Bend Don't Break

Amanda Stuermer has been producing events, creative projects, and cultural travel experiences for over two decades. She is the Founder of World Muse and Muse Conference and London Editor for Origin Magazine. She has recently co-produced a series of documentary films and her writing has been featured in Origin, Mantra, and Outside Magazines. Send us Fan Mail Support the show

Ellen Waterston has published four poetry and three literary nonfiction titles, including, most recently, "Walking the High Desert: Encounters with Rural America Along the Oregon Desert Trail." "Hotel Domilocos" is her most recent collection of poetry. She serves on the faculty of OSU-Cascades Low Residency MFA in Creative Writing, and is founder of the Writing Ranch, which con...

Since moving to Bend in 1995, John Hummel has worked as a public defender, started a defense firm and served six years on the Bend City Council before being elected as District Attorney in 2014. The self-described progressive prosecutor took a different approach than many DAs, taking public stances on injustice and what he views as flaws in the legal system. Hummel declined to seek a third term, a...

Bend will have a new mayor at the start of 2023, with the election of Melanie Kebler to the position. Kebler, elected in 2022, first served for two years as a Bend City Councilor. She is an attorney with a background as a prosecutor and victims’ rights advocate. A Bend High grad, she grew up on the east side of Bend and has always been interested in civic leadership, starting with being elected to...

Clifford B Evelyn was born and raised in Harlem, New York by his Caribbean parents. Clifford attended New York University where he studied Business Administration. He later attended Los Angeles Trade Tech where he studied Business Management. Clifford enlisted in the US Navy in 1977 and received an Honorable Discharge as a Petty Officer 2nd Class in 1985. In 1989, Clifford was hired by the Clark C...

Shannon Monihan is the New Executive director of the Downtown Bend Business Association that makes up approximately 400 businesses downtown. With a 25+ year history in business development, branding and marketing she is focused on applying some of her learned knowledge and wealth of experience to the Downtown Bend district. Prior to her forming her own company she spent 15 + years working with sta...

We got to speak with Marcus LeGrand and Anthony Broadman, founders of "The State of Bend" podcast, about being a platform through podcasting and being involved in the city of Bend. Send us Fan Mail Support the show

Riccardo Waites is a local leader dedicated to unifying and empowering the black/BIPOC community of Central Oregon. He is the founder and executive director of the Central Oregon Black Leaders Assembly (C.O.B.L.A.), founder of We Black Radio (WBR), Navy submarine veteran, father of nine, and Central Oregon resident of 22 years. Waites was compelled to organize his efforts in the wake of the murder...

Eric Lint has worked in politics across the Northwest, approaching it from a variety of perspectives. From newsroom to lobbyist, congressional office to campaign trail, Lint now informally consults for civic groups and candidates across Central Oregon with a focus on data and outreach. He maintains the local politics blog Bend Votes at bendvotes.com. In this podcast, Lint talks about the landscape...

Nicola Carpinelli is the founder of Hearts Unknown Education, a spinoff of the nonprofit, "Dead Poets Foundation." In this podcast, Carpinelli talks about the genesis of Dead Poets from an art exhibit on suicide awareness to a full nonprofit, and details the art therapy work he's now doing with kids in Bend. Send us Fan Mail Support the show

Andrea Breault is the Transportation Director for Cascades East Transit. She has 18 years of 18 years of transit, parking and fleet management experience mainly from campus operations, having worked at two universities prior to working at CET. She’s also an avid bike commuter for 18 years. In this podcast we chat about Central Oregon's transit system, plans for expansion and how the staffing...

The Source sits down with a leader the Greater Idaho movement, the effort to move Oregon’s border and fold more counties into the state of Idaho. Matt McCaw is the Crook County Move Oregon’s Border Captain and has been actively involved with both Move Oregon’s Border and Citizens for Greater Idaho for almost two years. I am a lifelong Oregonian raised in Bend, father and foster-parent of 8. He and...

The Source sits down with Steven Ames of the Bend Vision Project—Part of Envision Bend—to talk about this new process for envisioning Bend's future. Ames is a consulting long-range planner and principal of NXT Consulting Group of Bend and Portland, Oregon. Author of the American Planning Association’s award-winning Guide to Community Visioning, Steven has worked with more than 80 communities...

Roger Worthington lives to ride his mountain bike, play with his dog Diggy, and drink beer with friends. He owns Worthy Brewing; Indie Hops - a hop breeding company in the valley and a law firm in Los Angeles that specializes in asbestos cancer. He’s the president of the Worthy Garden Club, a non profit whose mission is to help connect people to the natural world so we can become better stewards....

Jill Mahler recently stepped down from her role as station manager and executive director of KPOV, Bend's local non-profit community radio station. Mahler started her KPOV career in 2008, as part-time office manager of the then-fledgling station, with a passion for community and no media experience. Over the years she aided KPOV in growing from a small low-power station to a Central Oregon in...

As Jack Zika finishes up his last legislative session, we talk about some of his biggest accomplishments during his time in office. He tells us about dollars brought back to Central Oregon from Salem, the controversial changes of the boundaries of House District 53 and his hopes for the future of the district. Send us Fan Mail Support the show

Bend is one of the fastest-growing cities in the United States—yet people here often wonder why certain developments take so long to get off the ground, or why a project not favored by the public got off the ground anyway. In this podcast, Russ Grayson of the City of Bend discusses Oregon's land use policy, the barriers and limitations to developing housing and other properties, the City&apos...

Kate Fitzpatrick, executive director of the Deschutes River Conservancy, talks with Source Publisher Aaron Switzer about the new water bank pilot project for the North Unit Irrigation District, which allows farmers to obtain water from other water rights holders. The program is aimed at easing some of the pain of ongoing drought for farmers who saw field lay fallow in 2020 and 2021 due to irrigati...

Kim Gammond joins the Bend Don't Break podcast this week, talking with the Source about her vision for the City Club of Central Oregon, its mission, future topics of conversation and the challenges the organization has faced in creating programming around community conversations during a global pandemic. Kim Gammond is the Executive Director at the City Club of Central Oregon. A proud graduat...

Another skier dies after falling in a tree well at Mt. Bachelor, and omicron rages through Oregon—though it's proving to be less deadly than past variants. Get it all in this week's Source Weekly Update podcast. Send us Fan Mail Support the show

We look back at this year's top stories in this Source Weekly Update Podcast! Send us Fan Mail Support the show

In part three of a three-part series of interviews on approaches to homelessness in Bend, Bend Police Chief Mike Krantz talks about how officers respond to calls involving people experiencing homelessness, how that work impacts levels of service elsewhere and much more. Send us Fan Mail Support the show

A fundraiser in honor of a fallen Bend kayaker, a new space for El Sancho and the rollout of a partnership between the sheriff's office and an addiction treatment center... all in this week's Source Weekly Update podcast. Send us Fan Mail Support the show

A plea in the Barry Washington, Jr. murder case, monitoring Bend's sewers for the omicron variant and an effort to assess the impact of short-term rentals on home prices in Bend, all in this week's podcast. Send us Fan Mail Support the show

The advent of a new COVID variant, more delays for the ski season and an upcoming legislative session to manage the flood of renters seeking to avoid eviction, all in this week's Source Weekly Update podcast. (Editor's note: this version of the story on the Omicron variant stated that the variant originated in South Africa—a fact we have found to be erroneous. The variant was first disco...