Portal:Oregon/Selected biography
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[edit] Selected biographies list
Portal:Oregon/Selected biography/1
Elliott Smith (1969–2003) was an American singer-songwriter and musician. His primary instrument was the guitar, but he was also proficient at piano, clarinet, bass, harmonica and drums. Smith had a distinctive vocal style characterized by his "whispery, spiderweb-thin delivery", and use of multi-tracking to create vocal harmonies. Smith was born in Omaha, Nebraska and raised primarily in Texas, but spent the majority of his life in Portland, Oregon. After playing in the rock band Heatmiser for several years, Smith began a solo career in 1994 with releases on the independent record labels Cavity Search and Kill Rock Stars. He eventually signed a major label contract with DreamWorks Records in 1997, for which he recorded two albums. Smith rose to mainstream prominence when his song "Miss Misery", written for the film Good Will Hunting, was nominated for an Oscar in the Best Original Song category in 1998. Smith battled with depression, alcohol and drug addiction for years, and these topics would often appear in his lyrics. In 2003, at age 34, he died from two apparently self-inflicted stab wounds to the chest; the autopsy evidence was, however, inconclusive.
Portal:Oregon/Selected biography/2
Frank Black (born Charles Michael Kittridge Thompson IV on April 6, 1965) is an American singer, songwriter and guitarist. Active since 1985, Black is best known as the frontman of the influential alternative rock band Pixies, where he performed under the stage name Black Francis. Following the band's breakup in 1993, he embarked on a solo career under his current pseudonym. After releasing two albums with 4AD, he left the label and formed a backing band, Frank Black and the Catholics. Black reformed the Pixies in 2004 and continues to release solo records while touring and recording with the band. Black's vocal style has varied from a screaming, yowling delivery as lead vocalist of the Pixies to a more measured and melodical style in later Pixies' albums and solo career. His cryptic lyrics mostly explore unconventional subjects, such as surrealism, incest and Biblical violence, along with dam collapses, science fiction and surf culture. His use of atypical meter signatures, loud-quiet dynamics and distinct preference for live-to-two-track recording in his career as a solo artist give him a unique style in alternative rock. As frontman of the Pixies, Black's songs (such as "Where Is My Mind?" and "Debaser") received praise and citations from contemporaries, including Radiohead's Thom Yorke and Nirvana's Kurt Cobain. Cobain once said that "Smells Like Teen Spirit" was his attempt at trying to "rip off the Pixies".
Portal:Oregon/Selected biography/3
Steve "Pre" Prefontaine (1951–1975) was an American Olympic runner born in Coos Bay, Oregon. Prefontaine was primarily a long distance runner, and at one point held the American record in every running event from the 2000 meters to the 10,000 meters. Prefontaine had one leg longer than the other (a common condition that does not affect running speed), and due to this he was told to give up on his dream of being the fastest runner on earth. He is considered one of the greatest American runners of all time, having inspired a running boom during the 1970s. He is known for his extremely aggressive "front-running" racing style and always believing in giving a full effort. Prefontaine died at the age of 24 in a car accident. Prefontaine set 19 National High School track records. Following high school, Prefontaine enrolled at the University of Oregon in order to continue his running under coach Bill Bowerman, who would later co-found Blue Ribbon Sports, the precursor to the Nike shoe company. After his freshman year, in which he finished 3rd in the NCAA National Cross Country meet, he suffered only two more defeats in college (both in the mile), winning three Division I NCAA Cross Country championships and four straight three-mile titles in Track and Field.He set the American record in the 5000 meter race, the event that took him to the 1972 Summer Olympic Games in Munich where he finished fourth.
Portal:Oregon/Selected biography/4
Matt Groening (born February 15, 1954) is an American cartoonist and television producer and writer from Portland, Oregon. Groening is best known as the creator of The Simpsons . He is also the creator of the comic Life in Hell and co-creator of Futurama. Life in Hell caught the attention of James L. Brooks. In 1985, Brooks contacted Groening with the proposition of working in animation for the FOX variety show The Tracey Ullman Show. Originally, Brooks wanted Groening to adapt his Life in Hell characters for the show. Fearing the loss of ownership rights, Groening decided to create something new and came up with a cartoon family, the Simpsons and named the members after his own family, except Bart, which was an anagram of the word brat. The shorts would be spun off into their own series: The Simpsons, which has since aired over 400 episodes in 19 seasons. In 1997, Groening got together with David X. Cohen and developed Futurama, an animated series about life in the year 3000. After four years on the air, the show was cancelled by Fox, but Comedy Central commissioned 16 new episodes to be aired in 2008. Groening has won 10 Primetime Emmy Awards, nine for The Simpsons and one for Futurama as well as a British Comedy Award for "outstanding contribution to comedy" in 2004. In 2002, he won the National Cartoonist Society Reuben Award for his work on Life in Hell.
