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Roger E. Smith Services for Roger E. Smith, who passed away on Thursday, March 28, 2019 at home at the age of 68, will be held Wednesday, April 10 at 11 a.m. at Bethel AME Church, 5828 N.E. Eighth Ave. He had three children, LaMarcus Deshawn Smith and Kyna Harris (Royal), both of Portland, and Shatima Walker of Colorado Springs, Colo.; two extended daughters, Calla Jones (Herman II) and Manuella Martin, both of Portland; eight grandchildren and six extended grandchildren. Survivors also include six living sisters and a brother: LaVerne E. Davis (Ralph) of Fairview, Bernice Farris-Fields, Berta Mae Stevens (Chris), LaRan A. Smith, Yvonne Crockett and Rickey Smith-Penny of Portland; and Yvette O’Bannon (Marvin) of Lakewood, Wash.

Friends of Baseball, a Portland-based non-profit supporting baseball and softball programs for boys and girls, will be able to hire a new youth mentor for after school and summer enrichment programs because of a new investment from the Portland Diamond Project, the organization behind the effort to bring Major League Baseball to Portland. The donation to Full Count, Friends of Baseball’s after school and summer youth program, continues the local support for a one-week summer program that started in 2015 and has since grown to serving 12 communities in Portland and east Multnomah County, serving more than 600 students. More than 80 percent of the youth who participate in the program are youth of color. The new youth mentor position will be set up as an AmeriCorps public service job for one year and has a starting pay of $15 hourly. To apply, visit friendsofbaseball.org/wearehiring.

Ron Herndon, education advocate honored Ron Herndon Ron Herndon, a leader in Portland’s African American community who is well known for successfully advocating for children by promoting equity in the Portland School District, has been named Portland First Citizen, a prestigious award to honor civic achievements and business leadership within the community. Presented annually by the Portland Metropolitan Association of Realtors, the individuals named Portland First Citizens form an honor roll of the city’s most prominent leaders. Herndon has been the Director of Albina Head Start in Portland for more than 40 years, providing comprehensive early childhood education, health, nutrition, and parent involvement services to low-income children and their families. He has taken the organization from 126 children in 1975 to more than 1,000 children today and expanded the number of Head Start sites from 1 to 25. He is a former teacher, counselor, college instructor and VISTA volunteer. Herndon also served as president and board chair of the National Head Start Association from 1991 to 2013. As chair he provided leadership and support to Head Start programs across the nation including advocating for over 900,000 low-income children and families. Herndon will be recognized at the 91st annual Portland First Citizen Banquet on Friday, April 19 at The Nines, downtown, from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.

Two Portland School Board candidate forums this week will provide the public the opportunity to hear from eight hopefuls vying for four seats in a May election. The first discussion with the candidates, sponsored by the League of Women Voters, Portland Council PTS and the Bus Project, will be Thursday, April 11 at 6:30 p.m. at school district headquarters, 501 N. Dixon St. The second, hosted by Black Voices United, will be Saturday April 13 at Maranatha Church at 4222 N.E. 12th Ave, from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. For Zone 2, encompassing schools that feed into both Cleveland and Jefferson High Schools, two African American community members—Shanice Brittany Clark and Michelle A DePass—have put their hats in the ring for a seat that won’t be contested by its current holder, Paul Anthony. Amy Kohnstamm is running for re-election against challenges Deb Mayer and Wes Soderback in Zone 3. Zone 1 only has Andrew Scott as a candidate. Of all the people running, only Eilidh Lowery in Zone 7, won’t be able to make it to either forum, though she’ll provide statements for moderators to read in her absence. Robert Shultz is the other candidate running in Zone 7.

