RIDENBAUGH PRESS The Catalog Our contact information ask for Randy Stapilus Linda Watkins email: [email protected] phone: (208) 4840460 ONE FLAMING HOUR
A memoir of Jerry Blackbird by Mike Blackbird. 220 pages. 2014. $15.95.
Returning home from Vietnam after a year in combat in 1969 when vets were being spit on. Ten months of unemployment after serving the call of his nation. His divorce from a young wife who didn't understand his demons. Then, at the bottom of despair, while hitchhiking on a Montana highway during a subzero winter day, turning his back on rejection, marching into his future.
"Salvation through public service and the purging of awful sights before an untimely death, as told by a devoted brother, leaves a reader pondering life's unfairness. A haunting read that will stay with you a long time." Chris Carlson, author of Medimont Reflections THROUGH THE WATERS
An Oral History of the Snake River Basin Adjudication edited by the Idaho State Bar Water Law Section, and Randy Stapilus. 300 pages, 2014. $16.95
It was a task many critics said could not be done and it almost came undone at many turning points. But after 27 years the Snake River Basin Adjudication stands not only as one of the largest legal cases in American history but as a massive achievement in organizing Idaho's most precious natural resoource it water and setting a framework for its management for many decades to come.
That improbable story is told here by three dozen of the people most centrally involved with it judges (including all of the presiding judges) and justices, attorneys, legislators, engineers, water managers, water users and others with a front row seat and a place in the room when the decisions were made. This is the inside view of how this immense project, the assignment of more than 150,000 water rights, was accomplished. AGAINST THE ODDS
The Life of Senator Frank Church by LeRoy Ashby and Rod Gramer. 800 pages, 2014. $24.95
Fourterm Senator Frank Church was one of the leading figures in the sweep of Idaho, and would make any short list of the most important U.S. senators of the last century. From his role in developing wilderness areas to opposition to the Vietnam War to investigating the CIA, Church was a leader on a host of difficult issues – and he did so representing a state where his views were not always in the majority. In his career and elsewhere, he spent a lifetime fighting the odds.
This is the one serious biography of Church ever written. Originally published by Washington State University Press in 1994, it is now back in print by Ridenbaugh Press. Widely acclaimed and a winner of important awards for biography, Fighting the Odds now is finally available again.
And we are pleased to offer this new edition with a new foreword, by Oregon Senator Ron Wyden, who entered Congress the year Church left it – and has pursued many of the concerns Church did in the generation before. JOURNEY WEST A Memoir of Journalism and Politics by Stephen Hartgen. 300 pages. 2014. $15.95
Stephen Hartgen has been a legislator and, for two decades, publisher of one of Idaho's leading newspapers. But he had a long journal to those places from his home in Maine, and through the newspaper industry from coast to coast. Here he talks about that long journey, and how he sees life and Idaho now.
If there’s an overarching theme, it is not coming West in a physical sense, but in the perseverance to make something of myself in a new place, time and generation, apart from my roots in Maine and elsewhere “out East.” It has not been a perfect journey. It took me many years to find who I was as a journalist, community publisher, civic leader and now public official. Even now, in my 60s, I’m still a “work in progress.” I expect that will always be so. Nor is this memoir an “I did it my way” account. There were costs and losses to be sure, but also successes and rewards in the personal satisfaction of giving something back to my community, state and nation. The Oregon Political Field Guide 2014 by Randy Stapilus and Hannah Hoffman. 320 pages. 2014. $15.95
The Field Guide is the reference for the year on Oregon politics – people, districts, votes, issues. Heavily statisticsdriven, with detailed numbers reaching back through many decades to the county level, we also look at results down to the precinct level. (Which are Oregon's most Democratic or Republican cities and precincts? The Guide can tell you.)
This edition (the book's second) also includes a wealth of background information about the people, places, campaigns, issues and politics of Oregon as it enters a critical election year.
The Guide was cowritten by a longtime Northwest political writer and an experienced Oregon political reporter. The Idaho Political Field Guide 2014 by Randy Stapilus and Marty Trillhaase. 294 pages. 2014, $15.95
The Field Guide is the reference for the year on Idaho politics – the people, the districts, the votes, the issues. Heavilly statistics driven, this book reaches down to precinct level and look broadly at statewide trends. But there's also a wealth of information about the people, places, campaigns and issues that make up Idaho politics.
Stapilus and Trillhaase each have been closely tracking Idaho politics for nearly 40 years, and between them have reported on and analyzed the state's government, society and politics for nearly every daily newspaper in the state. Stapilus is a columnist for several Idaho dailies; Trillhaase is editorial page editor of the Lewiston Tribune. NEW EDITIONS: The Northwest's Newspapers as They Were, Are and Will Be by Steve Bagwell and Randy Stapilus. 2013; 324 pages. Softcover $16.95. (ebook ahead)
New Editions is the story of the Northwest's 226 generalcirculation newspapers and how they're dealing with the day of the Internet. Bagwell and Stapilus looked at the background, current operation and into the future for the region's daily and weekly newspapers, and found ... a wide range of stories, different from one community to the next. New Editions helps you make sense of where your newspaper is headed. WITHOUT COMPROMISE: 75 years of service, the Idaho State Police by Kelly Kast. 2013; 330 pages. Softcover $16.95. (e book ahead)
This is the story of the Idaho State Police – the inside story as well as the public one and it is an important part of the story of Idaho over the last 75 years it has been in existence and helped maintain the law and citizen safety. It’s been a journey ranging from barelyfunctioning motor vehicles and hardlythere roads to computer and biotechnology. Kelly Kast has spent years researching the history and interviewing scores of current and former state police, and has emerged with a remarkably detailed and engrossing story of Idaho. DIAMONDFIELD: Finding the real Jack Davis by Max Black. 2013; 270 pages. $15.95.
