Author: Kyle Chown

Rachel Richardson has worked for the Barack Obama campaign, founded Portland State Students for Obama and is a Student Fee Committee member. Despite her political involvement, Richardson is only 19 years old and has never voted before.

Portland State presidential candidate Dr. Kathie Olsen believes that she has the knowledge and experience to be a leader. Olsen, who currently serves as Deputy Director and Chief Operating Officer for the National Science Foundation, will be on campus today to meet with the PSU community in an open campus forum to be held in the Smith Memorial Student Union Ballroom, room 355 from 1:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. She is one of three presidential hopefuls vying for the top position at Portland State.

When he is not teaching business classes, Charles Nobles likes to spend time tending to the 18 animals on his farm or piloting a Cessna 172 Skyhawk plane through the air. When Nobles first joined the teaching staff at Portland State in 2004 there were only six business classes offered for non-majors. Nobles said he was teaching a third of them. He wasn’t disappointed with the lack of classes offered, but felt each class could offer more than just basic knowledge. “If I had been taught some of the business tactics in college I had to learn the hard way, it would have saved me a lot of stress and time,” he said.

Inside the Oregon Convention Center last night, hundreds celebrated the annual Simon Benson Awards dinner. Outside the center, nearly 100 PSU faculty and others protested what they see as an unfair salary negotiation process with the PSU administration.

On Sunday morning, while fresh dew still lay undisturbed on the South Park Block grass, Air Force veteran David Ibbotson, 76, carefully bent down to drive a small red flag into the ground. His aging knees softly cracked as he paused briefly before placing it, his eyes fixated on the flag. Ibbotson continued to place flags–over 100 that morning–each reminding him of how lucky he is to be alive. “The idea is very powerful,” Ibbotson said. “When you see these flags displayed, you get a striking visual of the war’s awfulness.”

After sightings of a meteor that streaked across Portland’s early morning sky on Feb. 19, people from all around came to Geology Professor Alex Ruzicka with questions. Ruzicka and his students study meteorites in the PSU Cascadia Meteorite Laboratory. They do this, Ruzicka said, because the rocks can provide the most direct and detailed information about our solar system’s history–the DNA code to the genetic make-up of the solar system.

From his participation in the American Indian Science and Engineering Society to finishing up his double major in mathematics and philosophy, Solomon Trimble has tried to remain very involved on campus. In addition to his Portland State roles, Trimble, 23, recently acquired another kind of role–that of a feature film actor.

The Men Against Rape student group recently changed their name to Allies Against Rape Culture in an effort, members say, to help expand their focus and involvement at Portland State.

Cameron McFee never considered himself a military person. He was a self-proclaimed drama nerd and a state champion debater, and his only knowledge of the military was through films. But three weeks before Sept. 11, McFee had withdrawn from his first term of college, enlisted with the U.S. Marines and was 35,000 feet in the air headed for Iraq.