm

is

Underground History

PHOTO COURTESY OF OREGON HISTORICAL SOCIETY

PHOTO COURTESY ARCHER MAYO

Continued from page 41

Archer Mayo has spent years diving in the Columbia River.

The Martin family vehicle was buried in several feet of sediment in an infilled pit at the foot of the locks, pictured here, roughly 50 feet under water.

PHOTO COURTESY OF OREGON HISTORICAL SOCIETY

viewing platform, perhaps due to the Ford’s finicky transmission paired with the dangerous drop from the parking lot. The case is now with law enforcement, who will provide updates once they complete their analysis, but Mayo said he has already received thanks from the many community members impacted or haunted by the case.

What makes this story so fascinating, is the way it weaves together so many interesting facets of Oregon, be it true crime, environmental history, a curious and tenacious citizen detective, or the humbling moment that a cheery family outing went so devastatingly wrong. And, to boot, who is one of the unlikely heroes in this tale? The Oregon Historical Society! This case is such a great reminder of why curating and documenting history is so valuable: museums and historical societies regularly take in hundreds of documents, objects, and images without ever understanding how they might be used or experienced by future generations. Their foresight allows us to better understand our predecessors, appreciate societal and technological change over time and, every once in a while, solve a famous mystery.

Chelsea Rose is the director of the Southern Oregon University Laboratory of Anthropology (SOULA) and host of the Underground History podcast, which airs during the Jefferson Exchange on JPR’s News & Information service and can be found on all major podcast platforms.

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2025 JEFFERSON JOURNAL | 43

SUPERABUNDANT HEATHER ARNDT ANDERSON

Apfelkuchen (Apple Cake) with Hazelnut Streusel 44 | JEFFERSON JOURNAL MARCH/APRIL 2025

O

f all the ways to eat a tree, fruits and nuts take the cake.

And while fruitcake may get a bad rap, so many fruity-nutty cakes are ideal accompaniments to the season. There’s James Beard’s boozy persimmon bread, Italian panettone, and of course, old-fashioned German apfelkuchen. Some apfelkuchen, like the ones made by Germans from Russia, is more like an apple custard pie in a sweet bread shell (and is divine, believe us!), and some, like versunkener apfelkuchen, are simple vanilla cakes with sliced apples sunken into the batter (hence the name). This coffee cake-like version comes together more easily, but with its crunchy and spicy-sweet hazelnut streusel topping, is pretty enough for guests.

OPB’s “Superabundant” explores the stories behind the foods of the Pacific Northwest with videos, articles and a weekly newsletter. Every week, Heather Arndt Anderson, a Portland-based culinary historian, food writer and ecologist, highlights different aspects of the region’s food ecosystem. Her work comes to JPR through the Northwest News Network, a collaboration between public media organizations in Oregon and Washington.

Ingredients Streusel: 3 tbsp all-purpose flour ¼ cup light brown sugar, firmly packed ¼ cup granulated sugar 1 tsp ground cinnamon 4 tbsp cold unsalted butter ½ cup roasted hazelnuts, peeled and chopped Cake: 2 cups all-purpose flour 2 tsp baking powder ½ tsp baking soda 1 tsp ground cinnamon ½ tsp fine sea salt 2 eggs, at room temperature 1 tsp vanilla extract

HEATHER ARNDT ANDERSON / OPB

¾ cup sour cream or plain whole milk yogurt, at room temperature 6 tbsp (¾ stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature ⅔ cup granulated sugar ⅓ cup roasted hazelnuts, peeled and coarsely chopped ¾ lb sweet-tart and crisp apples (roughly 1 large apple), peeled, cored, and diced

Fruit is technically part of the tree.

Instructions 1. Preheat the oven to 350° F and grease a 9�springform pan or round baking dish.

2. Make the streusel: using a food processor (or a fork or pastry cutter), pulse together the flour, sugars, cinnamon and butter until you reach the consistency of fine breadcrumbs. Scrape the mixture into a bowl and stir in the hazelnuts. Set in the refrigerator while you prepare the cake.

3. Make the cake: in a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and soda, cinnamon and salt.

down the sides of the bowl again. Add half the sour cream/egg mixture and beat again until just combined. Repeat with the remaining flour and sour cream mixtures.

6. Fold in the chopped apples with the rubber spatula, then scrape the batter into the prepared cake pan, smoothing the top.

Crumble the hazelnut streusel mix on top and bake for 55-60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool for an hour and serve.

4. Whisk together the eggs, vanilla and sour cream or yogurt until thoroughly combined.

5. Add the butter and sugar to the bowl of a stand mixer outfitted with the paddle attachment. Beat the mixture on medium speed for 5 minutes, until light and fluffy, then scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula. Add half the flour mixture and beat on low speed until just combined, then scrape MARCH/APRIL 2025 JEFFERSON JOURNAL | 45

POETRY NELL NEILSEN

House Corpse

To Charlie (A Love Poem)

I pass you Every working day— Where Does the soul of a home go Once the Threshold has died?

I see you Through the unpruned trees and hedges...

Your glassless windows open and reporting Nothing...

Your roof undoing itself into the remains Of your walls, Your driveway blocked With shrubbery, the mailbox Still intact, the name Unreadable...

Who lived within your Now collapsed walls and left you Alone To crumble into your own grave Under blackberries?

You Are a hell of a Bargain; Dragging Your Sorry Ass Out of bed at Five o’clock In the frozen Morning, the house Dark, and you, Standing In that frayed Bathrobe, making Pancakes For my breakfast—

Nell Neilsen has been writing poetry since childhood, has been a working RN for more than 45 years (most of which being spent in an ER), and has been published in several anthologies and periodicals. Two of her early poems appeared in both the book, and later the Broadway play, entitled The Me Nobody Knows. She has read her poems on WBAI (New York City’s NPR station) and in several other venues. She has lived in the San Francisco Bay Area, New York City’s Greenwich Village, Northern Central Vermont, and finally, her true “home of choice,” Coos Bay, Oregon, for the last 29 years, where she lives with her beloved husband, Charlie.

She also paints, gardens, and makes jewelry.

Writers may submit original poetry for publication in Jefferson Journal.

Email 3–6 poems, a brief bio, and your mailing address in one attachment to jeffmopoetry@gmail.com, or send 3–6 poems, a brief bio, and a self-addressed, stamped envelope to: Amy Miller, Poetry Editor Jefferson Journal 1250 Siskiyou Blvd.

Ashland, OR 97520 Please allow eight weeks for reply.

46 | JEFFERSON JOURNAL NOVEMBER/DECEMBER

I could toil at Worse jobs For a hundred Years of salary And never meet The worth of Your grey eyes Smiling behind Home’s door, or of Your right arm around My waist, cupping my Left breast as you Snore in my Right ear— When l had Once and for all Accepted Gladly The poverty of Solitude, you Must have been Some Crazy emerald, Jumping into my Greedy Surprised fist From the dirty pavement Under my Clay feet.

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