Category: ktvz-local-news

Claire Elmer

BEND, Ore. (KTVZ) — Bend Summer Festival kicked off Friday and runs through Sunday in downtown Bend. The festival is a celebration of summer in Central Oregon, along with arts, culture, and community.

You can enjoy live music, performances, food, and a variety of vendors. Attendance and events are free to the public. For information on events, schedules, and more, you can visit Bend Summer Festival’s website.

KTVZ News will be present on Saturday to share some of the fun. A new weekend report will air this evening on KTVZ News at 10 p.m.

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Barney Lerten

BEND, Ore. (KTVZ) — M.C. Smith Signs, a trusted name in custom signage and branding solutions, proudly celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. Since opening its doors in 1975, the company has grown from a small local sign shop into a respected leader known for creativity, craftsmanship and customer dedication. 

For five decades, M.C. Smith Signs has helped businesses of all sizes across Central Oregon make their mark through expertly designed and fabricated signage. From storefront signs and wayfinding systems to large-scale branding installations, the company has continuously adapted to new technologies while staying true to the values that have fueled its success: quality, service, and integrity. 

“This milestone is not just about looking back – it’s about honoring the relationships, community, and innovation that have brought us here,” said Chis Linderman, owner of M.C. Smith Signs. 

“We’re grateful to our clients, employees, and partners who have supported us through every chapter. As we look to the future, we’re more committed than ever to delivering signage that inspires and endures.” 

About M.C. Smith Signs 

Founded in 1975, M.C. Smith Signs is a full-service signage company specializing in custom design, fabrication, and installation. Serving a diverse client base across commercial, institutional and municipal sectors, the company combines modern technology with a commitment to craftsmanship and customer satisfaction.  

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Isabella Warren

(Update: Adding video, comments from ODF)

BEND, Ore. (KTVZ)– We’re just a week into July, and already this fire season has been busy. In just 10 days, hundreds of wildland firefighters have been deployed across the state following intense lightning and dry conditions.

Officials with the Oregon Department of Forestry say that, so far this season, it is similar to last year, though they have seen more vehicle-sparked fires. 

However, the early start we saw in June with the Rowena and Fairy fires is causing long-term staffing issues. KTVZ News spoke Friday with ODF on how they track lightning strikes in the area, and what they’re preparing for this August. 

“We have the multi-mission aircraft, and that aircraft will then go up and basically follow behind the storms,” said Public Affairs Officer Jessica Neujahr. “They’ll go up and start detecting fires so that we can get firefighters out to new starts as early as possible.”

She said, however, later fires in August could put a strain on staffing: “It kind of puts a bit more of a strain on those resources. So we are anticipating the fire season to pick up even more. And we’re preparing for that.”

In August of 2024, nearly 13,000 wildland firefighters were on the ground in Oregon, battling the mega-fires burning in the east. Because this year’s season started early, officials have already dipped into the state wildfire funding. Governor Tina Kotek had recommended dipping into the state’s rainy day fund to help, as last year’s season cost the state $350 million.

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Barney Lerten

(Update: Smith sentenced to nearly 28 years in prison)

BEND, Ore. (KTVZ) — On the day of his scheduled murder trial for killing his mother, a Bend man was sentenced Tuesday to nearly 28 years in prison on a reduced charge of manslaughter, along with two other crimes.

Joshua Lawrence Smith, 42, was arrested on a second-degree murder charge after the March 20, 2024 killing of his mother, Janice Marie Smith, 59, at the Legacy Landing Apartments in northeast Bend.

Deschutes County District Attorney Steve Gunnels told KTVZ News last year that Smith’s mother died of blunt force trauma after a “violent physical interaction” between the mother and son.

Smith’s eight-day murder trial initially was set for April, but was delayed three months at his attorney’s request, seeking more time to prepare and review evidence. He was sentenced on the day the trial was set to begin.

The murder charge alleged Smith “unlawfully and intentionally” caused his mother’s death. In the plea petition Smith signed on July 3 and included below, he admitted having “unlawfully and recklessly” caused her death “under circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to the value of human life.”

The petition said prosecutors and the defense would jointly recommend that Circuit Judge Alycia Herriott sentence Smith to 20 years in prison, including 10 years as a Measure 11 crime and the first 10 for which he will be “eligible for good time.” Herriott agreed to those terms, court records show, and Smith also was ordered to pay $2,010 in crime victim restitution.