Virginia head coach Tony Bennett, guard Ty Jerome (left) and their teammates celebrate after beating Texas Tech Monday for an NCAA college basketball championship. (AP photo) Virginia’s nail-biting trip through the NCAA Tournament will go down in history as one of the most clutch performances from game-to-game by any championship team. The Cavaliers’ overtime victory over Texas Tech Monday made them just the sixth title team to win multiple-overtime games in a tournament, and the first since Arizona accomplished the feat in 1997. They outscored their opponents by a scant combined 45 points, the third-lowest margin of victory by a championship team since the field expanded to 64 teams in 1985. The only comfortable game was their opening win over No. 16 seed Gardner-Webb, and that came after falling into an early hole. Virginia beat Oklahoma 63-51 in the second round, edged Oregon 53-49 in the regional semifinals and needed a last-second floater to force OT in a win over Purdue. “We have a saying: The most faithful win,” Virginia coach Tony Bennett said. “These guys were so faithful. Obviously we had some amazing plays.” Associated Press

Taps leaders with ties to the community From left: Johnell Bell, Keith Edwards, Nathan Nayman, and Joe Esmonde. Portland Diamond Project, the organization behind a push to bring Major League Baseball to Portland, has expanded its community engagement efforts by hiring a new team led by longtime African American community leader Johnell Bell and others with deep ties to the community. Bell previously served as U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkely’s Oregon field director and before that a longtime executive at TriMet where he was director of the Department of Diversity and Transit Equity. Keith Edwards, another longtime African American community leader in Portland, and two other engagement professionals—Nathan Nayman and Joe Esmonde--round out the team. “As a native Portlander whose grandparents survived the Vanport Flood to raise a family in Portland, I have witnessed the transformation of our city and state,” Bell said. “This history—and transformative opportunity—are the reasons I am thrilled to join the Portland Diamond Project. Working in partnership with the community, we will not only build a world class ballpark; we will also help advance social equity and ignite economic empowerment in intentional and impactful ways.” “We’re extremely happy to have him on board to further our mission of listening, learning and ultimately partnering with all Portland to make it better with baseball,” Portland Diamond Project President and Founder Craig Cheek said. Edwards, an electrician and labor leader, sits on the TriMet Board of Directors and has been a member of the Coalition of Black Men since its inception 1988. He was a member and past president of the Portland Chapter of the NAACP, served on the Board of the Columbia Willamette United Way, and was a co-founder of Constructon Apprenticeship Workforce Solutions, an organization formed to diversify and enhance the construction workforce. Nathan Nayman recently moved to Portland after decades building coalitions and advocating for legislative, regulatory, corporate, community, and industry initiatives in the San Francisco Bay Area; and Joe Esmonde, who handles labor relations work for PDP, was a longtime labor union business representative for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.