Portal:Oregon/Selected biography/5
Linus Pauling (February 28, 1901 – August 19, 1994) was an American quantum chemist and biochemist. Pauling is regarded by many as the premier chemist of the twentieth century, especially for the versatility of his contributions. He pioneered the application of quantum mechanics to chemistry, and in 1954 was awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry for his work describing the nature of chemical bonds. Pauling received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1962 for his campaign against above-ground nuclear testing. Later in life, he became an advocate for greatly increased consumption of vitamin C and other nutrients. Pauling was born in Oswego, Oregon. In the 1930s he began publishing papers on the nature of the chemical bond, leading to his famous textbook on the subject published in 1939. It is based primarily on his work in this area that he received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1954. In 1958, Pauling and his wife presented the United Nations with a petition signed by more than 11,000 scientists calling for an end to nuclear-weapon testing. Public pressure subsequently led to a moratorium on above-ground nuclear weapons testing, followed by the Partial Test Ban Treaty, signed in 1963 by John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev. On the day that the treaty went into force, the Nobel Prize Committee awarded Pauling the Nobel Peace Prize.
Portal:Oregon/Selected biography/6
Betty R. Roberts (b. February 5, 1923) was the first woman on the Oregon Supreme Court as the 90th Associate Justice. She was also the first woman on the Oregon Court of Appeals, and served in both chambers of the Oregon Legislature. During the 1975 legislature, Betty served in the Senate where both her step-daughter Mary Wendy Roberts and then-husband Frank L. Roberts also served. Roberts was born in Texas in 1923, growing-up in that state during the Great Depression of the 1930s. After attending Texas Wesleyan College for one year starting in 1941, she married and left school, eventually moving to Oregon. In 1958, Roberts earned a bachelor of science degree from Portland State University, followed by a masters degree at the University of Oregon, and in 1966, a JD from Lewis & Clark Law School. In 1964, Roberts the Democrat won elecetion to the Oregon House of Representatives, serving until 1968 when she was elected to the Oregon Senate. Roberts lost her bid to become Oregon's governor in 1974, losing in the primary election, and then lost a campaign to become a United States Senator in the fall election. Then in 1977, Oregon Governor Robert W. Straub appointed Betty Roberts as the first woman to the Oregon Court of Appeals. In 1982, Governor Victor G. Atiyeh appointed her as the first woman to the Oregon Supreme Court. Roberts left the state's high court in 1986 and remains a senior judge for the state. She currently works as a private mediator in Portland.
Portal:Oregon/Selected biography/7
Bill Walton, (born November 5, 1952), is a former American basketball player and current television sportscaster. Walton was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame on May 10, 1993. He was born in La Mesa, California and played college basketball for John Wooden at the UCLA from 1971 to 1974, where the team won the national title twice, including a perfect 30-0 record during the 1971-1972 season and a 88 game winning streak. In 1973 he won the James E. Sullivan Award as the top amateur athlete in the United States, while also winning both the USBWA College Player of the Year and Naismith College Player of the Year three consecutive years. The Portland Trail Blazers of the NBA drafted Walton as the number one overall player in 1974. In 1977, the team won the NBA title with Walton as the Finals MVP. The next year Bill Wlaton was selected as the NBA Most Valuable Player Award, though limited to 50 games due to injury. During the 1978 to 1979 season he sat out in protest after earlier demanding to be traded after allegations the team was unethical and incompetent in treating player injuries. In 1979 as a free agent he signed with the San Diego Clippers and then in 1985 was traded to the Boston Celtics where he won the NBA Sixth Man Award in 1986. In 1990 Bill Walton retired from the NBA as a player. After retirement, Walton began a career as a broadcaster. He has worked as a color commentator for the Clippers, NBC, and since 2002 with ABC/ESPN. In 1996, he was named as one of the NBA's 50 Greatest Players of all time. Previously he was inducted into the Oregon Sports Hall of Fame, and his number 32 was retired by the Blazers.
