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Monday 01/26/26 Bill Meyer Show Guests and Info
Podcasts on www.BillMeyerShow.com
Facebook – www.Facebook.com/billmeyershow
6:35 Dr. John Lott
More on John: https://crimeresearch.org/about/
CPRC was founded by Dr. John R. Lott, Jr., an economist and a world-recognized expert on guns and crime.
How Trump’s ICE Enforcement Record Blows Obama’s Out of the Water – By a Lot
By John Lott, Worldwide Expert on Guns & Crime
I have a new piece at the New York Post comparing President Trump’s ICE enforcement numbers to Obama’s. They are biased against Trump because Obama’s numbers include cases where people are turned back at the border, so those individuals can’t be mistakenly detained or there will be the possibility of them dying in custody. Under Obama, border removals/returns were about 70-75 percent of those returned, so these calculations are significantly biased in favor of making Obama’s immigration enforcement process look relatively good. Here is Grok’s analysis of that point. Here is Grok’s evaluation of the accuracy of the article. ChatGPT’s evaluation of the article is available here. [more…]
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7:10 Greg Roberts, Mr. Outdoors with today’s report and a dive into the Wolf problem.
8:10 Dr. Dennis Powers, retired professor of Business Law at SOU. Today’s “Where Past Meets Present”. www.DennisPowersBooks.com
Shirley Patton: A Legend in Her Own Time
By Dennis Powers
Shirley Patton’s family moved from a small town in Washington to Portland during World War II. She loved acting in high school and was a theater major at Stanford University where she learned of Angus Bowmer and his tiny theater company in Ashland, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival (“OSF”). After graduation, Patton came to Ashland in 1958.
Shirley was asked to play the role of Viola in “Twelfth Night,” the morning of the opening night when the original actress was hospitalized the night before. “I wasn’t even the understudy,” Patton said. This started her acting career at OSF. Although she returned to Portland to teach in supplementing her acting, Bowmer invited her to return although he had given out all of the scholarships he had at that time.
Shirley met her husband, Bill Patton, only minutes after she got off the bus. Bill was the general manager of the company at the time. They were married six months later, about when the theater was torn down when the fire department condemned it. They were married for 52 years before Bill passed away in 2011. The OSF dedicated its 2011 season, its 76th, to Patton, who had led the company from 1953 to 1995–another story in itself.
Her life revolved around the theater, and she was a member of the OSF acting company for 30 seasons and played more than 50 roles. After leaving OSF, she performed in numerous local theater venues on many stages, such as the Camelot Theatre, Southern Oregon University, and the Craterian Theater in a variety of roles.
One of her most memorable roles was in the Pulitzer Prize and Academy Award winning story of “Driving Miss Daisy” in 2014 at the Camelot Theatre. Livia Genise, the artistic director, asked her whether she would like to play Daisy Werthan–but there was a problem. Patton had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. Parkinson’s is a degenerative disorder of the central nervous system for which there is no cure. Patients in the early stages often develop tremors, move slowly, and have trouble walking. Speech can be affected.
Shirley said, “If Daisy can have Parkinson’s, then yes.” She’d work on the problems but she couldn’t mask a tremor in one hand. So this Daisy had a tremor. Patton came to the first rehearsal in January with nearly all of her lines memorized. She worked on balance, the quick changes needed of costumes, voice, and breathing. The applause on opening night went deservedly for a long time.
In January 2019, Shirley Patton was in her 75th year of acting and celebrated 60 years of service with the Tudor Guild, as its longest standing member. The Tudor Guild supports OSF financially through its gift shop. Patton, however, also helped find housing and household items for actors, along with child care for employees, volunteers, and even audience members. Shirley also was the voice for JPR’s “As It Was” stories from 2005 on for 15 years, including some 300 that this writer wrote and worked with her on.
One of her last performances was starring in Camelot Theatre’s “The Gin Game” in May 2019. However, she later moved to Portland to be with her family. Southern Oregonians are lucky to have seen or know Shirley Patton over these years. She was not only very talented and dedicated, but also someone you would like to know as a friend—and who dealt with Parkinson’s for years as a leading actress.
Sources: Caitlin Fowlkes, “OSF legend celebrates 60 years,” Mail Tribune, January 16, 2019, at Acting and Oregon; Bill Varble, “OSF’s Bill Patton dies at age 83,” Mail Tribune, January 14, 2011, at Bill Patton; Bill Varble, “Fear and trembling–and triumph,” Mail Tribune, February 11, 2014, at Overcoming Disabilities.
8:40 OPEN FOR BUSINESS with Melissa Mlasko with FUTURITY FIRST. Tomorrow she’s putting on a free SOCIAL SECURITY TIMING SEMINAR at Central Point Parks and Recreation, 235 Haskel St., Central Point. It all starts at 5:30 pm.
FUTURITY FIRST