This is part of a weekly series introducing readers to individuals who are passionate about our Mid-Valley community.

Emma Keen wants people to know she’s not really a sad person, at least not completely.

Keen, a high school junior at Oregon School for the Deaf in Salem, was recently crowned the state’s 2026 Poetry Out Loud champion.

She chose to recite “Low-Tide,” by Edna St. Vincent Millay, “From One Who Stays” by Amy Lowell and “I am Like a Leaf” by Yone Noguchi.

“I picked the poems for one reason, which was that they’re mainly sad, and for some reason it’s just easier for me to perform sad poems,” she said. “Sadness is a part of me and Poetry Out Loud helps me express that in my way and in my deaf culture type of way.”

Keen, 16, received the top score at the competition, held March 7 in Salem, and now will represent Oregon at the Poetry Out Loud National Finals, April 27-29, in Washington, D.C.

“I definitely did not expect to be going to nationals,” she said. “I’ve never ever done something like this before, but I’m so glad I am able to.”

One of Keen’s teachers, Gayle Robertson, encouraged her to participate in Poetry Out Loud.

Keen was told she didn’t have to perform in-person for the school-level contest, she said.

“So, I thought why not, I’ll join just for fun,” she said. “I became more invested into poetry because I’m able to perform sad poems. I think it’s an interesting experience for me to practice with.”

During Poetry Out Loud, students recite works in a dynamic competition and performance.

They select poems from an anthology, memorize them and are judged on criteria such as physical presence, voice and articulation and dramatic appropriateness.

Deaf students translate the poems they’ve chosen from English into American Sign Language, which uses hands and facial expressions to communicate. During their performance, the audience receives a written version.

“I would say for me, it’s obviously more visual and I think if the judges can understand what I’m doing or signing about then that’s a good thing for me because it means I’m clear enough,” Keen said.

“For hearing people, they change their tone to match their story but for deaf people we change our face expressions to match our story,” she said. “I like being able to sign and stay silent and just let my hands and face do the work for me, you know?”

During the competition, Keen said, “I genuinely thought I was going to be focused on the audience and who was watching but all of that went away when I went on stage. After saying the title and I started signing, all that mattered to me in the moment was the poem and getting the right message out there and not forgetting my lines, which I almost did a few times, but we don’t need to talk about that.”

Keen is a lifelong Salem resident and has two brothers.

When she’s not practicing poetry, Keen participates in drama club and is the school’s student body president.

“I also take pictures for my yearbook class, and stay after school in the dorms to hang out with my lovely friends,” she said. “I always enjoy it.”

Keen plans to attend college after graduation, and hopes to become a photographer.

“I think that would be a nice job for me because I can be on the sidelines and seeing other people live their best lives and I get to take pictures of it,” she said.

Since 2005, more than 4.5 million high school students across the nation have participated in Poetry Out Loud. The program in Oregon is made possible by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Oregon Arts Commission and jurisdictional arts agencies.

PORTLAND, Ore. (KATU) — Since the beginning of the year, 13 positive measles cases have been reported.

According to the Oregon Health Authority, most of those cases are due to people being unvaccinated or having an unknown vaccination status.

“This is well above our number for last year and is approaching our number that we saw in 2024 when we had an outbreak in the summer, and we’re only three months into this year,” Dr. Dean Sidelinger, with the Oregon Health Authority, said during a news conference on Friday.

The worry is that this number could grow, especially because OHA has released new exposure sites for the measles. One of these places is the Safeway at 2800 S.E. Hawthorne Blvd.

Officials say if you visited that Safeway at any of the following times, you may be at risk:

• Between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. Thursday, March 26.
• Between 2 p.m. and midnight Friday, March 27.
• Between 2:20 p.m. and 6 p.m. Saturday, March 28.
• Between 2 p.m. and midnight Sunday, March 29.

Other exposure sites include the Lark Café in West Linn on March 27 and Pho.Com in Gresham on March 25.

If you’re worried about contracting the measles at places like Safeway or other exposure sites, Sidelinger says you don’t necessarily need to worry.

“It can linger in the air for a couple of hours after that, and that’s why we sometimes see these windows being a few hours long, because it’s when the person has spent time in those locations plus some time after they left, things that can help clear that from the space quicker,” Sidelinger said.

If you’re worried you’ve been exposed or have questions about the vaccine, you’re urged to contact your doctor.

Oregon softball returns to the friendly confines of Jane Sanders Stadium following an eventful two-week, seven-game road trip that included five wins as well as a fair share of drama.

The No. 18 Ducks (26-9, 7-2 Big Ten) took two of three games against both Purdue and Northwestern and have now won 11 straight series in conference play going back to the start of the 2025 Big Ten season.

They’ll try and make it 12 straight this weekend against Iowa (21-13, 5-7), which is in town for a three-game series April 3-5.

“I really like how this group is working together,” Oregon coach Melyssa Lombardi said Wednesday afternoon. “You can see they enjoy playing together, they enjoy being right in the heat of the moment together. You can see it just by the way they come on and off the field and how they respond to things that are happening in the game.”

The most impressive win during the Ducks’ recent road trip was a 24-12 victory on March 23 against Big Ten foe Indiana in what was a one-off nonconference game sandwiched between their series against the Boilermakers and Wildcats. Oregon rallied from a 7-0 deficit to beat the Hoosiers and set program single-game records for runs, RBIs (23) and hits (21).

The road trip ended with some controversy as the Ducks beat the Wildcats in a game called in the bottom of the seventh and Oregon leading 7-3.