The Authors of the OE
Melinda Marie Jetté, a direct descendant of the French-Indian families who settled French Prairie, received a M.A. in history from Université Laval and a Ph.D from the University of British Columbia. Two French Canadian paternal ancestors, engagés with the Hudson's Bay Company, settled in French Prairie with their Native wives in the 1840s. Her great-great-grandfather, Adolphe (Théophile) Jetté reached French Prairie in the early 1850s. Her ancestors remained in French Prairie until the 1910s, when they moved to Portland. As a youngster, Melinda visited Champoeg on family outings. She now studies the role of French-speaking peoples in American history.
Joan C. Johnson first met Nancy Ryles through community activities in east Washington County in the 1960s. In 1972, she managed Ryles's successful campaign for the Beaverton School Board and later her first campaign for the Oregon House. Johnson worked with Ryles as her aide through two legislative sessions and continued to collaborate with her throughout Ryles's political career. Johnson is a graduate of Portland State University and a freelance writer. She is also a co-founder of the Nancy Ryles Scholarship Fund at Portland State.
Karen K. Johnson works in curriculum and instruction for the Tigard-Tualatin School District in Tigard, Oregon. She serves on the executive board of the Oregon Council of Teachers of English and is a frequent presenter at state, regional, and national conferences on topics of technology and reading. She is the 2005 recipient of the National Council of Teachers of English Leadership Development Award and is a regular columnist in the OCTE newsletter.
Robert D. Johnston is associate professor of history and director of the Teaching of History program at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He is the author of The Radical Middle Class: Populist Democracy and the Question of Capitalism in Progressive Era Portland, Oregon (Princeton University Press, 2003). He has won the Joel Palmer Award, for best article in the Oregon Historical Quarterly, and he is guest editor for a special series of issues of the OHQ commemorating the sesquicentennial of Oregon statehood. He is currently working on a book about the history of vaccination controversies in American history.
Les Joslin is a retired U.S. Navy commander and a former U.S. Forest Service firefighter, wilderness ranger, and staff officer. A graduate of San Jose State College, he holds master's degrees from the University of Colorado and the University of London. He is an adjunct instructor for the College of Forestry at Oregon State University and author or editor of several books on Forest Service history.
Lee Juillerat is the regional editor for the Klamath Falls Herald and News. He is also a member of the Shaw Historical Library in Klamath Falls, which serves as a major source for history in a region that includes southeastern Oregon, far northeastern California, and northern Nevada. Juillerat is a frequent contributor to Northwest Travel, Range, Oregon Coast, and Horizon inflight publications, along with the Internet magazine, High on Adventure.
Edward J. Kamholz graduated from the University of Oregon (B.S. in business management, 1968); from the University of Portland (MBA, 1974); and from Foothill College (AA graphic design, 2001). Following a sixteen-year career in telecommunications marketing for Western Electric, ITT, The Austin Company, Plantronics and Cushman Electronics, Kamholz was a marketing consultant before co-authoring The Oregon-American Lumber Company: Ain’t No More, an award-winning company history published by Stanford University Press in 2003. Kamholz is an institutional and corporate history author, graphic designer, and book producer. He currently serves on the Oregon State Forests Advisory Committee. An avid fly-fisher, he is a lifelong student of Northwest forest history and serves on the Northwest Association of Book Publishers’ board of directors.
Cara Kaser is an architectural historian with the Oregon State Historic Preservation Office. She received her B.A. in History from Portland State University and M.A. in History from Washington State University. Kaser has worked on various historic preservation projects in Oregon, Washington, and California, including preparing nominations for the National Register of Historic Places and conducting historic resource surveys.
George Katagiri, a Portland native, was a founding member of the Oregon Nikkei Legacy Center, a community historian, and author of numerous articles and publications on Japanese American history. He was the coordinator of a state traveling exhibit on first-generation Japanese that prompted the collection of family artifacts and photographs throughout the state. Incarcerated at the Portland Assembly Center during World War II, he eventually served with the U.S. occupation forces in Japan. A teacher and state science education specialist, Katagiri was named the “Oregon Employee of the Year” in 1969. He died in June 2009.
Garry Kelly taught American history at Texas Tech University. He is retired and lives in Florence, Oregon.