The Old West saw few murder trials more spectacular – or misunderstood – than of “Diamondfield” Jack Davis. After years of brushes with the noose and legal maneuvering, Davis was pardoned. Max Black has spent years researching the Diamondfield saga and found startling new evidence never before uncovered – including the weapon and one of the bullets involved in the crime – and now sets out the definitive story, about how Davis wasn’t and couldn’t have been the killer – and about who was. And he tells the story of Davis’ littleknown second life after prison, when he made and lost fortunes in the mining fields of Nevada.
Interwoven with the story of the past is Black’s story of the present – how he came to find key elements of a fabulous Old West story a century and more after they had been presumed lost forever. TRANSITION by W. Scott Jorsensen. 2013. 170 pages. $13.95.
It’s been some tough years for a lot of Americans, and not least for many of those starting out and trying to find a place to engage in society. In Transition, W. Scott Jorgensen tells his personal story about those times – and how he made his way through it.
My hope is that this story inspires more people of my generation to stand up and be counted. And if my generation can’t do any better, perhaps the next one can. If they can’t, then we’re all in much bigger trouble than we realize. But I believe in the human spirit, and I’m positive that it will ultimately win out in the end. MEDIMONT REFLECTIONS by Chris Carlson. 2013. 266 pages. $15.95. (ebook forthcoming)
Chris Carlson’s Medimont Reflections is a followup on his biography of former Idaho Governor Cecil Andrus (who contributes an introduction to this volume). This one expands the view, bringing in Carlson’s take on Idaho politics, the Northwest energy planning council, some of the most memorable figures in the region over the years, environmental issues and much more.
The Idaho Statesman called it “a pullbackthecurtain account of his 40 years as a player in public life in Idaho.” IDAHO 100: The people who most influenced the Gem State by Randy Stapilus and Martin Peterson. 2012. 290 pages. $15.95. (ebook available)
Idaho 100 is a book of profiles of the 100 most influential people who lived in and shaped what we now know as Idaho. Some of the people in it are well known (William Borah, Robert Smylie, Frank Church) but many have become obscure, even barelyknown but changed the state in big ways.
The subject of frontpage newspaper articles, and hot debate, across the state, Idaho 100 makes for some compelling and eyeopening reading. The WATER GATES: Water Rights, Water Wars in the 50 States by Randy Stapilus. 2010. 242 pages. $15.95.
Water rights and water wars: It’s not just a Western any more. The western United States still struggles with its water uses and needs, but growing and droughtridden eastern states are running into water conflicts too. And some of them are looking west for ideas. The Water Gates looks at water issues and water rights in all 50 states, clearly and concisely. The INTERMEDIARY William Craig Among the Nez Perces by Lin Tull Cannell. 2010. 242 pages. $15.95.
What happens when cultures clash, and one person tries to get them to live together? Introducing William Craig, who tried to broker peace between native Nez Perces and newcomers from the East. Craig’s story takes us from his flight from Virginia to his days as a mountain man to the Nez Perce conflicts.
15 years in the making, written by an Orofino historian, this is one of the most dramatic stories of early Northwest history. FROM SCRATCH Inside the lightning launch of the College of Western Idaho by Dennis Griffith. 2010. 210 pages. $15.95.
The twoyear rapidfire founding of the College of Western Idaho is one of the most remarkable education achievements Idaho has ever seen and one of the most important for the many thousands of students who would not otherwise get the college education they need. How do you build a college from scratch in two years? Here's the inside story told by the man at the center.
With a foreword by the Idaho governor at the center of many of the events in the book, C.L. "Butch" Otter. UPSTREAM Adjudicating the Snake River Basin edited by Randy Stapilus. 2009. 270 pages. $15.95.
The Snake River Basin Adjudication is one of the largest water adjudications the United States has ever seen, and it may be the most successful. Commenced in 1987 as part of the resolution of a bitter law rights dispute, it became one of the biggest single defining resource developments in recent western history, and a model for how a state can take control of its most previous natural resource. Here's how it happened, from the pages of the SRBA Digest, for 16 years the independent source. PARADOX POLITICS People and Power in Idaho by Randy Stapilus. 1988/2009. 302 pages. $15.95.
In 1988, this recent history on Idaho politics, society and government was the first such book in the Gem State in many years. An Idaho bestseller, it launched Ridenbaugh Press.
After 21 years, we produced a 2nd edition with all the original material, but heavily annotated to bring the reader up to date.
If you're interested in Idaho politics and never read the original, now's the time. If you've read the original, you need the new edition: This is the view from now. The Books
One Flaming Hour: A Memoir of Jerry Blackbird, by Mike Blackbird.
Through the Water: An Oral History of the Snake River Basin Adjudication, edited by the Idaho State Bar Water Law Section and Randy Stapilus.
Against the Odds: The Life of Senator Frank Church by LeRoy Ashby and Rod Gramer.
Journey West by Stephen Hartgen.
The Oregon Political Field Guide by Randy Stapilus and Hannah Hoffman.
The Idaho Political Field Guide by Randy Stapilus and Marty Trillhaase.
New Editions by Steve Bagwell and Randy Stapilus.
Without Compromise by Kelly Kast.
Diamondfield by Max Black.
Transition by W. Scott Jorgensen.
Medimont Reflections by Chris Carlson.
Idaho 100 by Randy Stapilus and Martin Peterson.
The Water Gates by Randy Stapilus.
The Intermediary by Linn Tull Cannell.
From Scratch by Dennis Griffin.
Upstream by Randy Stapilus.
Paradox Politics by Randy Stapilus. Shipping costs
Shipping costs per book (and they are the same for all books) are noted below. They are the same regardless the title or how many different titles may be ordered.
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