Special Reports
Still short-staffed: DMV office closures linger this year across Central Oregon
BEND, Ore. – Just about any Central Oregonian who drives and/or owns a vehicle knows the longstanding drill about the in-person aspect of Oregon DMV offices – the take-a-number, take-a-seat and wait way to get things done that you can’t or don’t want to tackle online, such as driving tests.
Friday, Oct 2, 2026
Update: Bend man arrested in attempted rape was released from jail last Friday
BEND, Ore. -- A Bend man was arrested Tuesday morning, accused of trying to rape a woman walking through the Third Street railroad underpass - an assault that was interrupted by a bystander who happened upon the scene. Court records show he was arrested several times in recent months and most recently released from jail last Friday.
Tuesday, Sep 29, 2026
Green Tour runs the gamut, from century-old Bend building to city's vast new campus
BEND, Ore. – For nearly a quarter-century, the Environmental Center in Bend has held a Central Oregon Green Tour, giving people a chance to visit homes, businesses and other facilities, to see what they have done to create a more sustainable future for everyone.
Monday, Sep 28, 2026
Bend software CEO's AI talk sheds light amid all the heated uproar
BEND, Ore. – Steering anything close to a calm middle ground in a talk about artificial intelligence these days – not hate or love, hype or doom, just an “AI 101” of sorts, from historic perspective to understanding how things really work and how we can respond – might seem like a next-to-impossible task these AI-fevered days.
Saturday, Sep 26, 2026
Towering achievement: A tour of Bend Airport's new air traffic control tower
BEND, Ore. – The 360-degree vista of the High Desert’s mountains and buttes is as stunning as you might expect from the top of the Bend Airport’s new 115-foot-tall Bend air traffic control tower, which is finally ready to get down to business – up in the air - and hold its ribbon-cutting next month.
Friday, Sep 25, 2026
Central Oregon De-Escalation Guild offering protest training
BEND, Ore. – Tawny Barin Howlett has a young son, so she’s quite familiar with the need to de-escalate things sometimes, if and when a situation get tense or threaten to get out of control.
Wednesday, Sep 23, 2026
Flat Fire evacuee pivots remodeling business to home fire hardening
SISTERS, Ore. (Bend Bugle) – Home remodeler Adam Payne, his wife and two young daughters were among the thousands evacuated for several days late last August due to the Flat Fire northeast of Sisters that burned over 23,000 acres, destroyed five homes and a dozen other structures and cost some $29 million to put out.
Tuesday, Jul 7, 2026
Could fire and ember safe vents help save your home from wildfire?
BEND, Ore. (BBB) – With a severe drought setting up a dangerous wildfire season across much of the nation – including Central Oregon – some businesses are offering ways to help homeowners and builders go beyond familiar “defensible space” efforts and boost the odds of surviving the fire next time – a process known as “home hardening.”Some High Desert residents recently received a flyer from Deschutes Roofing that not only offered a free “wildfire protection assessment,” but also mentioned a new-home or retrofit option called Vulcan Vents, which describes their roof, foundation and other home vents as “fire and ember safe.”For the past 17 years, Vulcan Vent products have been manufactured by a Loomis, California company called New Cal Metals Inc.They were featured on This Old House and Ask This Old House, as part of a series focused on a crew helping rebuild parts of Paradise, California after their devastating wildfires.The vents are designed to help protect homes in high-risk fire zones. They combine a stainless steel mesh that stops flying embers with an intumescent (heat-expanding) honeycomb matrix that swells and completely seals the opening, keeping flames or embers from getting into attics or crawlspaces.Nate Oliver, marketing director for the company, pointed out where the need arises, from vents that are a standard way to enable homes to “breathe” and not accumulate moisture or mold.“You can have a brick house with armored cladding, a metal roof – nothing combustible on the outside,” he said. “Then we put holes in the building so they can breathe” – but when a wildfire approaches, “embers fly around at the frequency and volume of snow in a winter storm,” sometimes traveling miles.