Portal:Oregon/Selected biography/8
Chief Joseph (1840–September 21, 1904) was the chief of the Wallowa band of Nez Perce Indians during General Oliver O. Howard's attempt to forcibly remove his band and the other "non-treaty" Indians to a reservation. For his principled resistance to the removal, he became renowned as a humanitarian and peacemaker. In 1873, Joseph negotiated with the federal government to ensure his people could stay on their land, but in 1877, the government reversed its policy, and General Oliver Howard threatened to attack if the Wallowa band did not relocate to the Idaho Reservation. Chief Joseph reluctantly agreed. Joseph and other chiefs began leading his people north toward Canada. Over 3 months, the band traveled 1,700 miles across Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana. On October 5, 1877, in the mountains of the Montana Territory, less than 40 miles south of Canada, Chief Joseph surrendered to General Howard. He earned the praise of General Sherman, and became known in the press as "the Red Napoleon". Although Joseph had negotiated a safe return home for his people, they were instead taken to eastern Kansas and then to a reservation in the Indian Territory where many of them died from diseases. In 1885, Joseph and his followers were allowed to return to the Pacific Northwest, though many, including Chief Joseph, were taken to the Colville Indian Reservation. Joseph continued to lead his band of Wallowa until his death in 1904.
Portal:Oregon/Selected biography/9
David Preston Thompson (November 8, 1834-December 14, 1901) was a United States Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, a mayor of Portland, Oregon, served in the Oregon State Senate, and a business person involved with the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company. Thompson was born in Cadiz, Ohio of Irish and Scottish decent. In 1853 at the age of 19 Thompson moved to Oregon Territory. There he helped build the a railroad around Willamette Falls near Oregon City, which was the first railroad in Oregon. With the outbreak of the Civil War, Thompson enlisted in the Army where he rose to the rank of captain in the First Oregon Cavalry. In 1868 David Thompson served in the state senate representing Clackamas County as a Republican. Then in 1874 he was appointed by the President as the governor of Idaho Territory, and served from 1875 to 1876. Thompson returned to the Oregon Legislature representing Multnomah County in 1878. From June 1879 until June 1882 he served consecutive terms as the Mayor of Portland, before returning to the legislature in 1889. In 1890, he lost the election for Oregon Governor as the Republican nominee, but in 1892 President Harrison appointed Thompson as United States minister to the Ottoman Empire where he served until resigning in 1893. David Thompson died December 14, 1901 in Portland. He donated a fountain to Portland located in downtown, and after his death his family donated a statue named The coming of the White Man that stands in Washington Park.
Portal:Oregon/Selected biography/10
Dr. Douglas Engelbart (born January 30, 1925) is an American inventor of Swedish and Norwegian descent. He was born in Oregon. As a World War II naval radio technician based in the Philippines, Engelbart was inspired by Vannevar Bush's article "As We May Think". Engelbart received a Bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Oregon State University in 1948, a B.Eng. from UC Berkeley in 1952, and a Ph.D. in EECS from UC Berkeley in 1955. At Stanford Research Institute, Engelbart was the primary force behind the design and development of the On-Line System, or NLS. He and his team at the Augmentation Research Center developed computer-interface elements such as bit-mapped screens, groupware, hypertext and precursors to the graphical user interface. In 1967, Engelbart applied for and later received a patent for the wooden shell with two metal wheels (computer mouse). Engelbart later revealed that it was nicknamed the "mouse" because the tail came out the end. He would also work on the ARPANET, the precursor of the Internet. In later years he moved to the private firm Tymshare after SRI was transferred to the company. McDonnell Douglas took over the copany in 1982, and in 1986 he left the company. As of 2007, he is the director of his own company, the Bootstrap Institute, which he founded in 1988 and located in Menlo Park, California.
Portal:Oregon/Selected biography/11
Tonya Maxine Harding (born November 12, 1970) is a former American figure skater. She won the U.S. Figure Skating Championships twice and placed second in the 1991 World Championships. She was the second woman, and the first American woman, to complete a triple axel jump in competition. Born in Portland, Oregon, she began skating at an early age. In 1991 she landed her first triple axel in competition at the U.S. Championships, winning the title with the first 6.0 ever given to a female singles skater for technical merit at that event. She finished second to Kristi Yamaguchi at the World Championships. She again completed the triple axel during her long program at the World Championships, becoming the first and only American to do so. Harding became notorious for allegedly conspiring to harm competitor Nancy Kerrigan in an attack, which occurred on January 6, 1994, at a practice session during the 1994 U.S. Figure Skating Championships. Harding's ex-husband Jeff Gillooly hired Shane Stant to strike Kerrigan on the knee. Harding won that event, while Kerrigan's injury forced her withdrawal. After Harding admitted to helping to cover up the attack, the USFSA and United States Olympic Committee initiated proceedings to remove her from the 1994 Olympic team, but Harding retained her place after threatening legal action. She finished eighth while Kerrigan, recovered from her injuries, finished second.