Smith also admitted to criminal mistreatment in the killing, a charge connected to the victim’s senior age. That brought a recommended five-year prison term, including 33 months served consecutively to the manslaughter conviction and 27 months concurrently

Smith also signed a separate plea petition on July 2, admitting to aggravated harassment that brought a recommended 50 months (just over four years) in prison, admitting he spat on a Bend Police detective.

Gunnels told us Wednesday, “The victim’s daughter and defendant’s sister, Jessica Smith, was present and made a statement to the judge before sentencing. She told the judge how much she missed her mother and that she did not believe her brother had killed their mother on purpose.

“She said this happened because he was not on his medication, but she will be there for him when he gets out of prison someday. She agreed with the sentence imposed by the court,” the DA said.

Smith also spoke to the judge and courtroom, when it was his time to make a statement.

“He said he regretted what happened that day and he appreciated that his family was in court to support him,” Gunnels said.

Joshua Smith plea petitionDownload

Joshua Smith criminal mistreatment plea petitionDownload

Joshua Smith aggravated harassment pleaDownload

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Claire Elmer

(Update: Adding video, adding interview with professor and students, information on project)

BEND, Ore. (KTVZ) — OSU-Cascades students in Hospitality Management and Engineering have been working together since 2018, hoping to better understand and reduce food waste. With the help of new technology and crucial community partners, they are doing just that — and even more.

Students have created a system that identifies food plated prior to consumption, then tracks leftovers. Their goal is to see what frequently goes to waste and track nutritional intake.

Hospitality Management student Pickett Johnson told KTVZ News, “We’re basically calculating food waste. That’s something that’s never really tracked otherwise. We’re trying to figure out how much is getting sent back, to better track for sustainability and environmental reasons.”

The saying “you can’t manage what you can’t track” was the idea behind this system. 

Todd Montgomery, a professor at OSU-Cascades, was present during the test.

“This is going to help inform,” Montgomery said. “The larger research objective is understanding post-consumer food waste, and also help identifying malnutrition to help improve health outcomes.”

OSU-Cascades partnered with the Council on Aging of Central Oregon, which regularly provides meals to seniors in Central Oregon. That provided prime test conditions, giving students the opportunity to track a large number of meals before and after consumption.

Engineering student Luke Bensching explained how the technology works. 

“What we do is we take a photo of the food before it goes out, and we’re able to get a weight. Then there’s the AI recognition. Once it comes back from the consumer, we’ll take another photo and get the difference in volume and the difference in weight to determine if they’re wasting certain foods, and if maybe Council on Aging folks should do different types of options.”

OSU-Cascades completed their final test of the technology this week and intends to put the system into production right away.

They say none of this would have been possible without the assistance of Central Oregon Health Quality Alliance, which provided the funding, and also the participation of the Council on Aging, coupled with the commitment of their students.

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Kelsey Merison

REDMOND, Ore. (KTVZ) — Central Oregon is home to one of seven US Forest Service bases in the country—where smokejumpers convene and set out to be the first line of defense against wildfires.

A smokejumper mid-air. Credit: BLM

KTVZ News took a trip to the Redmond Air Base and got a behind-the-scenes look at what a day in the life of a Redmond Smokejumper entails.

Redmond Smokejumper hanging up a parachute

“Very few people get to go where we go and experience it the way we do,” Josh Cantrell, a smokejumper and the base manager, told KTVZ News.

Josh Cantrell

Cantrell has been a smokejumper for nearly 30 years.

“There are different things that trigger different memories. (One of my favorite memories) could be jumping an August fire in Warm Springs and being surrounded by huckleberries next to a lake. It could be the first fire that I jumped ever out of Silver City, New Mexico. We jumped at about 37 acres (burned). And by the time we were done with it, it was about 37,000 acres. So we didn’t catch that one, but it’s a memorable fire in that sense,” said Cantrell. “My career is really littered with those, just that experience of who’s been here before?”

He detailed what the unique job requires.

“I don’t know that there’s a typical day in the life of a smokejumper. I think that you show up in the morning, you say ‘Here’ when your name is called, but you can end up really anywhere in the Western United States by day’s end,” Cantrell said. “Because we have airplanes, we can cover a great distance…Even days after a lightning event or a cell that moves through, we can still staff those fires long after the storms have moved through. So really, it’s unpredictable.”

Smokejumpers exiting a plane. Credit: USDA Forest Service

While jumping out of planes to fight fires is one of the main aspects, a lot more goes in to the position than one might realize.

The crew sews all of their own gear, pack and load up their cargo, and when the alarm sounds—they hop into a plane to be the first line of defense against a wildfire.

