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.