Angie Chown, a Redmond School District counselor at Sage Elementary School, has been named the 2023 Counselor of the Year by the Oregon School Counselor Association.

Chown has been with Sage Elementary since 2012 and has been a counselor for 11 years. She is a graduate of Pacific University and Oregon State University-Cascades.

She will be considered as a candidate for 2025 American School Counselor Association School Counselor of the Year Award.

The selections for the 2024 session of A Novel Idea, a community reading program that includes a month of programming and an author visit, will be revealed 6:30 p.m. Dec. 2 at the Downtown Bend Public Library.

This year will include youth and adult books that complement each other. They will available for checkout immediately following the reveal. Paulina Springs Books will be selling copies at the event. Local bookstores will also have copies available.

Doors open at 6 p.m., and the event will include literary trivia, a no-host bar by Sips Cocktails and food by Bleu Bite Catering.

A Novel Idea originally began in 2002 with 400 participants. The program grew from there and over 15,000 people took part in 2023.

The program will begin in May, including visits from the authors. The youth title author event scheduled for May 18 at the Downtown Bend Public Library and the adult author event for June 1 at Caldera High School. All events are free to the public.

The Oregon Parks and Recreation Department will waive day-use parking fees in 24 parks on Nov. 24, which is the day after Thanksgiving.

Most of Oregon’s state parks offer free parking year-round. This waiver applies to the 24 parks that normally charge $5 to park, which include Smith Rock, Silver Falls and Milo McIver state parks, among others. A full list can be found at the state parks department website.

The waiver will apply from open to close on Nov. 24, except at Shore Acres State Park, where the waiver expires at 4 p.m. for an event.