Cindy Talbott Roche

Through our associations with Cindy as editor of Kalmiopsis, the three of us (Kareen Sturgeon, Frank Lang, and Frank Callahan) have come to know her as a valued friend and colleague, and we enthusiastically nominate her to be a Fellow of the Native Plant Society of Oregon. Cindy completed her last issue of Kalmiopsis  (Volume 20) in June 2013 and turned the reins over to the new editor, Hope Stanton, at the Annual Meeting in Baker City. The time has come to honor Cindy for her contributions to NPSO.

When Cindy asked me (Sturgeon) to write an article for Kalmiopsis three years ago and, subsequently, to join the editorial board, I hadn’t the faintest notion of what was involved in pulling together an issue of this annual journal. In contrast, Lang had served as the journal’s first editor (1991-1993) and, in 2004, Cindy invited him back as a member of the editorial board. When articles were in short supply both Franks pitched in to help: Lang and Roché coauthored a plant of the year article in 2008 and another article with Callahan in 2013. Callahan recently published his fourth article in Kalmiopsis. From our combined experiences, we have come to appreciate the brilliance with which she brought to life each beautiful issue of our society’s signature journal. For thirteen years, she worked tirelessly to fill the issues by (as she describes it) “trolling for articles” at meetings, on the NPSO listserve, from Bulletin programs and NPSO field trips.

In 2000, she joined then-editor Linda Ann Vorobik to produce Volume 7 and Volume 8, which was the Festschrift for Ken Chambers. First as co-editor, then in 2003 as sole editor, she introduced several format changes, including a color cover. Never one to be tied to a desk, she edited fourteen issues of Kalmiopsis on a notebook computer, often proofreading the galleys while on bicycle tours and backpacking trips. Of course, rarely, if ever, does an article come to an editor polished and ready for publication. What we found most amazing about Cindy was her remarkable talent for working with contributors, tactfully cajoling, humoring and encouraging them to clarify their thoughts and find their own voices. Cindy’s distinguished and intelligent mark is on every one of the 60 articles, 50 book reviews, and 25 tributes to Fellows she edited during her tenure. Cindy was born in Lewiston, Idaho and, for the first 10 years of her life, she lived on a 40-acre farm with a big garden, fruit trees and an assortment of animals including chickens, dogs, cats, rabbits, pigs, and a milk cow, which she learned to milk by the time she was five years old. Because her older brother wanted to be a farmer, the family moved to a 400-acre farm in mountainous northeastern Washington, north of Spokane. This move started a chain of events that brought botany into her life.

After graduating from high school she worked on the Colville National Forest as a fire lookout, then fire fighter while attending Washington State University (WSU). In 1978, she completed a BS in Forest Management with additional coursework that qualified her for a position in Range Conservation. As a forester trainee, she observed that Range Conservationists worked with other plants besides trees, which was much more interesting than “getting the cut out.” (At that time, the Districts did not employ any botanists, so this was as close as one could get to botany.)

As Range Conservationist, she was responsible for grazing permits, rare plant surveys and noxious weeds. After five years, she returned to WSU and, in 1987, completed an MS in Range Management with emphasis on invasive exotics (Centaurea species, a.k.a. knapweeds and starthistles). She married Ben Roché, Jr. in 1988 and continued working at WSU Cooperative Extension writing PNW Extension Bulletins on noxious weeds, illustrating the lab manual for the range plants course, assisting with applied research, and giving talks to user groups. She wrote over 35 PNW Extension Bulletins on Class A and B noxious weeds, illustrating them with her own line drawings and photos. After five years this position lost funding and she started a PhD program at the University of Idaho Weed Science Department on the biology of Centaurea solstitialis and Crupina vulgaris, completing the degree in December 1996. That same year, Ben retired from WSU and they moved to Asotin, Washington. Ben died the following year. In 1997-98, Cindy was employed as a post-doctoral Research Associate at UI and WSU and, in 1998, she moved to Medford, Oregon. She spent parts of the next two years in Barcelona, Spain, working on a research project on the origins of the invasive Mediterranean winter annual Crupina vulgaris, which has populations in Oregon, Idaho, California and Washington.

Cindy joined NPSO in 1998 when she moved to Oregon, attending Siskiyou Chapter meetings and hikes. She served as Siskiyou Chapter president in 2009-10, designed the Siskiyou Chapter T-shirt featuring gray pine, and gave talks about grasses in Oregon and wildflowers in Lapland (from a backpacking trip). She helped organize the 2012 Annual Meeting in Selma, for which she also led a field trip and illustrated wine glasses with Calochortus howellii.

Illustration is a thread woven throughout Cindy’s life. When Linda Vorobik was principal illustrator for the Flora of North America volumes on grasses, she enlisted Cindy as a contributing illustrator. Working with grasses led to a project that Cindy and her husband Bob Korfhage have been working on for the past four years, producing a Field Guide to Grasses of Oregon and Washington with the Carex Working Group (Barbara Wilson, Nick Otting and Dick Brainerd). Cindy and Bob are photographing many of the grasses, which she claims is definitely “not an easy task!”

Cindy and Bob, avid outdoors enthusiasts, were married on top of Siskiyou Peak. They ride a tandem bicycle (between 1500 and 2000 miles per year), backpack, and ski (mostly x-country, but some downhill). Bob, who is a retired BLM manager and resource specialist, started his career as a wildlife biologist and is also a member of NPSO. The two of them live in an energy efficient solar home on ¾-acre where Cindy raises a big garden and keeps a dozen or so laying hens, while Bob tends to five varieties of grapes and makes wine. They do some contract work for the Forest Service and BLM, and Cindy also curates the BLM/Forest Service herbarium at the Medford office. In November 2012 she accepted the volunteer position of Regional Coordinator for SW Oregon for the Quilts of Valor Foundation, whose mission is to cover all combat service members and veterans touched by war with comforting and healing quilts. One of us (Callahan), a decorated veteran, was recently honored with one of Cindy’s Quilts of Valor in recognition of his service in Vietnam.

The three of us are honored to nominate Cindy Roché as a Fellow of the Native Plant Society of Oregon, an honor she richly deserves. — Kareen Sturgeon, Cheahmill Chapter and Frank Lang and Frank Callahan, Siskiyou Chapter.