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North Medford grad finds politics to his liking Reporter's notebook By Peter Wong SALEM -- By way of Vietnam, North Medford High School and the University of Oregon, Tuan Nguyen is working in the Capitol office of state Rep. Judy Uherbelau, D-Ashland. For Monday and Wednesday mornings the past few weeks, Nguyen has done everything from routine office duties to answering constituent letters, tracking the progress of bills, doing research and reporting on committee hearings. As an intern, he also spends two afternoons doing similar work in the office of Rep. Chris Beck, D-Portland. Nguyen is working during the winter quarter and may extend his stint in the spring. "He's a hard worker and is eager to do what you give him," said Uherbelau, who had a Willamette University intern from Butte Falls in the 1997 session. Nguyen, 25, is a senior majoring in sociology at the University of Oregon, where he enrolled after leaving Amherst College. He graduated from North Medford in 1991 after four years of involvement in student government, including a stint as student body president. "As someone who's interested in public policy, I thought it would be good experience," said Nguyen, whose family emigrated from Vietnam to the United States in 1980. "I started as a pre-medical and psychology major at Amherst College and was getting ready to take the Medical College Admissions Test when I talked to some medical students and realized this was not the road I wanted to go." Nguyen said he had not paid much attention to the activities of the Oregon Legislature -- "just what I read in the newspapers" -- before his interest in public policy and his internship. "It can become depressing when you read about the issues and feel sort of helpless about finding avenues to solving social problems," he said. "This has given me an opportunity to see there is another way. Of course, it's a slow process -- and it's an eye-opener." Bob Repine is a state agency head now, but he has not lost the sense of humor that set him apart during five terms as a state representative from Grants Pass. Appointed last year as director of the state Housing and Community Services Department, Repine jokingly told another state official waiting to testify at a legislative hearing last week, "If you get in a jam you can always say it's Repine's fault." When it came Repine's turn to testify after more than two hours, the committee chairwoman informed him the committee would stay in session an extra 15 minutes. "I've made my two-minute presentation into two hours," he replied. The tone was serious during most of last week's Senate debate over whether to shift state approval of a 1,300-bed women's prison and intake center from the Portland metropolitan area, where Democratic Gov. John Kitzhaber wants it, to the Eastern Oregon community of Umatilla, an option favored by most Senate Republicans. But newly elected Sen. Tony Corcoran, D-Cottage Grove, added his own perspective: "I think the reason term limits were passed was so that we would never site this prison." It was Corcoran who also observed that the plight of the New Carissa, the cargo ship beached off Coos Bay last week, reminded him of the proposal for a prison ship advocated by former Sen. Jeannette Hamby, R-Hillsboro. The 1999-2000 version of the Oregon Blue Book, Oregon's official government directory and compilation of history and facts, will be available online starting Monday. What's different about this online version is that it will be available before the print version, which will be released in mid-March at a cost of $14. The 1997-98 version also was made available electronically, but several months after its release in print in 1997. "We had an overwhelmingly positive reaction to the last Blue Book when we put it on the Web," said Secretary of State Phil Keisling, whose office has published the directory every two years since 1911. Find the online edition on the Web at www.bluebook.state.or.us . Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA