Paul De Muniz will be awarded First Citizen at a banquet Saturday night. (Courtesy/Willamette University) Former Oregon Supreme Court Justice Paul De Muniz will take the top award at Saturday’s First Citizen banquet. First Citizens are nominated for improving the lives of those in the community through business, volunteering and[Read More…]

Rick Parks sits in front of a Wurlitzer console, which represents about 2% of the entire theater pipe organ in the Elsinore Theater. (Saphara Harrell/Salem Reporter) In the early morning a few times a week, Rick Parks enters the Elsinore Theatre, sits down before a set of three keyboards with[Read More…]

Salem completed a large restoration project on Pringle Creek, which flows into the Willamette River. (Saphara Harrell/Salem Reporter) For more than 30 years, Salem has periodically removed debris trapped in Pringle Creek to prevent floodwaters from backing up into properties along the stream’s path. Columns from an old paper mill[Read More…]

Brian May talks about Covanta Marion at the Salem City Club on Friday, Feb. 21. (Saphara Harrell/Salem Reporter) The Covanta Marion garbage burner isn’t as bad a polluter as its been made out to be, Marion County officials contend. Brian Nicholas, with Marion County Public Works, presented a 45-minute long[Read More…]

Bill Charnholm talks about bubbles outside Gilbert House Children’s Museum on Feb. 17, 2020 (Rachel Alexander/Salem Reporter) Bill Charnholm grew up building small towns with his Erector Set, then flying toy fighter jets over them. The 75-year-old giggles while recounting playing in his bedroom in Corvallis with one of the[Read More…]

Rachel Sowray, left, and Paige Hook, right. (Courtesy/Paige Hook) Paige Hook wanted to get involved in campaign managing two years ago but faced one major obstacle. She had three children under the age of six and couldn’t bring them door-to-door for three hours at a time. Then a friend told[Read More…]

Joe Hettwer, also known as the ‘garbageman angel’, helped a woman who had fallen in her garage. (Saphara Harrell/Salem Reporter) Joe Hettwer was running his garbage route in south Salem last month when he heard a faint noise through his ear plugs that sounded like a cat. Hettwer was on[Read More…]

Arturo Sarmiento, station manager at Radio Poder. (Saphara Harrell/Salem Reporter) On a recent Friday afternoon, three members of Latinos Unidos Siempre sat in a studio to air their weekly two-hour music show “La Voz de los Jovenes” (“Voice of the Youth.”) The show airs on Radio Poder 98.3, a community[Read More…]

Angela Yeager and Bryan Michael host Reel Film Snobs, a bimonthly movie review show that airs on CCTV. (Saphara Harrell/Salem Reporter) The hosts of Reel Film Snobs, a bimonthly movie review show on CCTV, note on their website that “Angela and Bryan may kill each other someday but right now,[Read More…]

 Tractors rolled through the Great Oregon Steam-Up during a parade in August. (Saphara Harrell/Salem Reporter) Visitors enjoyed Powerland Heritage Park last year, so much so that it has risen to number nine in a list of 100 favorite destinations in Oregon.  The list is distributed by Oregon Business each year,[Read More…]