By KAREN RICHARDS/KLCC News -- Oregon’s Army Corps of Engineers has learned which projects will be funded from the federal infrastructure bill. Two major dams in the Willamette Valley are among them. Cougar Dam sits on the McKenzie River upstream of Eugene and Hills...
Highway 58 Profile
Doug Bates
An old ‘watchdog’ with a bit of bite moves up Highway 58 to edit Herald
I’m an old “watchdog” with a bit of bite. Just volunteered to continue helping inform folks about what’s going on in their Highway 58 communities, especially about how their city, county, state and federal representatives as “serving” them rather than special...
COVID update: Oregon reaches 6,000 deaths, cases expected to peak Tuesday
By APRIL ERHLICH/Oregon Public Broadcasting -- More than 6,000 Oregonians have died of COVID-19 over the course of the pandemic, as of this week. But state health experts said there’s hope on the horizon as case numbers begin to plateau in some areas. At a press...
Alsea superintendent, board will defy mask mandate, forgo school funding
By ALEX BAUMHARDT/Oregon Capital Chronicle -- Despite losing some federal relief money, Alsea School District leaders say they will disregard Covid mandates and allow students and staff to forgo masks when they return to school buildings on Monday, Jan. 31....
ODOT wants to hear from Oregon residents about use of $400 million in ‘flexible’ federal funds
By PETER WONG/Oregon Capital Bureau -- Oregon transportation officials want to hear from the public about how the state should spend more than $400 million in “flexible funds” from the federal government over the next five years. The $400 million is part of the $1.2...
“We’re definitely into the omicron wave,” Oregon’s top health care official says Tuesday
Health officials are hoping that an uptick in booster doses will prevent some people from being hospitalized for omicron. (Fritz Liedtke/Oregon Health & Science University) By LYNNE TERRY/Oregon Capital Chronicle After watching coronavirus skyrocket elsewhere in...
The Herald’s weekly Duck football commentary: Cougs deserve credit, but it’s Oregon 38, WSU 24
By LLOYD PASEMAN/For The Herald — In Saturday’s Washington State game, the Ducks played well for three-quarters of the game—minus a second-quarter meltdown—before a nighttime crowd of 52,327 that was on the edge of their seats for much of the fourth quarter as the...
Campfire light, the North Fork and the spirits who came before me
Then: My earliest memories as a child are camping. Usually a high mountain lake with friends and family. After a busy day playing, all cleaned up in PJs, we were allowed to sit around the campfire. Listening to the adults tell stories and sing songs like "Strawberry...
Farewell to readers: The Herald is here to stay, and now it’s time for raising funds, hiring an editor
By DOUG BATES/Editor Emeritus/The Herald -- My apologies, but I used the wrong word last month when I announced my "retirement" as editor of Highway 58 Herald. How can I be retiring? I never really accepted the job. I agreed to help create The Herald, not run it. My...
Sheriff’s office halts search after missing man found deceased at Pleasant Hill
The Lane County Sheriff’s Office, after asking for the public’s help in locating 54-year-old Abdul Lamont, called off the search Monday, Nov. 15, after the missing man was found dead. "We are sad to report that Mr. Lamont was located deceased in a field on a property...
Don’t ‘kill the messenger’ — and thanks, Highway 58 Herald
Doug Bates and Dean Rea organized and supported the Highway 58 Herald for the benefit of all living in Oakridge (and those who grew up there like me) and the surrounding communities like Lowell and Pleasant Hill. This online news source is beyond the best with...
Commentary: Ducks move up to No. 3 spot (really?) in College Football Playoff rankings
By LLOYD PASEMAN/For The Herald — The only thing more surprising than 8-1 Oregon being ranked as the No. 4 football team in the nation on Nov. 2 is that they moved up a notch to the No. 3 spot in Tuesday’s second weekly rankings by the College Football Playoff...
