Geotab released a study that identified the least-traveled roads in each state and, according to traffic count data, the least-traveled road in Oregon is Route 395 heading north from Lakeview through Lake County. I know it well as I rode my bicycle the 100+ miles from Lakeview to Riley early in my west-to-east cross country bike trip in the summer of 2016. In those two days of riding 395 north from Lakeview, I saw only a few people (most stopped to ask if I needed water) and a couple of buildings but it was a beautiful ride alongside Abert Rim, one of America’s highest fault scarps, created many millions of years ago.

Lake County and Lakeview are remote; it’s hard to get there but, thanks to the Daly Fund and a supportive community, the youth of Lake County seem to be able to go anywhere. When I was in the Bay Area for a visit with my sons, I had coffee with Max McKinnon, a very talented 2007 Lakeview H.S. grad and Daly recipient with degrees in electrical engineering from OIT and computer science at the University of Idaho. Now, he works in software development at Apple where he works and competes with some of the best the world has to offer. Lakeview may be hard to get to, but those who grew up there seem to be able to go anywhere…