Diverse high school plans move to St. Charles Parish St. Charles Parish Priest Father Elwin Schwab is thumbs up on plans to move De La Salle North Catholic High School to the parish’s former elementary school (above) at Northeast 42nd and Emerson, remodeling and expanding the classrooms to provide a quality private high school in the diverse Cully neighborhood. The move will not impact St. Charles’ current operations, including parish offices and the St. Vincent de Paul food bank. PHOTO BY DANNY PETERSON The culturally diverse De La Salle North Catholic High School has signed an historic agreement paving the way for its move from the Kenton Neighborhood of north Portland to the St. Charles Parish, a diverse congregation in the Cully Neighborhood of northeast Portland. It means co-locating the high school to the former St. Charles Elementary parish school at Northeast 42nd Avenue and Emerson Street. Future work will be needed to remodel and expand the school’s footprint to accommodate the high school’s curriculum and related activities. The faith-based prep school was forced to look for a new location when Portland Public Schools decided not to renew a lease for the building it currently uses, the former Kenton Elementary school on North Fenwick Avenue, which expires in June 2021. De La Salle is focused on providing a high quality high school education to low-income residents and students of color. It enjoys a lower-than-average tuition when compared to other private Catholic high schools in Portland, in part thanks to a unique work-study program. The St. Charles property includes a former parish grade school that was active from 1950 until 1986. Though its 16 classrooms were used for various community activities since then, that usage has slowed in recent years, St. Charles Parish Priest Father Elwin Schwab told the Portland Observer. “Suddenly we got a building that doesn’t have enough use. So this is going to work really good,” Schwab said. Moving the school into the Cully Neighborhood, one of the most diverse and economically-challenged neighborhoods in Portland is also expected to better position the school to serve families in need. “Getting more people who don't have opportunities into the system… well hey, that all works together,” Schwab said. St. Charles Church will maintain its current operations, including parish offices for staff members and the St. Vincent de Paul food bank. The specific terms of the lease are still being worked out by the school and the parish, but they’ve already signed a letter of Intent to a 50-year lease with two 25-year extensions. The school’s move eastward coincides with a similar migration of low income and minority students in Portland in recent years due to gentrification, the state of the housing market, and other factors. St. Charles Parish serves the ethnically diverse neighborhood of Cully, which is the largest neighborhood geographically of northeast Portland. Sixteen percent of its residents are black, and 21 percent are Hispanic or Latino, according to the 2010 census. Comparatively, over 80 percent of De La Salle’s student body is comprised of people of color—including 33 percent African American and 38 percent Hispanic. The selection of St. Charles for De La Salle comes after a search of 40 locations by the school’s board of trustees, a months-long process following Portland Public School’s announcement last May that they would not renew the Kenton lease. De La Salle President Oscar Leong said he was pointed in the direction of St. Charles by Board Chair Patti O’Mara after taking up his position in July, having relocated here from California. Leong told the Portland Observer that the opportunity for matching up a diverse St. Charles community with De La Salle North High School became apparent on a day he visited St. Charles for a church service. “As I sat there, in celebration, and I watched the Mass happen, I looked around,” he said. ”The folks that were present were a collection of diverse backgrounds, racial backgrounds. I thought it was the perfect opportunity for both of us to come together and to bring energy to each other." Photo by Danny Peterson St. Charles Parish Priest Elwin Schwab is negotiating terms of an agreement to allow De La Salle North Catholic High School to relocate permanently to the former site of St. Charles Elementary at Northeast 42nd and Emerson in the Cully Neighborhood. The grade school was opened in 1950 and closed in 1986. Schwab has deep roots in the neighborhood. His family originally came to the area in the 1940s. The St. Charles parish campus will have space to accommodate more than 350 students by the time it officially opens as a high school in 2021, a press release from De La Salle North said. Though nothing has been made certain, Schwab said renovations of the former classrooms, as well as possible structural additions, and changes to the parking lot, may be constructed in the years leading up to the opening. Leong added that such renovations will need to adequately host high school programs, such as converting classrooms previously used for teaching grammar school, for example, into science classrooms. The school is poised to launch a fundraising campaign to raise donations for the renovations and additions. De La Salle North Catholic High School has been offering a private school experience to students and families who could not afford to attend the cost of one, since 2001. It uses a work-study component to offset the cost of tuition, making it a fraction of the cost of most other Portland private schools. De La Salle North students go to school four days a week and work one day a week, which finances 50 percent of their education. In addition, many of the students—all of whom come from families earning 75 percent of the median area income or lower--receive financial aid and full-ride scholarships. De La Salle at St. Charles will return a high school to near the corner of Northeast 42nd and Killingsworth for the first time since 1981, when John Adams High School was closed by Portland Public Schools due to low enrollment after being opened in 1969.