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Tom McCall (1913–1983) was an American politician, and member of the Republican Party. He served two terms as the 30th governor of Oregon from 1967 to 1975. He was known for his environmental policies, passing the country's first "bottle bill" and working to clean the polluted Willamette River.
McCall was born in Massachusetts, the the grandson of copper-king Thomas Lawson and Massachusetts governor and congressman Samuel W. McCall. He graduated from Redmond High School, and enrolled at the University of Oregon, graduating in 1936. McCall moved to Idaho to write for the local paper where he met his future wife, Audrey Owen.
He moved to Portland in 1942, where he worked for The Oregonian. He moved to the paper's radio station until 1949, when he became an assistant to Oregon Governor Douglas McKay. He was elected Oregon Secretary of State in 1964, then governor in 1966 and 1970. McCall later returned to journalism, and was a commentator for a Portland TV station. He made an unsuccessful bid to return to the governorship in 1978, losing in the primary to State Senator Victor G. Atiyeh, who went on to defeat incumbent Robert W. Straub. McCall died of prostate cancer in 1983, and after his death Portland dedicated a park along the Willamette River as Tom McCall Waterfront Park.
Portal:Oregon/Selected biography/13
Ewing Young (1799 - February 9, 1841) was an American trapper from Tennessee who traveled the western United States before settling in Oregon Country. As a prominent citizen there, his death was the impetus for the early formation of government in that region. In 1830, Young led the first American trapping expedition to reach the Pacific Coast from New Mexico. After recuperating near Los Angeles, the group visited the San Fernando Mission, and headed north into California's great Central Valley. In California Young trapped and traded before returning to Taos. He would continue with this pattern until 1834 when Young encountered Hall J. Kelley in San Diego. Kelley invited Ewing Young to accompany him north to Oregon, but Young at first declined. After re-thinking, Young agreed to travel with Kelley and they set out in July 1834. They arrived in Oregon in 1834, arriving at Fort Vancouver on October 17th. Young settled on the west bank of the Willamette River near the mouth of Chehalem Creek, opposite of Champoeg. A few years later Young was the leader of the Willamette Cattle Company that in January 1837 traveled to California with the assistance of Lieutenant William A. Slacum on the ship Loriot, and brought back 630 head of cattle along the Siskiyou Trail helping to make Young the wealthiest settler in Oregon. In February of 1841, Young died without any known heir and without a will, creating a need for some form of government to deal with his estate, as he had many debtors and creditors among the settlers. The activities that followed his death eventually led to the creation of a provisional government in the Oregon Country.
Portal:Oregon/Selected biography/14
Gus Van Sant Jr. (born July 24, 1952) is an American Academy Award nominated film director, photographer, musician, and author. Born in Kentucky, the family moved around with Van Sant living in a variety of cities, but graduated from The Catlin Gabel School in Portland, Oregon before attending the Rhode Island School of Design in 1970. He started as a painter, but later changed his major to cinema. After school he went to Europe and then Los Angeles where in 1976 he got a job working for Ken Shapiro. His expierences in LA led to a 1981 film he filmed titled Alice in Hollywood which was never released. He would move to New York and work in advertising for a time, using the money he earned for film projects. Van Sant would return to Portland where he would work as an independent film maker and produce films such as Drugstore Cowboy. Later works include Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, My Own Private Idaho, Good Will Hunting, and Finding Forrester. As an actor, Van Sant has appeared in a cameo on screen in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back playing himself. He has written the screenplays for most of his early movies, and has written one novel, Pink. Van As a musician, Van Sant has released two albums: Gus Van Sant and 18 Songs About Golf. The openly gay writer, director, and musician lives in Portland.
