The Authors of the OE
Richard "Dick" Bogle, a fifth-generation Oregonian, attended Hosford Elementary and Washington High schools in Portland before attending Oregon State College and Portland State College. In 1959, he became a Portland police officer, serving in several investigative capacities until he resigned in 1968 to become a news reporter at KATU-TV. He was elected to the Portland City Council in 1985 and served two four-year terms. Retiring in 1993, freelance writing and photography fill his time, but his passion is jazz. He was the host of a weekly jazz radio program on KMHD 89.1 FM and has photographed many world-class jazz musicians.
Darren Borgias, a conservation ecologist from Ashland, has worked for twenty-two years with The Nature Conservancy in southern Oregon. He earned an M.S. at Western Washington University and gained experience in natural resources with the National Park Service on the Channel Islands of southern California, the Catalina Island Marine Institute, and the Washington Department of Natural Resources. Darren helped establish and expand several natural area preserves, and he guides their ongoing stewardship. He works closely with stakeholders to restore important forest, woodland, and grassland landscapes and has written a number of technical reports in that vein.
Bob Boyd has taught for thirty years in the Bend-LaPine School District and has been associated with the High Desert Museum since its opening in 1982. He is currently the Museum's western history curator and curated a number of exhibits that focus on the region's history, including Buckaroo! The Hispanic Heritage of the High Desert, Amerikanuak! Basques in the High Desert, Gum San: Land of the Golden Mountain, and A Century of Service: The U.S. Forest Service in the High Desert.
Matthew Branch has written and presented a number of essays on radical environmentalism in the Pacific Northwest. He conducted an ethnography of tree sitters for his master's degree in folklore at the University of Oregon. During that project, he interviewed dozens of forest defenders, became involved with actions near Eugene, and participated in a tree-sit outside Arcata, California. He is currently working on a Ph.D. in cultural geography at Pennsylvania State University.
Charlene Brown is the co-founder and curator of the Willamina Museum of Local History and the author of eight books on local history. For six years, she researched and shared history through a weekly column, Slivers of History published in The Sun newspaper. In 2009, she received an Oregon Heritage Excellence Award for her efforts on behalf of the Willamina museum and the community's history.
Julie Esparza Brown is the director of Portland State University's Bilingual Teacher Pathway program. She has worked for almost twenty years in public schools as a bilingual teacher, special education teacher, and bilingual school psychologist. She currently serves on the educational boards of the Oregon Council for Hispanic Administrators and Clackamas Community College's Pathways to Success, as well as the Oregon Association of Latino Administrators.
Valerie Brown is an Oregon musician and writer. She was active in the Portland music scene throughout the 1970s and into the 1980s, playing in the band Moonstone, working as a solo singer-songwriter, and as a member of the a cappella group Betty Romaine. She also worked as a modern dance accompanist at Reed College, Dancers’ Workshop, and Portland State University. In 1991, she earned a master’s degree at the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication. Her thesis examined formal and informal censorship of popular music in the 1950s.
Sheri Bartlett Browne, assistant professor of history at Tennessee State University, received her Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota. Her research interests include the history of women writers and historians in the West, literary biography, and intellectual history. She is the author of Eva Emery Dye: Romance with the West and is currently writing a cultural biography of Frances Fuller Victor.
Vicki Anne Bryden is long-time resident of Medford and a retired elementary teacher and library media specialist for Medford Schools. A historic preservation activist, she wrote the 1978 application for the South Oakdale Historic District for the National Trust of Historic Places. She is also a volunteer and board member for community historical and arts organizations. She holds B.S. and M.S. degrees from Southern Oregon College.
Bob Bumstead taught English at the junior high and high school levels in Eugene for thirty-three years. For the past twelve years he has taught as an assistant professor for Pacific University’s College of Education where he received the President’s Award for Excellence in Professional Education.