Join us right now in speaking out By Marian Wright Edelman Once again children and families are under attack. After failing in past efforts to slash funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, also known as food stamps), the Trump administration is taking a new approach to crippling the program millions of families in the United States depend on to survive and alleviate their hunger pangs. Recently the administration proposed regulations to tighten restrictions on access to SNAP benefits for unemployed and underemployed people who can’t document sufficient weekly work hours. This rule would take food assistance away from an estimated 755,000 people who cannot find work. It is also a callous response to the bipartisan Farm Bill which passed in the fall and rejected harmful cuts to SNAP. If this rule goes forward, it’s not just unemployed and underemployed adults who will go hungry—poor children suffer when adults in their household lose access to food assistance. But it’s not too late to protect these children if you make your voice heard immediately and tell the Department of Agriculture not to take food away from needy families. Children need reliable access to healthy food to thrive. Hunger and malnutrition jeopardize children’s health, development, school readiness and job readiness. SNAP helps feed more than 40 million low income people in America including nearly 20 million children—more than one in four—and lifted more than 1.5 million children out of poverty in 2016, more than any other government program. Given the critical role SNAP plays for children and families in communities across the country, the proposed changes that would kick hundreds of thousands of people off SNAP are mean spirited, short sighted, and harmful, will increase food insecurity, and must be stopped. While current law doesn’t permit SNAP work requirements for children or adults with children, the ripple effects of these expanded restrictions extend beyond the people they target. Imposing work requirements on able bodied adults without dependents harms children too because children living in poverty often depend on pooled resources including SNAP benefits from extended family members, such as older siblings, who don’t claim them as dependents. This means time limits will hurt not only the adults cut off from the food they need to survive but also children and others they may be helping support. Studies also show low-income parents without primary custody of children often rely on the availability of SNAP and other forms of assistance including the Earned Income Tax Credit to help them stretch available dollars from work and afford child support payments. In both scenarios additional burdensome restrictions on SNAP eligibility for these adults means fewer available resources to support the health and well-being of children. Young people aging out of foster care without permanent families also will be at increased risk. They may continue to suffer the trauma that led them into care or resulted from their time in care, leading to high rates of unemployment, poverty and increased need for food assistance. This vulnerable population already faces enough formidable barriers to accessing SNAP due to existing work requirements. Any efforts to further restrict access or eliminate state exemptions from these requirements would be particularly harmful. The newly released 2020 Trump Budget makes clear this administration is willing to slash programs needy families depend on to make ends meet while increasing military spending and diverting billions to the border wall. The President’s harsh budget calls for $220 billion in spending cuts to SNAP over the next decade. Let’s fight back at a White House that takes aim at basic supports millions of children depend on. Join us right now in speaking out against harmful changes to SNAP! As the Food Research and Action Center puts it, echoing the gospels, prophets and teachings of every major religion: Food for the hungry shouldn’t have a time limit. Marian Wright Edelman is founder and president emerita of the Children's Defense Fund.

Oregon women advance at NCAAs Advancing to the Final Four for the first time in program history, the Oregon Ducks Women Basketball team celebrates their 88-84 victory over Mississippi State at the Moda Center Sunday. Next up is a Friday matchup with No. 1 seed Baylor in Tampa, Fla. Excitement was ringing in the air as the Oregon Ducks Women Basketball team clenched their first Final Four appearance in program history Sunday with a 88-84 win over Mississippi State at the Moda Center. The second-seeded Ducks, whose victory over the top-seeded Bulldogs was a classic back-and-forth battle, were led by Sabrina Ionescu who had a game-high 31 points, seven rebounds and seven assists. Satou Sabally contributed 22 points and forward Ruthy Hebard scored 14 points. “All I gotta say is we’re not done yet,” Ionescu said. The Ducks are set to face No. 1 seed Baylor Bears in Tampa, Fla. Friday after they beat No. 2 seed Iowa 85-53. Though they were tied 59-59 through three quarters, the Ducks set their distance from the Bulldogs with 29 points scored in the final period and a gritty defense. It’s a reversal of the previous two seasons, when the ducks were eliminated each time in the Elite Eight. At the final buzzer, Ionescu jumped into Hebard’s arms and coach Kelly Graves flashed an “O” with his hands to the crowd. The overwhelming majority Duck fans chanted “One more year!” at the junior guard, who is rumored to be eyeing going pro in lieu of a final season, as she cut down a piece of the net.

