Columbia Gorge Editor

Tomi Owens

Farm and desert refugee, vows to never cross the same river twice

Tomi Owens is still trying to justify her college degrees in Anthroplogy and English from the University of Arizona. She is a refugee from the long lost farming civilization of the Salt River Valley in central Arizona and still has strong spiritual ties to the remote, uncivilized regions of that state. In 1996 she left the desert and followed her husband Daniel to his hometown of Dublin, Ireland and tried for three years to get used to rain everyday. Finally, they decided to split the difference and settled in Oregon. Tomi is well aware of how lucky she is to live in the Columbia Gorge and has vowed never to cross the same river twice.