Portal:Oregon/Selected biography/15
Ken Kesey (1935–2001) was an American author, best known for his novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and as a counter-cultural figure. He is sometimes considered a link between the Beat Generation of the 1950s and the hippies of the 1960s. He was born in Colorado and grew up in Springfield, Oregon. After high school he graduated from the University of Oregon with a degree from the journalism school, before receiving a Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship and moving on to Stanford University. At Stanford he volunteered for the CIA's Project MKULTRA and was exposed to a variety of drugs such as LSD, psilocybin, mescaline, cocaine, and DMT. These experiences would contribute to his writings. Kesey's first book was One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, published in 1962. When the publication of his second novel, Sometimes a Great Notion, required his presence in New York in 1964, Kesey, Neal Cassady, and others in a group of friends they called the "Merry Pranksters" took a cross-country trip in a school bus nicknamed "Furthur" or Further. This trip, described in Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (and later in Kesey's own screenplay "The Further Inquiry") was the group's attempt to create art out of everyday life. In New York, Cassady introduced Kesey to Jack Kerouac and to Allen Ginsberg, who in turn introduced them to Timothy Leary. Sometimes a Great Notion was made into a 1971 film starring Paul Newman; it was nominated for two Academy Awards. In 1966, Kesey was arrested for possession of marijuana and eventually spent five months in jail. He later returned to Oregon, where he lived the rest of his life. Kesey died on November 10, 2001, following an operation for liver cancer.
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John Albert Kitzhaber (born March 5, 1947) is a physician, member of the Democratic Party and former two term Governor of Oregon. He graduated from South Eugene High School in 1965, Dartmouth College in 1969, and then Oregon Health & Science University with a medical degree in 1973. Kitzhaber practiced medicine from 1973 to 1986 in Roseburg, Oregon as an Emergency Room Physician. Kitzhaber began his political career serving in the Oregon House of Representatives from 1979 to 1981. In 1980, he was elected to the Oregon State Senate, where he served three terms from 1981 to 1993, and as President of the Senate from 1985 until 1993. Kitzhaber was elected governor in November 1994, defeating Denny Smith, and becoming the 35th Governor of Oregon, and was re-elected in 1998. Much of Kitzhaber's tenure as governor was spent on the defensive with the Republican controlled legislature. Oregon's constitution prohibited Kitzhaber from seeking a third consecutive term in 2002. Kitzhaber married Sharon LaCroix in 1995. They have one son, Logan, who was born in October 1997. The couple sought a divorce in 2003, soon after the end of his second term as governor. Kitzhaber has been promoted as a strong potential candidate for the various offices since leaving office, but never run. In January 2003, Kitzhaber was named President of the Estes Park Institute, a Colorado-based education organization for community hospital and healthcare leaders. He serves as the Director for the Center for Evidence Based Policy at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland, Oregon.
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Dr. John McLoughlin (October 19, 1784 – September 3, 1857) was the Chief Factor of the Columbia Fur District of the Hudson's Bay Company at Fort Vancouver. In 1798, he began 4½ years of medical training and was granted a license to practice medicine in 1803. He was hired as a physician at Fort William, Ontario (now Thunder Bay, Ontario), a fur-gathering post of the North West Company on Lake Superior. In 1814, he became a partner in the company, and in 1816 he was arrested for the murder of Robert Semple, the governor of the Red River Colony, after the Battle of Seven Oaks (1816). McLoughlin was tried on October 30, 1818, and the charges were dismissed. McLoughlin was instrumental in the negotiations leading to the North West Company's 1821 merger with the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), and became Chief Factor of the Columbia District in 1824. McLoughlin was involved with the debate over the future of the Oregon Country. After retiring from the Hudson's Bay Company in 1846, McLoughlin moved his family back south to Oregon City in the Willamette Valley. In 1847, McLoughlin was given the Knighthood of St. Gregory, bestowed on him by Pope Gregory XVI. He became a U.S. citizen in 1849. He served as mayor of Oregon City in 1851, and died of natural causes in 1857. His grave is on a bluff above Willamette Falls. In 1953, the state of Oregon donated a statue of McLoughlin to the U.S. Capitol's National Statuary Hall Collection. The title "Father of Oregon" was officially bestowed on him by the Oregon Legislative Assembly in 1957.
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Charles McNary (1874–1944) was a Republican politician, best known for serving as Oregon's U.S. Senator from 1917–1944, and as Senate Minority Leader from 1933–1944. Before serving in the Senate, he served on the Oregon Supreme Court from 1913 to 1915 and was dean of Willamette University College of Law from 1908 to 1913 in his hometown of Salem, Oregon. In 1917, he was briefly appointed to the U.S. Senate to fill a vacancy, but lost the subsequent election to Frederick W. Mulkey, who took office on November 6, 1918. Mulkey resigned after taking office, and McNary was re-appointed to the Senate on December 12, 1918. He was re-elected in '24, '30, '36, and '42. McNary served in Washington, D.C. until his death in 1944. In 1933, he introduced legislation that led to the building of Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River. In 1940, he was the Republican vice presidential nominee, as a western conservative to balance the eastern liberalism of presidential nominee Wendell Willkie. The Willkie-McNary ticket lost the Electoral College to incumbent Democrat Roosevelt, 449 to 82.
