87 books match the query 'Officials and employees' and 5 start with s

cover of Shadows on the Klamath: A Woman in the Woods

Shadows on the Klamath

A Woman in the Woods

Louise Wagenknecht

Oregon State University Press, 2021

In 1973, Louise Wagenknecht was just another college graduate, but unlike many, she wanted to go home, back to the Klamath Mountains where she was raised. When a job offer from the Klamath National Forest gave her that chance, she jumped at it. She landed in the logging town of Happy Camp, where she’d spent part of her childhood, as chronicled in her previous memoirs, White Poplar, Black Locust and Light on the Devils.

With Shadows on the Klamath, Louise Wagenknecht completes her trilogy about life in remote northwestern California. In this new work, she recounts her years in the Forest Service, starting as a clerical worker on the Klamath National Forest before moving to a field position where she did everything from planting trees to fighting fires.  

Her story is about a Forest Service in transition, as forest management practices began to shift. Not least among these changes was the presence of women in the ranks—a change that many in the Forest Service resisted. Wagenknecht blends the personal and professional to describe land management in the West and the people who do it—their friendships, rivalries, and rural communities.

Anyone with an interest in the Klamath-Siskiyou region, or the history of women in natural resource agencies, or the many issues associated with industrial forestry, should read this book for its valuable firsthand perspective. General readers interested in the rural West and personal memoir will also be richly rewarded.

 
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cover of Smoky, the Dog That Saved My Life: The Bill Wynne Story

Smoky, the Dog That Saved My Life

The Bill Wynne Story

Nancy Roe Pimm

Ohio University Press, 2019

World War II soldier Bill Wynne met Smoky while serving in New Guinea, where the dog, who was smaller than Wynne’s army boot, was found trying to scratch her way out of a foxhole. After he adopted her, she served as the squadron mascot and is credited as being the first therapy dog for the emotional support she provided the soldiers. When they weren’t fighting, Bill taught Smoky hundreds of tricks to entertain the troops. Smoky became a war hero herself at an airstrip in Luzon, the Philippines, where she helped save forty airplanes and hundreds of soldiers from imminent attack.

After the war, Bill worked as a Hollywood animal trainer and then returned to his hometown of Cleveland, Ohio. He and Smoky continued to perform their act, even getting their own TV show, How to Train Your Dog with Bill Wynne and Smoky.

Nancy Roe Pimm presents Bill and Smoky’s story to middle-grade readers in delightful prose coupled with rich archival illustrations. Children will love learning about World War II from an unusual perspective, witnessing the power of the bond between a soldier and his dog, and seeing how that bond continued through the exciting years following the war.

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cover of Southwestern National Monuments: Frank Pinkley and the Rise of the National Park System

Southwestern National Monuments

Frank Pinkley and the Rise of the National Park System

Will Moore

University of Utah Press, 2025

Uncovering forgotten stories of the national monuments of the American Southwest

This volume uncovers the little-known legacy of Frank Pinkley, the first superintendent of the Southwestern National Monuments (SWNM)—a unique National Park Service unit established in 1923. Pinkley’s leadership and innovative approach helped protect and develop thirty diverse monuments, ranging from Montezuma Castle to White Sands, linked by miles of rough roads and united by their historical, archaeological, and natural significance.
 
Drawing on archived SWNM Monthly Reports, Will Moore reconstructs the stories behind these monuments and their contributions to the nascent national park system. From the pioneering all-Navajo Mobile Unit of the Civilian Conservation Corps to visionary work in visitor education, Pinkley and his team helped to set a course for the protection of American landscapes. Southwestern National Monuments is essential reading for anyone passionate about America's natural heritage and national parks.
 
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cover of Supreme Court Appointments: Judge Bork and the Politicization of Senate Confirmations

Supreme Court Appointments

Judge Bork and the Politicization of Senate Confirmations

Norman Vieira and Leonard Gross

Southern Illinois University Press, 1998

Norman Vieira and Leonard Gross provide an in-depth analysis of the political and legal framework surrounding the confirmation process for Supreme Court nominees.

President Ronald Reagan’s nomination of Judge Robert Bork to the Supreme Court met with a fierce opposition that was apparent in his confirmation hearings, which were different in many ways from those of any previous nominee. Lasting longer than any other Supreme Court confirmation battle, the Senate hearings dragged on for eighty-seven hours over a twelve-day period. Bork personally testified for more than thirty hours, outlining his legal philosophy in greater detail than had ever before been required of a Supreme Court nominee. Nor had any previous Supreme Court nominee faced the number of witnesses who testified at the Bork hearings.

Deriving their material from hundreds of in-depth interviews with those who participated in the confirmation hearings, Vieira and Gross present a firsthand account of the behind-the-scenes pressure on senators to oppose Bork. Special-interest groups, they note, attempted to control the confirmation process, with both the media and public-opinion polls playing major roles in the defeat of the nomination. Both liberal and conservative groups used the Bork debate to raise money for political war chests.

This behind-the-scenes view of the politics and personalities involved in the Bork confirmation controversy provides a framework for future debates regarding the confirmation process. To help establish that framework, Vieira and Gross examine the similarities as well as the differences between the Bork confirmation battle and other confirmation proceedings for Supreme Court nominees. They also analyze the Supreme Court nominations made after the Bork hearings, including an extensive examination of the controversial Clarence Thomas nomination.

 

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cover of Supreme Court Confirmation Hearings in the U.S. Senate: Reconsidering the Charade

Supreme Court Confirmation Hearings in the U.S. Senate

Reconsidering the Charade

Dion Farganis and Justin Wedeking

University of Michigan Press, 2014

Critics claim that Supreme Court nominees have become more evasive in recent decades and that Senate confirmation hearings lack real substance. Conducting a line-by-line analysis of the confirmation hearing of every nominee since 1955—an original dataset of nearly 11,000 questions and answers from testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee—Dion Farganis and Justin Wedeking discover that nominees are far more forthcoming than generally assumed. Applying an original scoring system to assess each nominee’s testimony based on the same criteria, they show that some of the earliest nominees were actually less willing to answer questions than their contemporary counterparts. Factors such as changes in the political culture of Congress and the 1981 introduction of televised coverage of the hearings have created the impression that nominee candor is in decline. Further, senators’ votes are driven more by party and ideology than by a nominee’s responsiveness to their questions. Moreover, changes in the confirmation process intersect with increasing levels of party polarization as well as constituents’ more informed awareness and opinions of recent Supreme Court nominees.
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