Smokejumper gear ready for action

“We’re no different than any of the public that we’re here working for. Just as a public employee, we work at the privilege of the public and are happy to provide that resource and do what we do. Somebody selected us to do this, and I think we consider that a privilege to continue to do it,” Cantrell said. “What makes you want to become a smokejumper? Well, I’d say, like most other smokejumpers here or firefighters, it started as a summer job that was rewarding, entertaining, fulfilling. And that’s what you end up doing while you’re figuring out what you’re going to do. And then you get to my age.”

A special privilege—protecting our communities and land.

“I think that everybody here has that same sense of public service and is happy to do this,” said Cantrell. “I mean, for most firefighters, it is. It’s a bit of an adventure to go around wherever in the Western United States and sleep in the dirt, sleep on a hillside, go put a fire out.”

To learn more about the Redmond Smokejumpers, click here.

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Matthew Draxton

BEND, Ore. (KTVZ) — The National Alliance on Mental Health reports that 900,000 Oregonians reportedly experience a mental illness each year, highlighting about one in five adults who are impacted. The high rate of individuals with mental illness is coupled with a shortage of resources.

“I have been dealing with my son’s mental illness for over 20 years. It has literally almost destroyed my life,” Fawn Curry, whose son has severe mental illness, told the KTVZ Problem Solvers.

 On February 12th, Fawn Curry’s son escaped from the psychiatric ward at St. Charles Bend, leading to a “Secure” status at Pilot Butte Middle School.

“He went over and assaulted a clerk at a grocery store,” Curry said. “He then proceeded to steal a car.”

Curry believes too many patients like her son are discharged with no ongoing care: “Those are the folks that are unseen and unheard.”

The Deschutes County Stabilization Center will hold a person believed to have mental health issues for up to 23 hours.

“What happens after that?” said programs director for the National Alliance on Mental Illness, Casey Munck. “That kind of goes back to the conversation of the lack of respite care.”

KTVZ’s Matthew Draxton asked, “Would you say Deschutes County has enough resources for respite care?” Munck responded: “Absolutley not. The one respite center that we had, Brooks, closed down a couple of months ago. So there’s essentially nowhere for anyone to go that has a severe mental illness.”

Respite care is available at Sage View Psychiatric Center, where individuals can stay for two weeks, but Munck believes in some cases, that’s not long enough to effectively address symptoms.

“They don’t have a good treatment and recovery program,” Munck said. “And so a couple of weeks later, they might end up in the jail, because they had a hallucination and they did something that was warranted of getting arrested.”

When asked about respite care in Deschutes County, Shannon Brister-Raugust, the county’s Behavioral Health director, said, “We’ve had respite care in Central Oregon in the past. It is really hard to recruit homes. It’s really hard to sustain homes. And the payment structure isn’t always a viable one.”

Brister-Raugust deals directly with the shortage of space in respite care, saying it’s “about creating an infrastructure,” but reassured viewers: “Hope is on the way.”

Because of recent efforts by the Oregon Health Authority and Central Oregon Health Council, state lawmakers approved House Bill 5204, adding 41 beds to increase capacity for those with mental illnesses.

“Oftentimes if you have a mental illness, you don’t think that you’re sick,” said Munck.

Family members or caretakers do have the option of seeking to have a person civilly committed that would allow access to longer-term care. But in recent years, there have been limited means in doing so.

Munck said, “Oregon has a pretty heavy focus on the individual. Like in the past, there were people that were getting locked up that maybe shouldn’t have. So the pendulum has swung the other way, to give the individual the rights to not be committed.”

NAMI is now working to help pass HB 2005, which would reduce the requirements for civil commitment.

“What we’re trying to do is get somewhere in the middle that maintains that autonomy and respect for an individual that has a mental illness, while also trying to give family members and loved ones more tools to get into help.”

Curry has struggled to find care for her son, and has even attempted to get her son civilly committed multiple times, but was faced with these roadblocks.

“Oregon state law states my son fits into every category there is to be civilly committed. But here in Deschutes County, they won’t do so, even if he does something dangerous,” said Curry.

 Between KTVZ’s interview with Curry and when this Problem Solvers story aired, Curry informed us her son has now been civilly committed after disrupting traffic on Highway 97. He is currently receiving treatment at Sage View.

Deschutes County Behavioral Health reminds you to call their main line at (541) 322-7500 in a crisis to get connected with a professional. 

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Triton Notary

BEND, Ore. (KTVZ)– Pacific Power sent out a notice around 8 p.m, alerting nearly 3,000 customers about a power outage on Bend’s westside, with a familiar cause.

The utility stated the reason for the outage is “enhanced safety settings,” which are used to mitigate wildfire risk but make the lines more sensitive to anything touching them.

