The Evergreen

Happy Pride from The Evergreen! June is officially Pride month, and of course, queer visibility isn’t limited to one month of the year; it’s important all the time. 

Pride is about celebrating queer communities and it’s also a chance to learn about queer history. This week, we’re revisiting two intergenerational conversations about the importance of history, and combating queer erasure with friendship and resilience.

For more episodes of The Evergreen, and to share your voice with us, visit our show page.

Follow OPB on Instagram, and follow host Jenn Chávez too.

You can sign up for OPB’s newsletters to get what you need in your inbox regularly.

Don’t forget to check out our many podcasts, which can be found on any of your favorite podcast apps:
Hush
Timber Wars Season 2: Salmon Wars
Politics Now
Think Out Loud

And many more! Check out our full show list here.

In Eastern Oregon’s John Day, a 160-year-old building holds one of the biggest collections of traditional Chinese medicine in the world. Kam Wah Chung and Company, once part of a thriving Chinatown, was owned and operated by Lung On and Ing Hay for over half a century. It was a home, a general store, a community center and a medical clinic where Ing Hay served as a beloved doctor to residents across the region. His practice included herbal remedies, non-invasive treatments, essential women’s healthcare and more.

  Archaeologists and historians are continuing to deepen our understanding of the legacy of Kam Wah Chung and traditional Chinese medicine in Eastern Oregon. We join them to learn more about Ing Hay’s important contributions to rural communities in John Day and beyond, as part of our special series in collaboration with OPB’s “Oregon Experience,” the Southern Oregon University Laboratory of Anthropology, and Jefferson Public Radio about unearthing Oregon history.

Lakeview is a small town nicknamed the “Tallest Town in Oregon.” It’s home to hot springs, a round up and about 2,400 people. 

But this former timber town is currently millions of dollars in debt it can't pay off, and brown drinking water has become the norm for residents. 

OPB reporters Bryce Dole and Joni Auden Land take us inside Lakeview — how it got into such a dire state –  and how residents are trying to save it. 

Read Bryce and Joni’s full story here. 

For more Evergreen episodes and to share your voice with us, visit our showpage.

Follow OPB on Instagram, and follow host Jenn Chávez too.

You can sign up for OPB’s newsletters to get what you need in your inbox regularly.

Don’t forget to check out our many podcasts, which can be found on any of your favorite podcast apps:

Hush 

Timber Wars Season 2: Salmon Wars

Politics Now

Think Out Loud

And many more! Check out our full show list here.

Everyone who was in the Pacific Northwest on May 18, 1980 has some kind of story about the Mount St. Helens eruption. OPB producer Ian McCluskey revisited that fateful day with some people who remember it very well for both personal and professional reasons. For this week’s episode, we’re revisiting a conversation with Ian about unearthing lost stories from Mount St. Helens.

For more Evergreen episodes and to share your voice with us, visit our showpage.

Follow OPB on Instagram, and follow host Jenn Chávez too.

You can sign up for OPB’s newsletters to get what you need in your inbox regularly.

Don’t forget to check out our many podcasts, which can be found on any of your favorite podcast apps:

Timber Wars Season 2: Salmon Wars

Politics Now

Think Out Loud

And many more! Check out our full show list here.

In 1961, JFK set a goal for the United States: send astronauts to the moon and back before the decade was through. But the moon was much more mysterious then, and no one knew for sure what they’d find when they got there. 

Scientists debated the possibilities, and speculated that they’d encounter volcanic rock. To prepare its astronauts, NASA turned to a place here on Earth with plenty of that: Central Oregon. From 1964 to 1971, dozens of Apollo astronauts trained on Oregon lava fields, which scientists thought might be similar to the surface of the moon. The region became known as “Moon Country.”

Now that Artemis II has sent humans back to the moon for the first time in over half a century, we’re reflecting on the role Oregon has played in lunar exploration.

To learn more, watch OPB’s “Oregon Experience” documentary, “Oregon’s Moon Country,”

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For more episodes of The Evergreen, and to share your voice with us, visit our show page.

Follow OPB on Instagram, and follow host Jenn Chávez too.

You can sign up for OPB’s newsletters to get what you need in your inbox regularly.

Don’t forget to check out our many podcasts, which can be found on any of your favorite podcast apps:
Hush
Timber Wars Season 2: Salmon Wars
Politics Now
Think Out Loud

And many more! Check out our full show list here.

After 66 years, the Lloyd Center Mall is scheduled to close for good this summer. The current owners plan to tear it down to build a new mixed use development in its place. The mall holds a special place in many Oregonians’ hearts — from the iconic ice rink to its memorable 1990s jingles and its recent indie retailer renaissance. We spend this episode looking back on the Lloyd Center’s storied history and hearing some of your memories of the mall.

Don’t forget to check out our many podcasts, which can be found on any of your favorite podcast apps:

Hush

Timber Wars Season 2: Salmon Wars

Politics Now

Think Out Loud

And many more! Check out our full show list here.