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Katherine Ann Power (b. January 25, 1949) is an American ex-convict and long-time fugitive, who was placed on the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Ten Most Wanted List in 1970, along with her accomplice Susan Edith Saxe, a fellow student at Brandeis University. The two participated in robberies at a Massachusetts National Guard armory and a bank in Brighton, Massachusetts where Boston police officer Walter Schroeder was shot and killed by one of their accomplices. These acts were to support protesting the war in Vietnam. Power remained at large for 23 years. In 1993, Katherine Ann Power negotiated a surrender with authorities and ended 23 years of hiding. Negotiations were carried out through her attorneys Steven Black, a public defender, and Rikki Klieman, a prominent Boston lawyer. On September 15, 1993, she pleaded guilty to two counts of armed robbery and manslaughter in Boston. Power was sentenced to eight to twelve years in prison for the bank robbery, and five years and a $10,000 fine for the National Guard armory crimes. Additionally, judge Robert Banks of Suffolk County Superior Court imposed a probation condition that Power could not profit from her crime. Power appealed this portion of the sentence on First Amendment grounds, but the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court rejected the argument and the U.S. Supreme Court denied certiorari.
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D. B. Cooper (aka "Dan Cooper") is a pseudonym of an aircraft hijacker who, on November 24, 1971, after receiving a ransom payout of US$200,000, jumped from the back of a Boeing 727 as it was flying over the Pacific Northwest of the United States somewhere over the Cascade Mountains, possibly over Woodland, Washington. Three significant clues have turned up in the case. In February 1980, eight-year-old Brian Ingram found approximately $5,800 in decaying $20 bills that were uncovered on the banks of the Columbia River. Ingram was eventually allowed to keep $2,860 of the money. In late 1978, a placard which contained instructions on how to lower the aft stairs of a 727, believed to be from the rear stairway of the plane from which Cooper jumped, was found just a few flying minutes north of Cooper's projected drop zone. In October 2007, the FBI announced it obtained a partial DNA profile of Cooper from the tie he left on the hijacked plane. The Cooper case (code-named "Norjak" by the FBI) still remains an unsolved mystery. On December 31, 2007, the FBI revived the unclosed case by publishing never before seen composite sketches and fact sheets online in an attempt to trigger memories that could possibly identify Cooper. In a press release, the FBI reiterated that it does not believe Cooper survived the jump. The FBI expressed an interest in obtaining his identity.
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Asa Lovejoy (1808–1882) was an American pioneer in Oregon, and one of the founders of the city of Portland. An attorney from Boston, Massachusetts, he served in the Provisional Government of Oregon as a legislator, was elected as mayor of Oregon City, and was a general during the Cayuse War that followed the Whitman massacre of 1847. During the government of the Oregon Territory Lovejoy was a member of both chambers of the Oregon Territorial Legislature, serving as the first Speaker of the Oregon House of Representatives in 1849. He was also a delegate to the Oregon Constitutional Convention in 1857. Lovejoy died in Portland and is buried at at Lone Fir Cemetery. Lovejoy Street and Lovejoy Fountain Park in downtown Portland are named in his honor; the Simpsons character Reverend Timothy Lovejoy is named after the street.
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Minoru "Min" Yasui (October 19, 1916 – November 12, 1986) was a Japanese-American lawyer from Oregon. Born in Hood River, Oregon, in the Columbia River Gorge, he earned both an undergraduate degree and his law degree at the University of Oregon in the 1930s. He was one of the few Japanese Americans after the bombing of Pearl Harbor who fought the laws that directly targeted Japanese Americans or Japanese immigrants. His case was the first case to test the constitutionality of the curfews targeted at minority groups. His case would make its way from the United States District Court for the District of Oregon to the United States Supreme Court, where his conviction for breaking the military imposed curfew was affirmed. His case Yasui v. United States, was a companion case to Hirabayashi v. United States. After internment during most of World War II, he moved to Denver, Colorado in 1944. In 1945, Yasui married, and with his wife raised three daughters. In Denver, he became a local leader in civic affairs, including leadership positions in the Japanese American Citizens League. In 1986, his criminal conviction was overturned by the federal court in Oregon.
