In the summer of 1981, in one of the more bizarre episodes of Oregon history, scarlet-clad disciples of the Indian guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh came to Oregon with a dream of making the desert bloom into a garden paradise. . . . And it produced a voter-fraud crisis that landed squarely in the lap of Secretary of State Norma Paulus.
The Only Woman in the Room: The Norma Paulus Story by Norma Paulus with Gail Wells and Pat McCord Amacher, published by OSU Press.
I'm a big fan of Norma Paulus, an Oregon politician who, when she became Oregon’s Secretary of State in 1976, was the first woman elected to a statewide office in Oregon. Her story in an inspiration.
It also has its crazy parts, like the chapter on the Bhagwan and his salad bar poisoning loyalists.
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