All seemed well that late winter morning when Bend resident Allen Engle headed out to check on his hives. The chill in the air held a hint of spring, the ducks flew overhead returning north and Engle was ready for his bees to rouse themselves out of their winter torpor.

A shocking sight awaited him when he lifted the first lid and saw the neat stack of wooden frames, thick with honeycomb but not a single bee.

In his 20 years of keeping bees, Engle had never experienced such a dramatic loss, yet in the months since he has lost four more hives with no explanation.

He’s not alone.

If there was a silver lining in Central Oregon’s real estate bust, the Bend Park and Recreation District was wrapped in it.

While developers hemorrhaged red ink and defaulted on real estate deals, the park district was quietly leveraging the war chest it amassed in the boom years to scoop up high-value properties at near rock-bottom prices. Among other acquisitions, it cinched up the Miller Landing site across from McKay Park and a once seemingly untouchable piece of land at Gopher Gulch that had been slated for a NorthWest Crossing style development. Shortly thereafter, it closed a deal for the much sought after Mt. Bachelor Park and Ride lot at Simpson.

A conservative corporate-backed organization that connects lawmakers with industry insiders to craft ready made laws could lose its non-profit status that allows it to wine and dine lawmakers like Central Oregon’s Gene Whisnant.

The American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, faces a challenge from the Washington D.C-based citizen advocacy group Common Cause, which alleges that ALEC is nothing more than a pipeline from corporate boardrooms to capitol steps.

James Gindelsperger made a living flying through nuclear clouds as a member of an Air Force reconnaissance team that collected data on the Soviet arsenal. But that work didn’t prepare Gindelsperger for the storm of controversy that erupted when his neighbor put up a new barn and threw its doors open for weddings.

The result, said Gindelsperger, was dozens of partygoers parading across a joint easement and bands and DJs playing well into the previously serene summer nights.