Tom Banse
Regional Correspondent
About
Tom Banse covers national news, business, science, public policy, Olympic sports, and human interest stories across Washington state. Now semi-retired, Banse is an Olympia-based reporter with more than three decades of experience covering the Pacific Northwest. Most of his career was spent with public radio's Northwest News Network, but now in semi-retirement his work appears on multiple nonprofit news outlets including KUOW. His recent areas of focus range from transportation, U.S.-Canada borderlands, the Northwest region's planned hydrogen hub, and emergency preparedness.
Previously, Tom covered state government and the Washington Legislature for 12 years. He got his start in radio at WCAL-FM, a public station in southern Minnesota. Reared in Seattle, Tom graduated from Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota with a degree in American Studies.
Location: Olympia
Languages: English, German
Stories
-
A rural Oregon city has become a hub for drone testing. Now, it wants to expand its capacity
A dream to make rural Pendleton, Oregon into a drone testing mecca is becoming very real. It's so real, in fact, that the city-owned airport has run out...
-
This Oregon hangar that once housed WWII bombers sat empty for decades. Now it's buzzing again
During World War II, the Pendleton, Oregon airport served as homebase to a bomber wing that flew anti-submarine patrols along the West Coast and took...
-
Testing Of Ancient Pipes Indicates Tobacco Was Around In Northwest 1,200+ Years Ago
Tests performed at Washington State University have found that people smoked tobacco in the Pacific Northwest going back more than a thousand years ago.
-
U.S. Coast Guard will help researchers track whales along the West Coast
The Oregon crab industry is putting up money to launch a new research study on where whales swim and feed along the Pacific Coast. The study stems from...
-
Long-range forecast predicts mild winter for Pacific Northwest
If the long-range forecast from the National Weather Service is right, we have a mild winter ahead of us.
-
To prevent devastating wildfires, old adversaries join forces
Nothing is simple when it comes to federal lands management. But in order to thin fire-prone forests — and to break political and legal gridlock —...
-
State officials want you to be 'two weeks ready' for earthquake survival
The state of Oregon has set an ambitious goal to prepare more families in earthquake country to be "two weeks ready" after a disaster. Washington's...
-
'Airline pricing' coming to Northwest ski areas
A popular Pacific Northwest ski resort is moving to airline-style ticket pricing this season. The cost of lift tickets at Mt. Hood Meadows in Oregon...
-
Some Pacific Northwest schools are moving beyond disaster drills — and toward the aftermath
It's a sad fact of life that K-12 students must practice for calamities such as earthquakes, fires, lockdowns or active shooters. Now a few public...
-
High-Tech Archaeology Helps Uncover Stories Of Long-Lost Gold Miners
By 1885, the small town of John Day had one of the biggest Chinatowns in the U.S. after San Francisco, Portland and Tacoma. Now there's just one solitary building left of what might have been 100 structures at the town's peak.