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Daniel Francis Fouts (born June 10, 1951) is a former American football quarterback in the National Football League (NFL) for the San Diego Chargers from 1973 through 1987. A native of San Francisco, California, he would play college football at the University of Oregon in Eugene, Oregon. Fouts' father Bob was a long-time announcer for the San Francisco 49ers, and Dan was a ball boy for the team while growing up. Fouts was drafted into the NFL by the Chargers in the third round of the 1973 NFL Draft. In the NFL, he led the league four times in passing yards and was a 6-time Pro Bowl selection (1979-1983 & 1985), ending his career with over 40,000, the third player to surpass that landmark. Dan Fouts is one of only seven quarterbacks in NFL history who have achieved two consecutive (back-to-back) 30-touchdown passing seasons. His number 14 jersey is one of only two numbers retired by the San Diego Chargers. In 1999, he was ranked number 92 on The Sporting News list of the 100 Greatest Football Players. Fouts was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1993. Fouts' post-NFL career included a well-received commentator role on ABC's Monday Night Football, alongside famed MNF anchor Al Michaels and comedian Dennis Miller. He also served as a college football analyst alongside Brent Musberger and Keith Jackson.
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Bill Hayward (1868–1947) was an American athletic coach in Oregon. Born in Michigan, he grew up in Canada where he was an all-around athlete. He excelled at sprinting, ice hockey, rowing, wrestling, boxing, and played lacrosse on one of the Ottawa Capitals' world championship teams of the 1890s. Hayward began coaching in 1898 as an assistant track coach at Princeton University. He then moved to the University of California before becoming the head track coach at Pacific University in Forest Grove, Oregon where he coached A. C. Gilbert. In 1903, he took the head job at Albany College (now Lewis & Clark College) for one year before becoming the University of Oregon's first permanent track coach. Hayward would stay as coach for 44 years, and during this time he was a coach for six United States Olympics teams. At Oregon he coached four track world record holders, six American record holders and nine Olympians. In addition to his track coaching duties, he served as the athletic trainer for Oregon's football team, and coached the men's basketball team from 1903 to 1913 and again in 1917-1918, compiling an overall record of 34-29. The track teams home facility is named Hayward Field in his honor. Hayward was an inaugural inductee to both the Oregon Sports Hall of Fame in 1980 and the University of Oregon Athletic Hall of Fame in 1992. In 2005, he was induced into the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association Hall of Fame.
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Neil Goldschmidt, a Democrat, is a former Oregon politician and businessman who served as mayor of Portland, U.S. Secretary of Transportation, and Governor of Oregon. In these roles and as a private consultant, he was widely considered the most influential figure in Oregon politics. Goldschmidt was elected mayor of Portland in 1972. He promoted the revitalization of Downtown Portland, interrupted the Federal Mount Hood Freeway project, and laid the groundwork for Portland's MAX Light Rail. President Carter named him Transportation Secretary in 1979. After Carter left office in 1980, Goldschmidt served as a senior Nike executive. He was elected Governor of Oregon in 1986. During his term, Oregon came out of a recession, a rising anti-tax movement gained momentum, and the state's prison system nearly doubled in size. He reformed the State Accident Insurance Fund (SAIF), a state-chartered worker's compensation insurance company. Though popular, Goldschmidt left office after only one term, becoming an influential and controversial lobbyist. He was criticized by many for several of the causes he supported, including advocacy for SAIF, Weyerhaeuser, and Texas Pacific Group. He faced sharp questioning in Oregon State Senate confirmation hearings in early 2004. Accompanying media scrutiny led to the revelation of his lengthy and illegal sexual relationship with a 14-year-old girl in the 1970s, sharply curtailing his influence on Oregon policy.
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Matthew Deady (1824–1893) was a politician and jurist in the Oregon Territory and the state of Oregon in the United States. He served on the Oregon Supreme Court from 1853 to 1859, at which time he was appointed to the newly created federal court of the state. He remained on this federal trial level court, the United States District Court for the District of Oregon in Portland, Oregon, as the sole judge until his death in 1893. While on the court he presided over the trial that led to the United States Supreme Court decision of Pennoyer v. Neff concerning personal jurisdiction. Prior to joining the court, Deady served in the legislature of the Oregon Territory, include time as the President of the Council, and was elected as President of the Oregon Constitutional Convention in 1857. A native of the state of Maryland, his first profession was as a blacksmith. He would also spend time as a teacher in both Ohio and Oregon. Deady read law in Ohio and practiced law for a time in that state before immigrating to the Oregon Territory via the Oregon Trail. In Oregon, he helped to codify the laws of the state and assisted in the foundation of the Multnomah County Library in Portland. He also was president of the University of Oregon's board of regents. The university renamed Deady Hall in his honor after his death.