Artist of the month Curt Harville: From Desert Storm to Oakridge, with movies in-between
By SU STELLA/For The Herald — Oakridge is full of incredibly talented people who have been leading lives of adventure, and Curt Harville is one of those people. His list of accomplishments reads like a movie: ex-soldier, motorcycle racer, traveler, blacksmith. Add...
ENTERTAINMENT ROUNDUP: Eugene-area musician Peter Wilde to get a workout in Oakridge this weekend
By BEN OLSON/For The Herald — It is always pleasing, as one travels west, to get the hours back that were wrested away and then held captive as one traveled east. Yes, it was good to get that time back, but only a week later, an hour that I’m accustomed to using to...
Lifting a glass to help people is an Oakridge trademark at another Keg & Cask Festival
By JESS W. HENRYES/For The Herald -- The winds of wine wafted across the Oakridge Keg & Cask Festival on Saturday, Nov. 6, making the 13th annual celebration a great success. Though the weather was cool and damp, the spirit of the event made it feel almost like an...
Commentary: Herald editor should be ashamed for bashing ‘$200,000 couple’ for secrecy
By DAVID GORDON/For The Herald -- I have contributed two articles in the past year to your publication. Both articles were thanking people for stepping in and having a positive impact on other people's lives in this community. Your commentary titled, "Commentary:...
The Herald’s weekly Duck football commentary: Got to love that ‘prowess’ — Oregon 26, Washington 16
By LLOYD PASEMAN/For The Herald — Oregon and Washington have done battle on the gridiron 113 times since their first meeting on Dec. 1, 1900, in Eugene. The Ducks—who were known as the “Webfoots” until 1947—handily won that inaugural game 43–0. Since then, the...
Commentary: Living on a golf course once again, and happy as heck to be there
By BEN OLSON/For The Herald — Sarah Norcliffe Cleghorn’s most famous poem was about golf. “The golf links lie so near the mill that almost every day the laboring children can look out and see the men at play” She wrote that in 1914, when children indeed did work in...
Rob DeHarpport’s outdoor report: Underpasses are saving huge numbers of migrating deer and elk
By ROB DeHARPPORT/For The Herald — The fall foliage that recently brought us a bright array of color will soon be gone. It seems that fall can be here one minute and gone the next in a blink of the eye. Many of the colorful leaves have already dropped to the ground,...
The Ducks nab the No. 4 spot in first 2021 College Football Playoff rankings
By LLOYD PASEMAN/For The Herald -- The College Football Playoff selection committee unveiled its initial 2021 rankings on Tuesday and 7-1 Oregon was a surprise No. 4 choice for the first week, edging out undefeated Oklahoma, Cincinnati and Wake Forest, bumping highly...
House in Lowell that escaped fire threat now target of ‘burn to learn’ exercise
By DEAN REA/Correspondent/The Herald—A house in downtown Lowell may no longer escape “going up in smoke.” Initially, the one-story structure at 205 E. Main St. was granted a reprieve when asbestos was discovered and had to be removed. The advent of area forest fires...
ENTERTAINMENT ROUNDUP: There’s no place quite like home when you’re among Song Dawgz
By BEN OLSON/For The Herald — It’s good to be back home! I made the 800-mile drive from Heber City to Oakridge in one piece on Friday so I was here to see Mick Garvin and crew hurl pumpkins and other fall harvestables with his trebuchet on Saturday afternoon at the...
Volunteers race to get ready for big Saturday party, the 13th annual Keg & Cask Festival in Oakridge
By DOUG BATES/Editor Emeritus/The Herald -- Whether your favorite beverage comes in a keg, or a cask or even a soda pop can, the good people of Oakridge will have it covered this Saturday, Nov. 6, during an eight-hour celebration packed with live music, food,...
Harvest Festival organizers pleased with Oakridge-Westfir turnout and cooperative (mostly) weather
By JOHN W. ROSS/For The Herald — Since the days when the Oregon Territory was being established and Longfellow was this country's best-known poet, people have come to accept his poetic observation that "into each life, some rain must fall." And so it's gone, up until...