Mark Hass
Mayor Sam may have tried and failed last year, but this Oregon state senator from Beaverton made a run for the checkout counter with his bill to outlaw plastic grocery bags. Greenies know it takes more energy to make paper, but plastic clogs recycling machines. Give Hass a cloth doggie bag to haul his eco-trade-off home.

Ruth Ann Brown
The owner of Southeast Portland’s lauded New American Art Union gallery trades art for automobiles this spring as she returns to her hometown of Detroit to help her father run the family business—a Ford dealership. Now that’s the portrait of a fine daughter.

Dr. Raymond Frye
This local dentist gave a little Portland shine to the Grammys in January with his Bling Dental gift bags. A kind of red-carpet tool kit given to Grammy pres-enters and performers, it included a T-shirt, a teeth-whitening system, and a gift certificate for thousands of dollars’ worth of cosmetic dental services. Red wine all around tonight, folks.

Professor John F. Callahan
Fifty years after penning his first novel, Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison published his second—a neat trick for a man who’s been dead for 16 years. The resurrection comes courtesy of Callahan, a Lewis & Clark humanities professor who spent more than a decade sorting through Ellison’s papers to bring the new novel to light.

Dr. David Gonzales
The clinical investigator in medicine at the OHSU Smoking Cessation Center, Gonzales is leading OHSU’s clinical trials to develop a vaccine for smoking. Yep, kick the habit with the prick of a needle. Guess Gonzales won’t be joining us for that post-supper cigar.