Think Out Loud

Portland author David F. Walker and illustrator Marcus Kwame Anderson have worked together before - on a 2021 graphic novel about the Black Panther Party. This time they’ve teamed up on something a little different: an update of the classic American novel “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.” In their version, the escaped slave Jim is more than just Huck’s companion; he’s a fully imagined character. Walker joins us to talk about the work of updating an American classic.

Portland artist Arvie Smith is known for colorful, larger-than-life oil paintings that explore oppression and injustice against Black Americans through symbolism and visual tropes. He’s also a professor emeritus at Pacific Northwest College of Art after a 35-year tenure. His murals can be seen on buildings in North Portland and at the Donald E. Long Juvenile Center, where he spent time teaching art to incarcerated youth.

Despite being in his mid-80s, Smith is far from retired — just last year, he received a prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship. The work he created during that fellowship is currently on display in Chicago. Titled “Crossing Clear Creek,” the exhibit explores Smith’s childhood memories and experience of race in rural Texas and Los Angeles. Smith joins us to talk about his life and work.

One of the many training programs the Portland Police Bureau requires before officers go out into communities on their own is a simple exercise called Talk A Mile. Police officers are paired with high school students of color and sent off to walk around the track together with four different topics on a note card for each of the four laps in a mile. Justin and Erika Fogarty started the program with a pilot in 2022, which their teenaged son Liam participated in. The Bureau immediately incorporated Talk A Mile as part of the curriculum for officers in the advanced academy as part of their probationary period. We talk with the couple, along with past participants high school junior Elija Graham and Portland Police Officer Danielle Wilson, to hear more about the program’s intentions and outcomes.

Lawmakers in Olympia are considering a proposal that would create tougher regulations around youth labor in Washington. HB 1644 would set minimum penalties for youth labor violations and prohibit companies with multiple serious safety violations from hiring minors. 

In 2023, a Washington teen lost both of his legs working on a construction site through a school program. An investigation by Cascade PBS found that public officials and the construction company disregarded safety rules leading up to the injury. Lizz Giordano is an investigative reporter at Cascade PBS. She joins us with details of the bill and her reporting.   

Oregon lawmakers are once again debating how best to allocate education funding to improve attendance, graduation rates, test scores and other key metrics of success. Meanwhile, parents and educators are pushing to remove restrictions on the amount of money school districts can receive for students with special needs. Lawmakers are also considering a bill that nearly passed last year that would block schools from removing certain books from libraries and classrooms. 

Natalie Pate is OPB’s K-12 education reporter. She joins us to talk about all of those efforts and more.

There were two gun-related homicides in Gresham in January 2025. That's two too many, says Gresham Police Chief Travis Gullberg. Gullberg is one of the people involved in the city’s new Ceasefire initiative, which brings together community-based organizations, city leadership, law enforcement and public health experts to reduce gun violence through focused outreach. Gullberg joins us, along with Marcell Frazier, violence prevention and community partnerships coordinator for the City of Gresham, to explain how the program will work.

Clark County Jail in Vancouver recently became the first jail in Washington state licensed to provide methadone on-site through a treatment program for opioid use disorder. A team of specialists at the jail also administer buprenorphine, another medication approved by the FDA to manage withdrawal symptoms and the cravings associated with drugs like fentanyl. 

More than half of the jail population in Washington has an opioid use disorder, according to researchers at the University of Washington. Last year, Clark County Jail installed a vending machine in its lobby that dispenses free fentanyl test strips and naloxone to reverse potentially fatal overdoses. Joining us to talk about these harm reduction efforts and the opioid treatment program at Clark County Jail are Anna Lookingbill, the jail transition manager, and Matt West, the addiction medicine medical director at the jail’s Comprehensive Treatment Center, which is operated by Acadia Healthcare. 

Portland’s Aurora Chorus is an inclusive, non-audition women’s chorus that formed in 1992 with the goal of elevating women’s voices through the art of choral music. Led for much of its history by renowned composer and conductor Joan Szymko , the chorus also emphasizes female conductors and composers as well. Rebecca Parsons has directed the chorus for the last few years and says one way this group is distinct from others is the simultaneous quality of the music and the community the women create together. The theme of this year’s International Women’s Day concert is “Undivided” and focuses on the mental health of young women. Parsons joins us, as well as soprano Jae Douglas, who has sung with Aurora since 2018.

Libraries worldwide broke digital lending records last year as Overdrive, the company that operates Libby and Sora, recently reported seeing more than 739 million borrows of audiobooks, e-books and digital magazines — a 17% increase from 2023. But while many library card holders may be enjoying the latest bestseller at no cost, the bill public libraries pay to provide this service grows just as much as demand.

Public libraries do not purchase digital books, but rather the license to distribute them. That licensing needs to be renewed regularly, making audio books and e-books up to four times more expensive than a physical copy. Some states, including Washington, have asked lawmakers to step in to try to make digital more affordable. Currently Oregon has no bill or law around digital books, but libraries across the state report seeing growing demand. Stephanie Chase is the executive director of the Libraries of Eastern Oregon and governing board member of the Oregon Digital Library Consortium. Le Button is the collection development librarian at Deschutes Public Library. They both join us to share what demand has been like for digital books in recent years and how libraries balance buying physical copies versus digital ones.

Federal DOGE layoffs and hiring freezes continue to hit Oregon as local offices of the National Weather Service are down to about 30% to 40% of its workforce, the Statesman Journal reports. The NWS plays a critical role in monitoring, predicting and delivering expected weather conditions, as well as issuing warnings about potential weather-related dangers. The NWS isn’t just relied on by the general public, but also by the Columbia River Bar Pilots, an organization responsible for helping navigate ships, cargo and crew through the treacherous waters of the Columbia River Bar. Dan Jordan is an administrator for the bar pilots. He joins us to share more on how federal layoffs could affect thousands of ships in the future