Mallorey Roe
"I don't want to witness the end of humanity," says
Mallorey Roe, who has spent the past two months volunteering with 350
Eugene and the Global Climate Strike Coalition to raise public
awareness of the climate crisis. "We need many more people to wake up
and get involved, to pressure our government. Our future and our
children's future are at risk." Roe works in the Coalition's media
affinity group, promoting the strike by contacting media, creating ads,
facilitating op-eds, setting up interviews, and posting on social
media. Born in Dana Point, California, Roe moved with her family to
Shelton, Washington, when she was 12. "My father grew up in the Puget
Sound area," she says. "He bought six acres at the south end of Puget
Sound with a rocky oyster-strewn beach and beautiful forest." After
high school in Shelton, she majored in elementary education at Western
Washington University in Bellingham, where she also met her
husband-to-be Ellis Roe. When he left in 2013 to begin PhD studies in
physics at the University of Oregon, she substitute-taught for a year,
then joined him in Eugene. She found work at U of O Child Care, but,
frustrated by the obstacles to resuming her teaching career in a new
state, she took up painting with acrylics to relieve stress. "It turned
into a more serious hobby," she says. "I've done around 45 paintings."
She continued to paint after finding a job she loved, in customer
service at the Greenhill Animal Shelter. The painting-in-progress on
her easel depicts climate activists Greta Thunberg and Jane Goodall
meeting at the World Economic Summit in Davos. The finished painting
can be seen at themalloreygallery on instagram. Mallorey and Ellis were
married in 2018. He completed his PhD last month and hopes to find an
IT job in Washington, close to both of their families.
happening people
photograph and story by Paul Neevel
Eugene Weekly / 3 October 2019
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