“The houses ‘breathe’ in the embers, combust stuff on the inside of the home, so the homes burn from the inside out,” Oliver said.Oliver also shared a link to a feature story from the National Fire Protection Association focusing on a Grizzly Flats, California homeowner who took numerous steps to make his home fire-resistant. It was one of about 150 homes to survive the August 2021 Caldor Fire - which destroyed 450 others.New Cal Metals makes two kinds of vents – Vulcan, which is for flame and ember protection, and a less-costly option called Firestorm, which Oliver said is more about protecting against flying embers than flames.The manufacturers also don’t install or do the labor, which he acknowledged is the lion’s share of the cost.A 6-by-14-inch standard foundation vent in the home might cost about $40, and with 20 to 25 vents on a typical home, so it can add up. The Firestorm option for the same vent is about $12, he said.Oliver noted that for those 17 years in business, the main competitor is called Brandguard, which uses metal baffles with interlocking chambers, a maze that is harder for embers to go through.New Cal Metals has no retailer sales outside of California, instead selling to distributors like lumber yards and Ace Hardware.Vulcan VentsVulcan Vents are available in a variety of typesCity of Bend adopts new state building code on 'home hardening'Tom Mooney, fire marshal for Redmond Fire & Rescue, said he can’t speak to the product itself, but that “looking over the details, it does meet the requirements for home hardening for wildfire protection for vents.”New Cal’s Oliver said products like theirs are now required in California for all new construction, while local jurisdictions in states like Oregon and Texas require them, not just typical mesh vents.Earlier this year, the Bend City Council adopted a section of Oregon’s Residential Specialty Code that sets home-hardening requirements to improve wildfire resilience for new single-family homes. The new requirements took effect in mid-May.Bend Fire & Rescue Deputy Fire Marshal Dan Derlacki said that in general, “home hardening is a great way to help protect your home from wildfire.” He noted that the agency provides free home assessments, along with other information and the link to a form to request a visit.Local roofer sees new vents' tradeoffs: 'A house has to breathe'The role of vent upgrades in reducing wildfire risk is complex and evolving amid higher fire danger.Hobie Smith is director of sales and marketing at Greenlee Roofing, a family-owned Bend business. He says they are skeptical about claims that the new generation of vents prove better for structures overall, because it also will impact crucial airflow.“From a roofer’s perspective, it’s controversial, having proper ventilation,” Smith said. “A home needs to breathe. You need proper ratios of (air) intake vs. output for a home. Right now, it’s about 50/50, so your electric bill is not crazy high in the wintertime, and in the summer it’s not crazy high, either.”Most foundation vents being installed currently have 1/8th inch mesh, half of what the Vulcan Vent density is, he explained.“Even an 8th (mesh) is tight. I think it’s necessary for (keeping out) embers,” he said. “But when we talk about going to something like Vulcan, at 1/16th, you are absolutely compromising airflow at that point. So roofers are going to start to grit their teeth, because you want a home and an attic to breathe.”“We as a company are skeptical on it providing the proper amount of ventilation that homes in our area need,” Smith explained. “Because we are in the High Desert, and we have that high-to-low temperature change and that crazy fluctuation from the early mornings to mid-afternoons, a home – and an attic specifically – has to breathe.”Smith said he personally backs home hardening, and says products such as Vulcan Vents could be beneficial. “I think if it actually does what they say it’s going to do, and still provides the airflow that’s necessary, we are totally on board.”However, Smith also said a home in the path of a fire that fierce likely wouldn’t be saved by such upgrades anyway: “if a fire is close enough to expel embers that are small enough to get into your attic, your house is absolutely toast already.”
Wednesday, Jul 1, 2026
The Curious Bendite: Just when was Bend's last bank robbery, anyway?
