If you’re a running fan, look out for Ku Stevens, 18-year-old Nevada distance runner who is a Paiute Native American. Featured in a full-page story in The New York Times Nov. 17, he wants to come to the University of Oregon and is quoted as saying, “I want to run for Oregon.” If that happens, it will be fun to watch this young runner, who already has a national reputation.

• Whether you are celebrating Thanksgiving Nov. 25, or just celebrating a day off from work or school, take a moment to honor the Indigenous Kalapuya People upon whose land those of us living in Lane County reside.  

• Interesting that UO President Mike Schill is on the committee to pick the next president of Oregon State University. The UO Matters blog reports that he is one of only two full professors on that committee.

• Noah Strycker, Creswell’s internationally known birder and bird writer, will be on This American Life the Sunday after Thanksgiving in a show titled “Spark Bird,” which features “stories about birds and the hearts they sway, the havoc they wreak, the lives they change.” TAL host Ira Glass flew to Oregon earlier this month to interview and go birding with Strycker, who then had lunch with him and his producer at the Creswell Bakery. Not to brag, but he’s EW Arts Editor Bob Keefer’s son. Hear the show online at ThisAmericanLife.org at 5 pm (Pacific time) Sunday, Nov. 28.

• On Nov. 22, Eugene Weekly attended a press conference with Rep. Peter DeFazio where he talked about President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better legislative package. Awaiting a Senate vote, Build Back Better is about $1.75 trillion for making childcare more affordable, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, increasing rural development and more. DeFazio, who’s also chair of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, said Build Back Better is the inverse of Trump’s 2017 tax cut: its benefits are for Americans who earn less than $400,000 a year. Read more at EugeneWeekly.com.

• Kudos to Junction City writer Danuta Pfeiffer, whose novel Libertas was a finalist in the Best Book Awards presented Nov. 16 by the online American Book Fest. Published by Eugene’s Luminare Press, her book tells the story of the daughter of a white plantation owner and his Black house slave and their flight for freedom. Pfeiffer and her husband own and manage Pfeiffer Vineyards and Winery.

• Don’t call it the Civil War. Instead, sit back and enjoy the fact that the Oregon-Oregon State football rivalry, renewed for the 124th time Nov. 27 at Autzen Stadium, is being played with the Pac-12 North Division title at stake. Oregon — 9-2 overall and 6-2 in conference play — peaked in early September with a win at Ohio State. The robotic Ducks have been short-circuiting since, and on Nov. 20 did an ugly face-plant at Utah to fall out of the national playoff picture. The plucky Beavers (7-4 and 5-3) enter with a two-game winning streak and are bowl eligible for the first time in seemingly forever. This should be a competitive game.

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