Vancouver Avenue First Baptist celebrates 75 years By Danny Peterson The Vancouver Avenue First Baptist Church under the direction of Pastor Rev. J.W. Matt Hennessee celebrates 75 years this month. A mainstay in the African American faith community, the historically black and diverse church continues to be counted on for tackling social justice issues of the day, such as setting up job fairs, promoting education for black youth and feeding the homeless. PHOTO BY DANNY PETERSON The Vancouver Avenue First Baptist Church is celebrating 75 years this month, honoring its faith-based legacy for being an important epicenter for African-American life in Portland, where its members find a welcoming space to make an impact on social justice issues of the day. Under the current guidance of Pastor Rev. J.W. Matt Hennessee, Vancouver Avenue has continued its historic missions of addressing social justice issues, including the promotion of education to black youth; the sponsorship of job fairs; feeding people who are hungry; and other social causes. This year the church will undergo renovations to bolster public service efforts even more, including the creation of a black museum and dedicated educational space for underrepresented youth. "We have been able, on the one hand, to really focus on the spiritual development of our church, but also be very involved in social justice, just as the church had been for many years during the time of Pastor Williams," Hennessee, who has been pastor since 2005, told the Portland Observer. That legacy was set in place by the former pastor of the church, for 48 years, Rev. Oliver Booker “O.B.” Williams, and his wife Willa Ida Jackson-Williams. Williams started as a Sunday School Teacher at the church before taking over in 1945—when its membership was just 75--and oversaw its substantial growth during the civil rights movement from the 1940s to the 1960s. The church, now located at 3138 N. Vancouver Ave. in the Albina district of inner north and northeast Portland, was originally established in 1944 across the Columbia River in Vancouver, Wash., at the site of a housing project called Burton Homes where it was known as the First Baptist Church. Thousands of shipyard workers who came to the Northwest during World War II—many of whom were Southern and black--helped the congregation get formed. "What people were looking for was a better life, better opportunity, a place to raise your family without all the blatant signs of Jim Crow and racial prejudice and bias and things of that nature,” Hennessee said. It relocated no fewer than three times over the next decade as the ending of WWII saw the closures of many housing projects. The church then established itself in Albina— where many of the city’s African Americans resided. In 1951 it moved to its current location, a former Methodist Episcopal church, built in 1909. From 1951 to 1967 the membership grew from 650 to 2,000 and during that period became a town hall for local African Americans. At the time it was the largest black church in the entire Pacific Northwest. “If there were things that were related to community activities, such as the NAACP, The Urban League, or anything related to improvement in terms of better conditions for blacks--like housing, employment, education--the church played a role in helping to foster those social/economical improvements for blacks in the 50s and 60s," the church’s historian and archivist, Raymond Burell III, told the Portland Observer. In 1961, the Urban League selected the church as one of the stops on Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s national speaking tour. The national civil rights leader met with clergy and delivered a speech entitled “The Future of Integration,” commenting that “if democracy is to live, segregation must die. Segregation is a cancer in the body of democracy that must be removed if the health of the nation is to survive.” Rv. King’s message was undoubtedly resonant to the then-segregated neighborhood residents. The church would later be the site of the statewide memorial service held for King after his death in 1968. In 2006, the church also hosted a memorial service for Coretta Scott King, who was Hennessee’s godmother. Rev. O.B. Williams, who passed away in 1993, and wife Ida, who passed away in 2010, were given numerous community recognitions in their lifetimes. That included a community award for Ida by the Black Caucus of Portland in 1979; and then-Mayor Bud Clark proclaiming May 27 as O.B Williams Day in 1986. Photo Courtesy Vancouver Avenue First Baptist Church The Vancouver Avenue First Baptist Church in the 1950s when it was the largest black congregation in the Pacific Northwest, a meeting place for social justice groups like the Portland NAACP, the Portland Urban League, and even hosted Dr. Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1961. Today, the church continues to be a central part of African American community life. Since 2007, under the leadership of Pastor Hennessee, the church hosts Drum Major celebrations each year in tribute to Dr. King on the weekend of the national holiday honoring the civil rights icon. In January the church hosted Ambassador Attalah Shabazz, the eldest daughter of Malcolm X and Dr. Betty Shabazz, as its keynote speaker. The celebration annually honors community leaders and provides scholarships for local college-bound high school students. In 2016 the church was officially listed on the National Register of Historic places thanks in part to the efforts of Burell, who wrote a 133-page nomination report for the listing. He also authored a coffee table book of the history of the church and its leadership, “Vancouver Avenue: Yesterday, Today, and Forever,” in 2009. By 2016, the membership of the church dwindled to 400, coinciding with the gentrification and displacement of black community members from the church’s Eliot neighborhood over the last couple of decades. Current plans would bolster the church’s prominence in the community for decades to come by establishing a new African-American Museum at the church. Plans call for an exhibit gallery, spanning a little over 1,000 square feet, which will showcase the legacy of blacks in the community, Burell said. “There's a lot of history in this area and yet there's no one place you can go to kind of say, let's go look at the exhibits, so our goal is to develop that," Hennessee said. Thanks to a $175,000 grant from the National Fund for Sacred Places, and other pending grants and donations, the museum will be part of a larger renovation project that will unfold over the next year. It will include the formation of a dedicated space for iUrban Teen, a partnering organization that brings together underrepresented teens and young adults for career exploration and mentoring in the science, technology, engineering, math, and arts fields. A board room for community use is also in the works.

