our view

Rogue Valley Times reporter Buffy Pollock opened some eyes in late May with the research and writing she’s done over the past several weeks to produce the astounding piece of investigative journalism titled “The Death of Bobbie Kolada.”

A series of that magnitude, especially at a newspaper with a staff of just five news reporters and a sports writer, requires a complete team effort. We have a lot of pages to fill in the print paper, and we have to keep all of the slots filled and fresh on the website, rv-times.com.

Reporter Shaun Hall and photographer Jamie Lusch headed out to the Kalmiopsis Wilderness Area at zero-dark-thirty on Wednesday last week, where a team from the Siskiyou Mountain Club was embarking on an annual 27-mile trek from Babyfoot Lake to the upper Chetco River on the trans-Kalmiopsis route. The story of how Gabe Howe and his wife, Jillian Stokes, built that club is a worthy read.

Police and courts reporter Kevin Opsahl was a study in efficiency, covering the arraignment and bail hearings for a man accused of murdering his mother, and knocking on doors in the neighborhood where it happened, giving neighbors the opportunity to express their shock over the events that cast a pall over their neighborhood. He covered the resentencing of Bradley Robert Quillen, a convicted killer who was the latest Jackson County resident released from prison because their jury verdicts were not unanimous, and Kevin produced the daily jail log — among several other stories.

Erick Bengel, our social issues and health care reporter, showed his versatility by covering the sentencing of Jonathan Craig Robinson, convicted of manslaughter in a drunken driving wreck in 2022 on Crater Lake Avenue, on top of turning out stories about Mercy Flights, about Habitat for Humanity taking on its largest housing project ever, and covering a tour with the Firebrand Resiliency Collective of homes being rebuilt in areas devastated by the Almeda Fire.

Morgan Rothborne was all over town, covering plans to rebuild the old Malmgren Garage in Talent after the Almeda Fire, and interviewing students from the bands at North and South Medford high schools as they departed for a jet ride to Washington, D.C., to march in the Memorial Day parade. She also put together packages for Go! Rogue about the Gold Dust Days event in Gold Hill, about the Ashland World Music Festival, a “flameworker” who creates glass beads in her home studio, and about the June 3 return of Brews, Blues & BBQ.

Sports editor Kris Henry — the lone member of our sports team — is a monster of pen and ink. He single-handedly covers all of the high school and college sports teams in the Rogue Valley. He covered playoff baseball and softball at numerous venues, and last weekend he was in Eugene with photographer Andy Atkinson covering the state track and field championships.

While we were getting our beauty sleep, Kris was up late into the night producing copy — writing as many as five stories in a night.

Readers do not live by tragedy alone, so our reporters worked hard to supplement the significant work you read about Bobbie Kolada.