Email Bill Meyer, Find Podcasts on BillMeyerShow.com
Bill Meyer’s Facebook page: www.Facebook.com/BillMeyerShow
________________________________________________
Monday 02-24-25 Bill Meyer Show Guests and Information
Podcasts on www.BillMeyerShow.com
Facebook – www.Facebook.com/billmeyershow
6:35 Shane Jenkins, Executive Director of Stand in the Gap. Shane Jenkins is former January 6th defendant and we talk his remarkable story.
Learn more about Shane Jenkins here:
- Bio: Shane was a defendant in the January 6th events, having been incarcerated for a total of 46 months—24 of which were pre-trial, and 32 in what is referred to as the DC Gulag. His case went to trial, where he was found guilty on all counts by a jury that many would argue did not represent his peers.
- The Day of January 6th: On that day, Shane was directly beside Victoria White when she was assaulted by police. He himself was also assaulted but managed to assist MDP Officer Blake Miller back to safety amidst the chaos.
- From Adversity to Advocacy: Instead of succumbing to the adversities he faced, Shane turned his experience into a platform for change. While incarcerated, he founded two significant organizations:
- The Real J6: An initiative aimed at sharing personal stories and factual narratives from those who were present on January 6th, providing a counter-narrative to mainstream reporting.
- Stand in the Gap: This organization focuses on advocating for judicial reform, highlighting injustices within the current system, and pushing for changes to ensure fair treatment for all.
- Current Mission: Shane is now dedicating his efforts towards reforming and restoring integrity to America’s justice system. His firsthand experience gives him a unique perspective and an unyielding commitment to this cause.
7:10 Greg Roberts from www.RogueWeather.com brings today’s Outdoor, Wolf, Bigfoot and more report…hey, it’s all in there!
8:10 Dr. Dennis Powers, www.DennisPowersBooks.com with today’s “Where Past Meets Present”
The Frohnmayers: Transforming Medford
By Dennis Powers
Otto Frohnmayer was born in Germany in 1905, the son of Bernard and Sophie. When Otto was an infant, the family immigrated to Oregon, where Bernard worked as a watchmaker and toolmaker. Otto attended Portland public schools, graduated with a B.S. degree From the University of Oregon (“UO”) in 1929, and earned a law degree from UO in 1933, working odd jobs that included time as a hotel bellhop. He then moved to Medford, where he joined the successful law practice of Porter J. Neff as an associate, then became a partner.
Frohnmayer represented most of the region’s influential companies, including Harry & David, the Medford Mail Tribune, and others. He was elected president of the Southern Oregon Bar Association (1940) and practiced law into the 1990s. Otto chaired a group of 200 local leaders that secured $2 million of funding to create Rogue Valley Memorial Hospital (now Asante Rogue Regional Medical Center), helped establish Mercy Flights (the first nonprofit air-ambulance service in the country), and served on numerous nonprofit boards, including the Medford YMCA and United Way.
He married MarAbel Braden, a music teacher from Albany, in 1936 and both were ardent supporters of the arts. MarAbel helped found the Rogue Valley Symphony and was the first president of the Rogue Valley Chorale. In 2005, the University of Oregon’s MarAbel B. Frohnmayer Music Building was named in her honor.
A lifelong Republican, Frohnmayer played a key role in Mark Hatfield’s political campaigns, chairing his Southern Oregon committees. Otto led a statewide fundraising campaign in the 1980s to purchase a private residence in Salem and make it into Mahonia Hall, the official residence of Oregon’s governors. In 1994, Frohnmayer and his law partners moved their offices and donated the Cooley–Neff Building to the Rogue Valley Arts Association. After renovation, this became the Craterian Theater in 1997.
Widely hailed as Medford’s First Citizen, Otto Frohnmayer died on January 31, 2000. “In seven decades of public service,” the Mail Tribune wrote, Frohnmayer “helped transform Medford from a sleepy logging and orchard town into the bustling hub of Southern Oregon.”
Otto and MarAbel Frohnmayer had four children: Mira and Philip, award-winning university music professors and performers (Philip was professor of music at Loyola University, but has passed away); John, chair of the National Endowment for the Arts (1989–1992); and David, an Oregon legislator (1975–1981), Oregon attorney general (1981–1991) and UO’s president (1994–2008), among other highlights. All four stood out in their respective professions.
John Frohnmayer is a lawyer, writer, and arts leader who served as the fifth chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts and as the chair of both the Oregon Arts Commission and Oregon Humanities.
Born in Medford in 1942, he earned his undergraduate degree from Stanford University (1964), where he sang with the Stanford Mendicants, a cappella singing group. John enlisted in the U.S. Navy during the Vietnam War and served as an engineering officer on the USS Oklahoma City. Later, he earned a master’s degree in Christian ethics from the University of Chicago and a J.D. degree from the UO School of Law, where he was editor-in-chief of the Law Review (1972).
Early in his career, John developed expertise in First Amendment and arts law and was appointed to the Oregon Arts Commission in 1977, serving as chair from 1980-1984. He was selected by President George H.W. Bush to be the fifth chair of the National Endowment for the Arts in 1989, which continued until 1992. Frohnmayer’s experience in Washington, D.C., sharpened his advocacy for the arts. ‘
From 1995 to 2004, he and his wife Leah lived in Bozeman, Montana, where he set up a private law practice; in 2004, he and his family returned to Oregon, where they made a nine-acre farm near Jefferson their home. Frohnmayer took a position as affiliate professor of liberal arts at Oregon State University. He was honored with the Governor’s Arts Award in 1993, and the Montana Library Association presented him with its Intellectual Freedom Award in 1997.
Also born in Medford, David Frohnmayer graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University in 1962. He attended Wadham College, University of Oxford on a Rhodes scholarship, and received his law degree from the University of California, Berkeley in 1967. A Republican, he served three terms in the Oregon House of Representatives from 1975 to 1981, representing southern Eugene.
His daughters Kirsten, Katie, and Amy were diagnosed with Fanconi anemia, a rare and life-threatening recessive genetic illness. He and his wife founded the FA Family Support Group (1985) to help share disease and treatment information with other families similarly afflicted and established the Fanconi Anemia Research Fund (1989) to fund research that would lead to a cure. All three Frohnmayer daughters died of complications related to Fanconi anemia: Katie (1991) at age 12, Kirsten (1997) at 24, and Amy (2016) at 29. Dave Frohnmayer was also a founding Director of the National Marrow Donor Program.
He was elected three times as Oregon Attorney General (1980-1991), when he resigned to become Dean of the UO School of Law, also teaching there for the same length of time. (David was the Republican nominee for Governor of Oregon in 1990—but didn’t win.) He was appointed president of the university in 1994 and continued in this position until his retirement in 2008. Frohnmayer’s tenure was widely acclaimed: The Oregonian called his presidency “one of the most remarkable higher education performances in Oregon history”. He died of prostate cancer at age 74.
The Frohnmayers contributed greatly, not only to this region but also nationally, and should be honored accordingly.
Sources: George Kramer, “Oregon Enclopedia: Otto Frohnmayer” at Otto’s Background; Ed Battistella, “Oregon Encyclopedia: John Edward Frohnmayer” at John’s Background; Wikipedia: David Frohnmayer at David’s Background.