The Authors of the OE
Jessica Rondema was born and raised in California. She moved up to Salem to attend Willamette University, graduating in 2007 with a BA in Anthropology. Jessica has worked at Historic Deepwood Estate and the Historic Elsinore Theatre, and was an intern at the Hallie Ford Museum of Art and with the Salem Multicultural Institute. She currently works at the Oregon State Library for the Government Research Services Team while doing freelance research about local history in her spare time.
Roy Roos has authored two books: Portland's Irvington Neighborhood (1997) and The History of Albina (September 2008), including the neighborhoods of Eliot, Boise, King, Humboldt, Overlook, and Piedmont. Roy came to Oregon in 1987, after studies in architecture, engineering, and forest land management at California Polytechnical University at San Luis Obispo and Humboldt State. He grew up in Sacramento, where he witnessed the destruction of historic buildings and neighborhoods in the name of progress and urban renewal, but which only increased sprawl. In Portland, he has worked as a land surveyor and property manager, and as an advocate of historic preservation.
Eric Rue, a Blackfish Member since 2006, joined the gallery shortly after graduating from PNCA with a BFA in Painting in 2005. Since graduation he has worked steadily and exhibited in Portland as well as in group shows in Seattle (Gallery 110) and New York City (55 Mercer Gallery). In 2008 he was included in a national publication called Studio Visit Magazine curated by Michael Klein, one of the former curators for the Microsoft Collection, and nominated for the 2009 Brink Award at the Henry Art Gallery at the University of Washington.
Kristi Russell graduated Southern Oregon University in 2009 with a baccalaureate of science degree in English and a minor in education. Kristi enjoys learning and writing. She is currently pursuing her master’s degree at the University of California, Santa Barbara, to advance her career in educational policy.
Patricia Saab's enthusiasm for gemstones soared when she discovered the beautiful Oregon sunstone. A 26-year resident of Oregon, a gemstone and pearl scholar, Patricia's jewelry designs often combine this fascinating gem with agate, opal and jasper also mined in Oregon, or with rare pearls.
Henry Sakamoto was born in Portland in 1927. He received a B.S. degree from the University of Oregon in 1951. He spent thirty-two years with the U.S. Department of Agriculture managing and marketing government grain inventories in the seven western states. Following his retirement, he worked for the Oregon Wheat Commission assisting farmers in marketing their wheat inventories. He was also a consultant to the wheat industry. Sakamoto is vice president of Oregon Nikkei Endowment, president of the Japanese Ancestral Society, and past commander of the Oregon Nisei Veterans.
Royce Saltzman is professor emeritus at the University of Oregon. He is co-founder, with Helmuth Rilling, of the Oregon Bach Festival, and presently serves as director emeritus. Saltzman was president of the International Federation for Choral Music, 1985-1993, and president of the American Choral Directors Association, 1979-1981. He is a member of the International Honorary Committee of the Zimriya Festival, a world assembly of choirs in Israel; the advisory board of the Acdaemia Bach de Venezuela in Caracas; and the board of trustees, International Bachakademie, Stuttgart, Germany.
Jack T. Sanders earned his Ph.D. degree in Religious Studies at the Claremont Graduate University in southern California in 1963 and joined the faculty of the University of Oregon in 1969. During his career he published six books and numerous articles on aspects of early Christianity and ancient Judaism. After his retirement from UO in 2002 he moved to Pendleton, where he discovered an important Jewish presence in the early days of settlement. He has now completed a biography tentatively entitled Samuel Rothchild. A Jewish Pioneer in the Days of the Old West, which he hopes will appear soon.
Richard Sanders is a Portland-based writer and editor who left a career in national educational publishing to return to Oregon in 1977 to work as speechwriter for Governor Bob Straub. Since then, he has written Government in Oregon, a high school text, and Glimpses from the Past: The Housing Authority of Portland, Fifty Years of Building a Better Community, and edited several personal memoirs. He has finished a manuscript for a pictorial history of Portland State and currently freelances.
David Sarasohn became an editor and columnist at The Oregonian in 1983. His columns, distributed nationally by the Newhouse News Service, have twice won Best in the West and are included in Best Newspaper Writing, 2008-09. In 2002. he won the Eugene C. Pulliam Editorial Fellowship, a project that became the book Waiting for Lewis and Clark. He received a Ph.D in history from UCLA and also wrote, Party of Reform: Democrats in the Progressive Era. He has taught at Reed College, UCLA, and Portland State University.