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General Joel Palmer (1810–1881) was an American pioneer of the Oregon Territory in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. He was born in Canada, and spent his early years in New York and Pennsylvania before serving as a member of the Indiana House of Representatives. Palmer traveled to the Oregon Country in 1845, blazing the last leg of the Oregon Trail, the Barlow Road, with Sam Barlow and others. He wrote a popular immigrant guidebook, co-founded Dayton, Oregon, and served as a controversial Indian Affairs administrator. Prior to his time as Indian Affairs administrator he was a general for the Provisional Government of Oregon during the Cayuse War as well as a peace commissioner for the war. He would follow the gold rushes across the west for a few years following the war before returning to Oregon, interrupted by peace negotiations with the Native Americans in his role as Superintendent of Indian Affairs. After Oregon became a state in 1859, Palmer served in both branches of the Oregon Legislative Assembly. He was selected as Speaker of the Oregon House of Representatives for one session in 1862, and in 1870 narrowly lost a bid to become Governor of Oregon. Palmer would then serve as Indian agent before retiring to his home in Yamhill County. That home, Palmer House in Dayton, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1987.
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William Williams Chapman (August 11, 1808–October 18, 1892) was an American politician and lawyer in Oregon and Iowa. In Iowa he served in the United States House of Representatives when it was still the Iowa Territory and as United States Attorney when it was still part of the Wisconsin Territory. The Virginia native was also a member of Iowa’s Constitutional Convention before he immigrated to the Oregon Country in 1847. THe next year part of the region became the Oregon Territory and Chapman would serve in the Oregon Territorial Legislature in 1849. After settling in Portland he helped to found The Oregonian newspaper and promote economic interests in the city while practicing law. He also was involved with building Canyon Road near Portland, dabbled in cattle ranching, and fought in the Rogue River War in Southern Oregon. In later years he served in the Oregon Legislative Assembly and promoted the expansion of railroads from Portland and promoted maritime trade in the city. A park, Chapman Square, in downtown Portland is named for him and was built on land he sold to the city. Chapman school is also named in his honor.
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Thomas H. Tongue (June 23, 1844 – January 11, 1903) was an American politician and attorney in the state of Oregon. Born in England, his family immigrated to Washington County, Oregon, in 1859. Tongue attended the Tualatin Academy preparatory school in Forest Grove and graduated from Pacific University in 1868. A trained lawyer, he served in the State Senate from 1889 to 1893 and was the seventh mayor of Hillsboro, the county seat, serving two terms as mayor. A Republican, he was chairman of the state party, and national convention delegate in 1892. Tongue served as U.S. Congressman from 1897 to 1903 representing Oregon's 1st congressional district. While in Congress he worked to create Crater Lake National Park in Southern Oregon, succeeding in 1902. He died in office during his third term in the United States House of Representatives after winning election to a fourth term. His grandson, Thomas H. Tongue III, served on the Oregon Supreme Court. Both are buried at the Hillsboro Pioneer Cemetery.
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Paul Gardner Allen (born January 21, 1953) is an American entrepreneur who co-founded Microsoft with Bill Gates. Born and raised in Seattle, Washington, Allen regularly appears on lists of the richest people in the world. As of September 2007, Forbes ranks him as the eleventh richest American, worth an estimated $16.8 billion. He is the founder and chairman of Vulcan Inc., which is his private asset management company, and is chairman of Charter Communications. Allen also has a multibillion dollar investment portfolio which includes large stakes in DreamWorks Animation SKG, Digeo, real estate holdings, and more than 40 other technology, media, and content companies. Allen also owns three professional sports teams: the Seattle Seahawks of the National Football League, the Portland Trail Blazers of the National Basketball Association, and the Seattle Sounders FC franchise in Major League Soccer that will begin playing in the 2009 season. As owner of the Trail Blazers since 1988, he also once again owns their home arena, the Rose Garden. He re-acquired the arena in 2007 after allowing the holding company that owned the arena to go bankrupt in 2004.
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