Back

Mitzi Loftus

Mitzi Loftus was born in Hood River of immigrant parents from Japan (father, 1904; mother, 1911). She graduated from Hood River High School and received B.A. and M.A. degrees from University of Oregon. She taught for three years at Creswell High School before attending the English Language Institute at the University of Michigan to prepare for a Fulbright Teacher year in Japan in 1957-1958. Loftus lived for fourteen years in Eugene and in Germany for two years. After returning from Europe, she lived in Coos Bay for over thirty years, substitute teaching for all but one. She moved to Ashland in 2004.

Author's Entries

  • Alfred Qualman (1904-1993)

    For a man from Indiana, far from waterways, Alfred Qualman was an unlikely person to be a pioneer in Pacific oyster culture. Born in South Bend in 1904, Qualman was raised in Chicago. His father often told him a story about oysters, which piqued his interest, and as a teen …

    Oregon Encyclopedia

  • Day of Remembrance

    The Day of Remembrance (DOR) was created as an annual observance of  Executive Order #9066, signed by Franklin D. Roosevelt on February 19, 1942, forcing all persons of Japanese ancestry on the West Coast to leave their homes for confinement in inland detention camps. During the period from 1942 …

    Oregon Encyclopedia

  • Martha Ferguson McKeown (1903-1974)

    Author, historian, teacher, Martha McKeown, a third-generation Oregonian and descendant of covered wagon pioneers, was born in Astoria in 1903.  In 1911, her family moved to the Hood River Valley, where she lived most of her life near the Native Americans about whose lives she was later to write her …

    Oregon Encyclopedia

  • Oregon Coast Music Festival

    The Oregon Coast Music Festival (OCMF) has grown from a Coos Bay performance of Haydn music to a two-week-long annual festival that draws 5,000 to its varied concerts in several Coos Bay area locations. The OCMF had its beginnings in 1978, when Dr. Charles Heiden and his family moved to …

    Oregon Encyclopedia

  • Sea Lion Caves

    Eleven miles north of Florence on U.S. Highway 101 are the remains of an ice-age beach of seafloor basalt, where waves hit fracture zones in the hard basalt to carve what is now Sea Lion Caves, the largest sea cave in the United States and one of the largest in …

    Oregon Encyclopedia

  • Southwestern Oregon Community College

    Southwestern Oregon Community College (formerly SWOCC, now SOCC) in Coos Bay is the oldest community college in Oregon. It was formed in a tax district election in 1961, which included Coos and western Douglas counties. In 1995, Curry County joined the district and classes were offered in temporary facilities in …

    Oregon Encyclopedia