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Ashland, Oregon HOME Valley & State Sports Nation & World Opinion/Editorial Classifieds Business Columnists Local Issues Obituaries Weather Archive Revels Etcetera Backpage Hot Topics Most Viewed Forum Photo Galleries Video Readers Polls O-Zone Online Games Movie Preview Special Sections Real Estate Guide Menu Guide Shakespeare Subscribe Contact Us Rate Card Place an Ad July 25, 2005 Activist dies in weekend car accident Norman, 72, had a long history of standing up for her beliefs By Robert Plain Ashland Daily Tidings Joan Miller Norman, a fabled activist who gained national attention for the stand she took against salvage logging of the old growth forests affected by the Biscuit Fire, died on Saturday night in a head-on car collision. She was 72-years-old. Norman became the poster child for the Biscuit logging protests because of a photograph depicting her blocking the bridge that led to the timber sale with her body. She was driving north on Highway 199 at approximately 3:30 Saturday afternoon when the Mercury Sable she was driving crossed into the opposing lane of traffic and collided with a Ford SUV. Her passenger, Benjamin Tolle, 28, and the driver of the SUV, Michael Halverson, 20, and a passenger, Kaylie Millie, 18, were not injured. Another passenger in the SUV, Thomas Halverson, 11 was flown to Providence Hospital in Medford and another, Susan Halverson, 48, was taken to Three Rivers Hospital in Grants Pass. Norman is said to have been arrested more than 100 times in her life for standing up against injustice. She began her career in activism with the freedom riders through the South in the early 1960s. Later, she participated in the Vietnam war protests. In 1999, she travelled to Seattle to protest the World Trade Organization and then to Washington D.C. to protest the G-8 summit. She said her grandson first introduced her to forest activism. Norman was arrested on March 7, of this year, for blocking loggers’ access to Fiddler Mountain, and a picture of her action was published in “Z” a nationwide progressive magazine. “They came and removed me from the bridge I was blocking by carrying me in my chair to the edge of the sheriff’s vehicle,” she told Z Magazine in June. “People have been trying to get me to be where they put me all my life. I have a right to stand up against evil and I will.” Staff writer Robert Plain can be reached at 482-3456 x 3040 or [email protected]. --> Copyright © 2006 Ashland Daily Tidings and Ottaway Newspapers. All Rights Reserved.