Portland team wins trophies at tournament Portland martial arts students Jeremiah Childs and Malcolm Bunyoli are presented championship awards during a regional tournament earlier this month in Mt. Vernon, Wash. PHOTO COURTESY PORTLAND SOO BAHK DO Congratulations to students from the Soo Bahk Do martial arts program in northeast Portland who took home trophies this month at the regional Soo Bahk Do Moo Duk Kwan Championships in Mt. Vernon, Wash. Jeremiah Childs won in his red belt category for sparring and took second place in forms; Malcolm Bunyoli won second place for sparring in the same division; and Andrew Esperanza was the Yong Gi (courage) award winner in the Orange belt category. The team’s instructor and mentor Charles Smith said everyone did a great job and demonstrated excellent discipline and spirit (Moo Do Shim Gung). Portland Soo Bahk Do offers traditional martial arts and therapeutic martial arts for families and individuals of all ages at the Woodlawn MIC Center, 1425 N.E. Dekum St., and at the Blazers Boys and Girls Club, 5250 N.E. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.

Kathleen Collins challenged stereotypes This year’s POW Fest, the Portland Oregon Women’s Film Festival, honors the late Kathleen Collins, an African-American poet, playwright, writer, filmmaker, director, civil rights activist and educator from Jersey City, N.J. PHOTO BY RONALD GRAY Kathleen Collins, the late African-American, poet, playwright and film director whose contribution to women’s and African America cinema was significant, will be honored during this year’s POW Fest, the Portland Oregon Women’s Film Festival. The 12th annual event opens Wednesday, March 27 at the Holocene and continues through Sunday, March 31 at the historic Hollywood Theater, Clinton Street Theater and Holocene. Collins’ work was significant in conveying images of people of color, particularly women in ways that even now are rarely seen in popular culture. Her 1982 masterpiece “Losing Ground,” will screen on Saturday, March 30 at 7 p.m. at the Hollywood theater with Collins’ daughter in attendance. In addition, this year’s POW Fest will feature women and non-binary filmmakers from around the world, including Australia, Brazil, Canada, Czech Republic, Germany, Italy, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey and the UK. Tickets and a complete schedule are available by visiting powfilmfest.com.