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Community Builder: Still filling the ‘niche of localism’ Patsy Smullin at the KOBI-5 studio in Medford. [Mail Tribune / Jamie Lusch] Sunday Mar 5, 2017 at 12:01 AM By Steve Boyarsky for the Mail Tribune Editor's note: Community Builder is a periodic Q & A series providing perspectives from local people who have been involved in significant change in Southern Oregon. Today's conversation is with Patsy Smullin, president and owner of California Oregon Broadcasting, Inc.   Q: What is your family’s history in Southern Oregon? Patsy: My father grew up at the base of Mount Hood. His parents homesteaded there. He decided that he would prefer to live in Southern Oregon and Northern California. I know my dad wanted out of Multnomah County and the rain, and he certainly also wanted out of farming. He majored in journalism at Willamette University and was editor of the Willamette newspaper. He continued in the newspaper business in Portland and Coos Bay before he started our company, California Oregon Broadcasting, in 1932. He started the first radio station north of San Francisco in Eureka, followed by the first radio station in Southern Oregon, in Grants Pass. He then went on to pioneer television, cable television, microwave and HD video production from basically the state capitol in California to the state capitol of Oregon. ... He loved communications. He didn’t care if it was newspaper, radio, television or cable. He loved to use the power of broadcasting to inform, educate and entertain. I am the youngest of five children. At one time, all five of us and our parents owned our company. Now it is just me. I stayed in it because I love it. Like my dad, I love journalism and communications and helping businesses grow and flourish, and sharing important information with listeners and viewers. So, I started with my dad in the cable television business as a teenager doing everything from selling cable door to door to climbing poles to whatever it took. Eventually, I learned the broadcast side, as well.   Q: You were raised in Eureka? Patsy: Yes, all five of us were raised and educated in Eureka, California, in the '60s, but our corporate headquarters changed from Eureka to Medford eventually. Medford has been our base. KOBI (NBC-5), being my parents’ first TV station, is kind of home. We currently have two TV stations in Eugene and co-ownership in a TV station in Roseburg. KOBI and KOTI serve nine counties in Southern Oregon and Northern California (Jackson, Josephine, Douglas, Klamath, Lake, Siskiyou, Coos, Curry and Lane). My dad put KOTI-TV on the air in 1955 on the Oregon Tech campus in Klamath Falls. We have cable systems (Crestview Cable Communications) based out of Prineville, serving Central Oregon, and Pilot Rock Productions, which is a digital production company also housed here in Medford.   Q: Your father left the Willamette Valley to get away from the rain and moved to Eureka? Patsy: (Laughter) Well, I think that is what led him to Southern Oregon — you are right, Northern California has plenty of rain, but he loved Northern California and Southern Oregon, and he jumped at the chance when he was working at the newspaper in Coos Bay (The World) to move to Eureka and build a radio station. He always said, “God did not put the California-Oregon border, man did, and Southern Oregon and Northern California share far more than they did not share.”   Q: You and your family made significant contributions to health education with the building of the Smullin Health Education Center at Rogue Valley Medical Center. Why is health education an important focus for you? Patsy: Again, my dad’s philosophy, which I share, was that education and preventative health care were the most important parts of his philanthropy. He felt if people were educated enough about health and their bodies, the chances of living in a healthy fashion and being able to be productive members of society would be far greater. The other contribution that meant so much to him was university scholarships up and down the West Coast to try to help every young person have a chance to be educated and pursue their dreams.   Q: SMART, Southern Oregon University and the Southern Oregon Meth Project have also been priorities for you and KOBI in our region. What motivates you to be involved in community efforts? Patsy: It’s the way I grew up. It’s the mission I care most about. Our family has always enjoyed giving back to the community and using the power of TV to make good things happen. ... It has always been our goal, and again it’s the way I grew up, to use the power of television to help communities survive and thrive.   Q: What changes have you seen in Southern Oregon over the years? Patsy: Much growth, and I am happy to be involved in it. In terms of my industry, there is almost nothing that hasn’t changed. It is a 24-hour-a-day digital operation. Television must be delivered whenever, however and wherever people want. The online presence is just as important as the on-air presence, and fact-based, accurate news is to be delivered every moment of every day.   Q: What concerns you most about our region? Patsy: Certainly economic viability, but not just that. I am concerned about the safety and health of all the communities in Southern Oregon and Northern California. Being on the I-5 corridor, we have a drug problem that is beyond belief. We cannot do enough to correct the situation. We must be mindful of it every day whether we be in government, nonprofit work or business. It is crucial we get on top of this problem. Mentally ill and drug-addicted individuals need our help.   Q: What would it take to make Southern Oregon a more desirable place to live? Patsy: Supporting law enforcement. I grew up knowing from the town “dads” that if you did not support the police, bad things would happen. If you look at the Josephine County situation with law enforcement, we all see we are in desperate need of citizen involvement. We need to pay for the safety of our community and become areas where people from all over the county want to come — and not just to grow marijuana.   Q: What is it about Southern Oregon that you love? Patsy: One last quote from my dad: "The area in which we work is where people will spend 50 weeks of work someplace else in order to have two weeks of play in Northern California and Southern Oregon, with the streams, the lakes, the ocean, the mountains, whitewater, the whole Maryann ... and if you can get work in that kind of an area, you really don't have to worry about a vacation." I can’t say it better than that. I also love the people — smart but not overly impressed with themselves. I love the quick access — by air only an hour to San Francisco and Portland. By car there is not much of the year that is not a good drive. I love the fact we live in a region of cultural treasures. Also I'm impressed with the nonprofit leadership here. Smart people lead these agencies; capable, skilled, educated, and leadership oriented. They are not arrogant. They work collaboratively throughout the valley and the state and often nationally.   Q: What do you see in the future for the communications field? Patsy: Very exciting. Our industry will continue to provide 24-hour news and entertainment for free. As far as journalism goes ... it has never been so challenging and fun. It is not dying. Newscast ratings are up. Our reporters are smarter and wiser than ever. They are intensely curious, driven, honest and inspire me every day. And one year from now, we have the Olympics and the Super Bowl.   Q: You mentioned being a hometown station. How do you do this? Patsy: Person by person, viewer by viewer, staff member by staff member. I think even though almost everything has changed in my business, we are still in a basic, grass-roots, communication industry. We are involved in the digital world, so we can deliver a client’s message digitally through websites anywhere in the nation. So clients are not just advertising to their neighbors — they can go anywhere that is important to them. We find the digital commitment has changed most everything, but what is old and still our primary commitment is localism. I grew up thinking everywhere our dad and mom worked was “our home.” That is where we bought groceries and tried to help our city, and that has not changed. As long as my company fills the niche of localism, we have a needed and helpful purpose. We try to make sure everything our news people do reflects an understanding of the communities we serve. If the I-5 corridor is closed, our reporters need to share everything that is affected from Sacramento to Portland. These things reflect how our cities need and help one another. We do 5-1/2 hours of news from KOBI-TV every day. There are times I remember watching a full half-hour of Walter Cronkite once every 24 hours — it would be easy if we only produced news for one half-hour. All we can do, as citizens of this valley, is take it one day at a time and take care of our community and each other as much as we possibly can. We strive through our news operations to expose issues that citizens need to know about. Our services to our clients and advertisers help customers get to their stores and businesses so they can do well. — Steve Boyarsky is a retired educator and longtime resident of the Rogue Valley. He continues to be involved in educational and youth programs.