At the peak of his popularity in the 1950s, no one was bigger than Oregon musician Johnnie Ray. A decade later, Portland’s The Kingsmen recorded one of the greatest rock songs of all time. Both groups helped make rock-and-roll what it is today. What was it about Oregon in the middle of the century that made it so musically innovative? And why don’t we get any credit?

You can read more and see the Oregon Experience Documentary about Johnnie Ray produced by Kami Horton here.

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For more episodes of The Evergreen, and to share your voice with us, visit our show page.

Follow OPB on Instagram, and follow host Jenn Chávez too.

You can sign up for OPB’s newsletters to get what you need in your inbox regularly.

Don’t forget to check out our many podcasts, which can be found on any of your favorite podcast apps:
Hush
Timber Wars Season 2: Salmon Wars
Politics Now
Think Out Loud

And many more! Check out our full show list here.

What does it mean for community members to have access to foods from their culture? What is it like to take care of an urban forest and hit the trail for your day at the office? How can fitness prioritize strength and community building over weight loss?

Once again, we’ve got questions about all the interesting jobs Pacific Northwesterners have, and so do you. So we’re back with the latest installments of our ‘At Work With’ series, where interview people from different lines of work about what it’s like to do what they do. This time, we meet a worker at a market-style food pantry specializing in Latino cultural foods, a park ranger at Oregon’s Tryon Creek State Natural Area, and a coach focused on making fitness more welcoming and inclusive for everyone.

We’re always open to new ideas for jobs — or volunteer positions — that we can learn about next! If you’ve got a suggestion, email us at [email protected].

For more audio postcards about what makes us feel at home in the Pacific Northwest like the one included in this week’s show, check out our very first episode.

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For more episodes of The Evergreen, and to share your voice with us, visit our show page.

Follow OPB on Instagram, and follow host Jenn Chávez too.

You can sign up for OPB’s newsletters to get what you need in your inbox regularly.

Don’t forget to check out our many podcasts, which can be found on any of your favorite podcast apps:
Hush
Timber Wars Season 2: Salmon Wars
Politics Now
Think Out Loud

And many more! Check out our full show list here.

Renée Watson grew up in Northeast Portland and attended Vernon Elementary. When she was in the second grade, in Ms. Tupper’s class, she wrote a 21-page story. 

“I brought it to school, and Ms. Tupper was like, ‘wow, I think you're gonna be a writer one day’.” she said. 

Watson is now a New York Times bestselling author and winner of the prestigious 2026 Newbery Medal for her children’s book, “All the Blues in the Sky.” That medal is the nation’s top prize for children’s literature.

She mostly writes for young readers, but she doesn’t hold back for her audience. She’s written books that range from themes of grief, identity, race, to friendship, art and hope. 

Watson says sometimes the world we live in is not the world we want, but she can right those wrongs when she’s writing. 

“I can change the ending, and ask us to be better,” she said. “I feel very powerful as a writer, to push us to dream and to be better.”

In this week’s episode of The Evergreen: how the remarkable writer Renee Watson inspires young Black readers to step into their power. 

Watch OPB’s Oregon Art Beat documentary on Renée Watson here.

For more Evergreen episodes and to share your voice with us, visit our showpage.

Follow OPB on Instagram, and follow host Jenn Chávez too.

You can sign up for OPB’s newsletters to get what you need in your inbox regularly.

Don’t forget to check out our many podcasts, which can be found on any of your favorite podcast apps:

Hush 

Timber Wars Season 2: Salmon Wars

Politics Now

Think Out Loud

And many more! Check out our full show list here.

The history of logging is full of tales of lumber barons and lumberjacks. Think flannel-clad men with double-bit axes doing manly things in the woods. But in the forests of Eastern Oregon, new research into daily life in a once-bustling mill town tells a more nuanced story about the extractive timber industry that once dominated the Northwest: one that elevates women and families.

Archaeologists and citizen scientists unearthed thousands of artifacts at the site of the former Baker White Pine Mill, which operated from 1910 to 1918 in the Blue Mountains. What they found provided clues about the role of women in the mill community, and an opportunity to recognize their important contributions to the lumber industry, long absent from the documentary record.

Historical archaeologist Chelsea Rose joins us for the next installment in our special series in collaboration with OPB’s “Oregon Experience,” the Southern Oregon University Laboratory of Anthropology, and Jefferson Public Radio about unearthing Oregon history — the real stuff.

Listen to the first installment of our series, about efforts to reclaim the histories of Chinese cowboys at the historic ranches of Eastern Oregon.
And learn more about Oregon’s early logging industry from our episode about the multi-racial community of Maxville

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For more episodes of The Evergreen, and to share your voice with us, visit our show page.

Follow OPB on Instagram, and follow host Jenn Chávez too.

You can sign up for OPB’s newsletters to get what you need in your inbox regularly.

Don’t forget to check out our many podcasts, which can be found on any of your favorite podcast apps:
Hush
Timber Wars Season 2: Salmon Wars
Politics Now
Think Out Loud

And many more! Check out our full show list here.