Pacific Power estimated power could be out until 11:30 p.m. Thursday night. But all but 330 customers had power back before 10 p.m.

KTVZ News is working on learning more and will update you with the latest information as soon as it becomes available.

You can track updates at: https://www.pacificpower.net/outages-safety.html

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Barney Lerten

BEND, Ore. (KTVZ) — A new chapter begins for one of Bend’s most storied buildings as the restored Westman boutique hotel opens reservations ahead of its highly anticipated fall debut.

Located at 777 Northwest Wall Street in the heart of downtown, The Westman breathes new life into the city’s former and once vibrant United States Post Office, with 23 uniquely designed guest rooms and elevated, community-driven common space areas, the hotel said in Thursday’s announcement, which continues in full below:

Named after Minnie Westman, a trailblazing mail carrier west of the Mississippi River, the consciously refined, independently Oregonian-owned and operated hotel pays tribute to her enduring legacy of grit and independence. Hailed in a New York Times article as someone who “carries the mail night and day and fears nothing,” Westman’s pioneering spirit comes to life through the hotel’s identity and design.

Experts from Oregon-based Embarcadero Hospitality Group, Emerick Architects, R&H Construction, LRS and other local artists and makers came together for the adaptive reuse project that is a love letter to Bend and the Pacific Northwest.

The space blends historic preservation with contemporary comforts as the development team prioritized sustainability by retaining as much of the original structure as possible, including over 175,000 bricks, 1,900 square feet of terrazzo flooring, 1,000 tons of concrete and 44 original windows to significantly reduce the building’s environmental footprint.

At The Westman, guests will find a thoughtful blend of old and new. The space offers:

A cozy lobby bar and parlor anchored by a brass Art Deco-inspired fireplace that invites travelers and locals to gather for food, drinks and games. For a more private experience, guests have access to in-room mini bar set ups with locally curated offerings.

Oversized outdoor heated soaking pool for moments of relaxation and serenity alongside a lush courtyard with communal fire pits and comfortable seating, perfect for unwinding after a day of adventure.

23 distinctly different hotel rooms that evoke feelings of nostalgia and warmth. The spaces are each designed to showcase the building’s unique architectural elements, some of which boast 16-foot ceilings, 10-foot-by-5-foot windows, private outdoor patios with fire pits and 700-square-foot mezzanine suites.

A prime location in the heart of vibrant downtown Bend, mere steps from the city’s most beloved restaurants, breweries, boutiques and nature access points.

“The Westman is driven by the same bold spirit as our namesake – we’re unafraid to do things differently and committed to excellence. Our team delivers standout service and works closely with local partners to create immersive, experience-rich stays that reflect the vibrancy of Bend and the region,” said Sondra Storm from Embarcadero Hospitality Group. “At The Westman, we deliver a high-touch, deeply personal level of service. Our strong local partnerships allow us to create experience-driven stays that feel both elevated and truly connected to Bend.”

With bookings now open, The Westman invites guests to be a part of its next chapter. For more information or to make a reservation, visit https://westmanhotelbend.com/ and follow along on Instagram at @thewestmanhotelbend.

The Westman Development Credits

Embarcadero Hospitality Group

Emerick Architects

LRS Architects

R&H Construction

Schuster Constructive Solutions LLC

Wallop

ZoePDX

About The Westman

Located in the heart of Bend, Oregon, The Westman is a 23-room boutique hotel set in a restored 1930s United States Postal Office building. Designed as a must-see destination for travelers and locals alike, the hotel embodies the spirit of Oregon that honors the past while providing an upscale, authentic experience. Learn more at https://westmanhotelbend.com/.

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Tyson Beauchemin

(Update: Correcting name of judge who conducted mock trial)

RREDMOND, Ore. (KTVZ) — The second annual Junior Women’s Law Enforcement Academy was underway in Redmond Thursday. For two days, young women are spending the day with police officers, learning what it’s like to do their job.

The program is a passion project from the group Central Oregon Women and Law Enforcement.

KTVZ heard from some of the attendees who came back for a second time.

“It was really interesting when I talked to the other female officers,” said Marlie Verduzco, “I’d suggest other girls try it, because it was really fun.”

“Coming here has definitely made me consider, like dispatch.” said Brooklyn Cobb, “It’s really interesting and like, just most of the things are interesting.”

The academy is not just about learning about being a patrol officer. Police are represented from start to finish during the camp. From dispatch to booking, every position is there and represented by a woman. Deschutes County Circuit Judge Alison Emerson even presided over a mock trial as part of the academy.

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