(Author’s note: I recently “semi-retired” from KTVZ in Bend, Oregon — but my ever-curious mind and storyteller’s heart will never stop looking for interesting stories to tell. This is the first in an occasional series of ‘The Curious Bendite’ articles that I hope you’ll find interesting and worth your time. BEND, Ore. — The last time someone robbed a bank in Bend, President Trump was in the midst of his first term in office, and the COVID pandemic was still a year away.On Friday, Jan. 11, 2019, a man later identified as Cory Dwight Homestead, then 40, of McMinnville, walked into the Umpqua Bank on South Highway 97 and demanded money. Police said he got away with an undisclosed amount of cash before officers arrived on the scene. No weapon was displayed and no one was injured.Less than four hours later, the Modoc County, California sheriff got a call from a Lake County, Oregon sheriff's deputy, seeking help in a vehicle pursuit that crossed from Lakeview into Northern California. The chase hit speeds of over 100 mph, and spike strips punctured the tires.A Dramatic ChaseThe robbery suspect kept going, driving the red Mercedes on wheel rims for several miles until veering off the road and overturning in a field about 230 miles south of Bend. Homestead, believed to be on methamphetamine, refused to get out of the car, delaying his arrest.That was Bend's most recent bank robbery, according to Bend Police Communications Manager Sheila Miller.The Big-Belly Bandit and Other HoldupsBend's most dramatic bank holdup in recent times came a week before Christmas of 2015, when a 72-year-old La Pine man walked into the Wells Fargo bank on Northeast Third Street, displayed several 'explosives' — later found to be fake — and demanded a large sum of money. A tense hostage drama ended 40 minutes later with Thomas Alden Henderson's surrender and arrest.There have been several other bank holdups in Bend — some unsolved, the most well-known the so-called 'Big-Belly Bandit,' a serial bank robber believed to have held up the downtown branch of Home Federal Bank three times and the south Bend Bank of the Cascades Branch twice — all over a two-year period between December 2011 and December 2013. Despite extensive police investigative efforts, no arrest was ever made.Why Bank Robberies Have DeclinedLegendary bank robber Willie Sutton was once quoted famously as saying he robbed banks 'because that's where the money is.' The seven-plus-year period with no Bend bank holdups reflects a dramatic drop nationwide: FBI data shows bank robberies have fallen by more than 80% since 1991, from about 9,400 holdups to fewer than 1,400 in 2023.Societal and technology trends are a big reason — there are fewer bank branches, less cash on hand, and better security technology. Other factors include harsher penalties and criminals' shift to easier and more successful cybercrimes.This is the first in an occasional series of 'The Curious Bendite' articles.
Friday, Jun 5, 2026
On a split vote, Oregon parole board denies release of Adam Thomas, last of the 'Redmond 5' in prison
BEND, Ore. — A quarter-century after five Redmond teens fatally shot and beat a Redmond woman when she arrived home, the last one still in prison — the victim's son — has lost his first bid for parole, as a state board found he had not yet fully come to terms with his role in the brutal crime.In one of the most notorious crimes in Central Oregon history, Barbara Thomas was beaten with wine bottles and shot by a 15-year-old after five teens trashed her home on the Old Bend-Redmond Highway on March 26, 2001, looking in vain for a missing set of car keys. The teens, who became known after their arrest as the 'Redmond 5,' then fled in the woman's car but were stopped and arrested at the Canadian border.The Crime and Its AftermathAdam Thomas, now 43 and one of the victim's two sons, was the oldest of the five charged teens, at 18, and the only one sentenced to life without parole as an adult. Ashley Summers, who at 15 was the youngest of the group, was one of the four granted early release in May of 2023 by the Oregon Board of Parole and Post-Prison Supervision.The four juveniles at the time were released in 2023 under the terms of a commutation by Gov. Kate Brown, after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a life sentence for violent juvenile offenders violated the Eighth Amendment's prohibition of 'cruel and unusual' punishment.The Parole Board's DecisionThe parole board denied Thomas's parole request on a split 2–1 vote after holding a 'murder review' hearing on April 22 at the Oregon State Penitentiary in Salem. The board said Adam Thomas had not met the burden of proof outlined in state law and found that he 'is not likely to be rehabilitated within a reasonable period of time.' He can appeal that decision administratively, and/or again seek parole in two years.Progress Noted, But Concerns RemainThe board noted that since arriving in prison, Adam Thomas violated its rules four times between 2003 and 2016, but has had no disciplinary violations in the past decade. He has held several jobs during his prison term and obtained his GED.The board said it's clear Thomas 'is now committed to working on his rehabilitation,' but noted that he 'has a long history of self-hatred and shame regarding his brutal murder of his mother' and has not 'fully reckoned with how his emotions towards his mother were related to his brutal attack on her.'
Sunday, May 31, 2026