Candidate brings new
experience to election
■ University student Garrett
Hinds believes he has an edge
in the race for Lane County
Board of Commissioners
By Brook Reinhard
Oregon Daily Emerald
University sophomore Garrett
Hinds, who is facing four other
candidates for the Lane County
Board of
Commission
ers, says he’s
optimistic
about his
chances of
unseating in
cumbent Bill
Dwyer.
And he
said he
wants . to
bring a new
voice to the seat representing
Springfield.
“I think I have a great chance
of winning,” Hinds said. “Peo
ple are tired of management
politics ... they want something
new.”
The Springfield seat, one of
two county seats up for grabs in
the May 21 primary election,
pays a healthy sum of $53,414
each year for a four-year term.
Hinds, a pre-business major
living in Springfield, said he
brings unique experience to
the table that his competitors
don’t have.
“I grew up here — I know the
area well,” Hinds said. He was
junior class president at
Springfield High School, where
he graduated in 2000, and
served on a local bicycle and
transportation committee in
Springfield before Gov. John
Kitzhaber appointed him that
year to the eight-member Ore
gon Bicycle and Pedestrian Ad
visory Committee.
Hinds is currently vice chair
man of the committee, which has
a $5 million budget and is re
sponsible for finding transporta
tion solutions for communities
across the state.
“I bet you $100 bucks I’ll be
chairman tomorrow,” he said
with a grin.
Hinds is cheerful about the po
litical battle he faces, despite
being the only student in a race
against opponents with more
experience and more money.
State Labor Commissioner
Jack Roberts, who served five
years as North Eugene’s com
missioner and is currently run
ning for governor, said Hinds
should stay in the race even if
the odds are against him.
“Frankly, a student has a better
chance vying for a legislative
seat,” Roberts said. “I wouldn’t
discourage anyone from running,
I just don’t think they should
have unrealistic expectations.”
Hinds’ opponent Tom Atkin
son said he’s not too concerned
about his student competitor.
“He would be at best a very,
very long shot,” Atkinson said.
But another opponent, Mark
Jaehnig, said Hinds is a legiti
mate contender.
7 betyou $100 bucks I’ll
be chairman tomorrow. ”
Garrett Hinds
candidate for Lane
County Commissioner
“I take everyone seriously,”
said Jaehnig. “We all have is
sues that we want to .see taken
care of.”
One of Hinds’ biggest issues
is transportation, but he said
he also wants to focus on mak
ing the community a better
place instead of focusing on
facts and figures.
“We have a crisis when we
have a lack of positive energy in
the community,” he said.
Hinds, like many of his com
petitors, hasn’t made campaign
signs yet but is planning to do so
this weekend with the experi
ence he has running his own
graphics company, Terra Modus
Design.
“I’m going to go door-to-door,”
he said. “I’m very much a part of
this community.”
E-mail reporter Brook Reinhard
atbrookreinhard@dailyemerald.com.
Professor studies dirty pasts
■ by analyzing deposits or
sediment, University Professor
Cathy Whitlock is able to learn
more about climate changes
By Eric Martin
Oregon Daily Emerald
Cathy Whitlock is back with
more layers of sediment thousands
of years old to continue finding out
how atmospheric changes can de
termine future climates in the
Americas. Whitlock is a paleoecol
ogist — part geographer, part geol
ogist and part ecologist.
“We have to study the past to get
a better idea of what’s going to
happen in the future,” she said.
“The climate changes projected for
the next hundred years are of such
a huge scale that we have to go
back thousands of years to find
anything comparable.”
The geography professor and
department head returned in
February from the second of
three planned research trips to
Argentina, where she and a team
of scientists have unearthed de
posits of sediment in lake beds
and bogs.
She said the deposits, which
contain particles of pollen and
ash, are records of an area’s fire
activity and vegetation since the
Ice Age.
Whitlock said the team chose
the leeward, or less windy, side
of the Andes mountains in Patag
onia because the climate is simi
lar to parts of western America,
with frequent rainfall in winter
and relatively dry summers.
Patagonia is a mountainous re
gion occupying one-quarter of Ar
gentina; it extends like a finger to
the South Pole.
Like the North American West,
destructive blazes have scorched
Patagonia in the past 10 to 15
years, Whitlock said. Intense wild
fires tend to burn when a period of
heavy rainfall is followed by se
vere drought, she said.
This was the case in Yellow
stone National Park in 1988 when
793,000 acres burned, according
to fire history compiled by the
National Park Service. But Whit
lock said to find conditions com
parable to those igniting wildfires
in the West today, people must
dig up ecological clues 6,000 to
Thomas Patterson Emerald
Paleoecologist Cathy Whitlock researches sediment in Argentina, finding the tiny particles
of pollen and ash hidden therein that may hold the key to an area’s history.
10,000 years old.
Traditionally, most information
about fire history comes from tree
rings, Whitlock said. The scars
caused by intense heat act as book
marks in a forest’s fire history. But
the record extends only as far back
as the tree has lived, usually about
300 to 400 years.
“To get longer records of fire,
we’ve been looking at charcoal
particles in lake sediments,” she
said. “During a fire, some of the
charred needles and wood also get
carried by the wind into lake bed
sediments. When we find these
charcoal-rich deposits, we know
there was fire.”
When doing fieldwork, she also
extracts and searches for pollen
in sediment cores, usually sam
ples 1 meter long and 5 centime
ters thick. Plants release pollen
after flowering each year, which
provide handy clues to an area’s
ecological history. Pollen and
charcoal preserved under lake
beds and bogs work best as sam
ples. Whitlock knows where to
look, but getting good samples is
always a challenge.
Fellow University geography
professor Pat McDowell said Whit
lock is excited about the quality of
the cores she brought back.
“That’s always the unknown,”
McDowell said, “because you
don’t know if you’ll find a lake
with good sedimentation, and
then you don’t know if you can
get it out.”
Whitlock said the research team,
funded by a grant from the Nation
al Science Foundation, is now ex
amining the samples under micro
scopes. They plan to write papers
and publicize the findings.
Mary Milo, who works in the
University geography department,
said Whitlock is visibly enthusias
tic about her newest batch of sam
ples and next phase of research,
and enthusiasm that is not likely to
diminish, either.
“I know it’s sort of like a dream
opportunity for her to do this and
get the funding.”
E-mail reporter Eric Martin
at ericmartin@dailyemerald.com.
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