Think Out Loud

There are nearly 5,000 wild horses grazing throughout Oregon. But according to the Bureau of Land Management, the state can only sustainably provide for just over 2,600 horses on public lands. To help manage herd populations, the agency works to find some wild horses new homes, and it's people like Kimber Teatro who help turn these wild mustangs into domesticated horses. Teatro has been a participant in the Mustang Adoption Challenge since 2019, where wild horse trainers are given more than 100 days to work with an animal and get them ready for adoption. During most of the year, Teatro can actually be found working as a tattoo artist in Portland, but during the summer, she takes a different tack, spending her days working with these wild horses. This year she will be showing her horse Finn at the competition, which takes place at the end of August in Albany. She joins us to share more

When musician Jermaine Malone set out to run an all ages venue in Portland, he wanted it to be a place for musicians and bands to perform and for fans young and old to come see them, sure. But he also wanted so much more. He wanted to provide good food and drinks of all kinds — and a space for open-mic nights, makers markets and even after school programs. The Heights Lounge and Events Space that opened in April is now exactly that. We sit down with Malone to talk more about his space, which he says is the only wholly Black-owned venue in the state.

Southern Oregon University recently announced plans to cut 15% of its budget over three years. The proposal would eliminate 15 majors and 11 minors, and lead to the elimination of more than 60 positions through a combination of layoffs, voluntary retirements and not filling vacancies. SOU President Rick Bailey attributes the university’s ongoing financial crisis to a number of factors including declining enrollment, decreased state funding and federal actions by the Trump administration.   Sage TeBeest is a creative arts program assistant at SOU and the president of SEIU 503 Sublocal 84, which represents classified staff at the university. She joins us with more on how union members are reacting to the cuts.  

While still a junior at Grant High School in 2022 Alex Sahli submitted a design for a LEGO set of the Italian Riviera. At 17 years old, he had already submitted five designs for sets to LEGO Ideas. That’s an online platform which allows fans of the iconic toy building blocks to upload a design of their own creation and win enough votes of support from fellow LEGO enthusiasts for the company to review it and possibly turn it into a mass produced set. Sahli’s submission of an Italian village scene featured, among other details, a Vespa scooter, fishing boat, gelato shop and brightly colored buildings with tiled roofs.   But it wasn’t until two years later, in 2024, when Sahli was a college freshman, that LEGO informed him that his design had been accepted for production. Later this month, the Italian Riviera set will go on sale, with more than 3,000 pieces and nine minifigures, including one immortalizing the designer himself as a camera-toting tourist.  Sahli joins us to talk about the experience of designing a LEGO set and his other original creations that are attracting a following on social media. 

Nearly 50 years ago, a Seattle juvenile court judge came up with the idea of using trained volunteers to appear in court to speak on behalf of abused and neglected children as a way to get more information about their individual cases. Today, nearly a thousand local Court Appointed Special Advocate programs exist in 49 states, including Oregon. CASA volunteers provide the court with regular updates about a child’s particular case and make recommendations about their placement, informed through monthly visits with the child and discussions with their teachers, counselors and others involved in their welfare.   But meeting the growing need for CASAs in Oregon and the rest of the nation is getting tougher. In April, the national CASA organization announced the termination of federal grants totaling millions of dollars which would have been disbursed to state and local CASA programs. That’s in addition to the loss of a $1.7 million federal community project grant earmarked for Oregon’s 19 local CASA programs.    Joining us to share their experiences are Amy Muñoz, who has been serving Jackson County as a CASA volunteer for seven years, and Rachel Robb, who was sworn in as a CASA volunteer serving  Malheur County in January.  

With the Trump administration’s dismantling of environmental regulations and total reversal on policies to combat climate change, activists have filed lawsuits and requests for injunctions all over the country. The latest development is the Trump-led Environmental Protection Agency reversing the long-standing “endangerment finding” that greenhouse gases threatened human health and welfare. One environmental law professor at Harvard called it “an assault on the foundation of all federal climate policy.” Lewis & Clark environmental law professor Melissa Powers says Oregon — and other states — do have options to fight climate change, besides filing individual lawsuits. She says one viable strategy would be for Oregon to create a Climate Superfund. We talk with her about what unraveling of environmental regulations is likely to mean in Oregon and more about the potential for an Oregon Climate Superfund.

The Oregon Bee Atlas provides comprehensive data about the state’s native bees and the plants they need to thrive. With the help of volunteers, researchers have gathered information of about 800 different bee species in the state. Andony Melathopoulos is an associate professor in the Department of Horticulture at Oregon State University. Lincoln Best is a taxonomist for the Oregon Bee Atlas. They join us with more on the project and the role volunteers have played in uncovering more about Oregon’s bees.

The warmth and sunshine of summer makes it an especially ideal time  in Oregon to recreate outdoors and experience the state’s bounty of hiking trails, rivers, mountain peaks and other scenic attractions. But that spike in outdoor recreation can also lead to more calls for potentially life-saving search and rescue missions by law enforcement in remote locations. Linn County is one of the many counties in the state that have well-established search and rescue programs that rely heavily on unpaid volunteers, including youth as young as 14 years old.    The Linn County Sheriff’s Office has been operating a youth search and rescue program for more than 30 years. The bootcamp-style training academy is open to youth ages 14 to 18 years old who are taught first aid, shelter and fire building, navigation using compasses and maps and learning how to search for and gather evidence of possible crimes in wilderness areas. The majority of the personnel responding to search and rescue missions in Linn County are youth volunteers, who age out of the program when they turn 21.    Ric Lentz, emergency manager and search and rescue coordinator for the Linn County Sheriff’s Office, and Drew Funk, a 19-year-old volunteer who has been with the county’s youth SAR program for four years, join us to share the critical role youth play in SAR missions and describe how that role has evolved in recent years.  

The Trail Blazers are up for sale for the first time in 37 years. And there’s a real fear among fans — and elected officials —that if Portland doesn’t play its cards right, the new owner could move the team to another city. Gov. Tina Kotek and Portland Mayor Keith Wilson sent a letter recently to NBA Commissioner Adam Silver stating their emphatic support for keeping the team here. Marshall Glickman, whose father founded the team and served as the president of the organization, along with former player and gubernatorial candidate Chris Dudley are among those who created Rip City Forever to advocate for doing whatever it takes to keep the Blazers in Portland. Specifically, the team will need a new or upgraded arena. Glickman and Dudley join us to tell us how they hope to help the city avoid losing the economic boost and civic pride that the Blazers bring.

The College Assistance for Migrants Program, or CAMP, has supported children of migrant farmworkers for more than 50 years — helping students who often face financial hardship, language barriers, and limited academic preparation navigate their first year of college. But this year, the federal funds that sustain CAMP programs across the country have been frozen, despite being approved by Congress for the 2025 fiscal year. At Portland Community College, the delay in nearly $475,000 in funding threatens to halt scholarships, mentorship, and key support services that many students rely on to stay enrolled and succeed.Greg Contreras, who runs PCC’s program, and sophomore Atziri Lopez — a former CAMP student and current peer mentor for the program — join us to discuss how the funding freeze is already disrupting students’ lives, and what could be lost if the program is forced to shut down.