In journalism, stories mostly fall into two buckets: hard or soft news.

Hard news covers, well, the tougher subjects like accountability investigations, extreme weather and wildfires.

Soft news is typically lighter and brighter, such as stories about communities working toward solutions or fun slices of life.

As 2025 comes to a close, OPB is looking back on 10 of the stories from the Pacific Northwest that our audiences loved reading this year.

Finding ‘Sidewalk Joy’ around Portland and beyond

In neighborhoods across America, you’ve likely seen free little libraries, the “take a book, leave a book” exchanges.

In Portland, it’s next level: you can find mini galleries, trinket and mug exchanges, art displays and seed swaps.

Meet the Portlander who’s mapped them and inspired more sidewalk joy around the globe.

Read the full story by Crystal Ligori.

View this post on Instagram

In pet-friendly Bend, a century-old parade celebrates all sorts of critters — almost

The Fourth of July can include fireworks, barbecues and American flags. For Bendites, it also means thousands of pets take to the streets for a beloved community event.

For decades, the pet parade was open to any kind of animal. And it still draws some unexpected creatures. But over the years, organizers have changed the rules and limited the types of animals allowed to march.

This year, those prohibitions sparked a light-hearted protest movement, with demonstrators adding another layer to the century-old Bend tradition.

Read the full story by Meagan Cuthill.

A quirky contest: Parallel parking in Southeast Portland

It all started with a Reddit post advertising a unique event.

Days later, on a weekend in June, dozens of people competed in a Parallel Parking Competition in Southeast Portland. The winner was awarded a small trophy, constructed with a toy Subaru spray-painted gold and a small plaque that read “Grand Prize.”

“This is a really fun turnout, and it’s great to have people cheering folks on,” said one of the organizers. “This is definitely in that spirit of just keeping Portland weird.”

Read the full story by Joni Auden Land.

Western Oregon University is a Hispanic-serving institution

In April, Western Oregon University became Oregon’s first four-year public university to receive the Hispanic-serving institution status from the federal government.

The recognition came after years of community and relationship building between Western and the Willamette Valley’s Latino populations.

The designation could be a financial boon for the small, regional university based in Monmouth. HSIs are eligible to apply for hundreds of millions of federal funding that goes toward supporting Latino and low-income students.

Read the full story by Tiffany Camhi.

From chicharrónes to ramen, ethnic grocers take root in an increasingly diverse Central Oregon

Overall, Oregon’s diversity is growing.

Central Oregon, which includes Jefferson, Crook and Deschutes counties, is also becoming more diverse. The region has seen recent population growth across Latino, Black, multiracial and Asian American communities.

Despite many rural grocery stores across the country closing, three ethnic grocery stores have opened in Central Oregon in recent years: Tomi Mart and Bendite Market in Bend and El Torito in Madras.

Robert Madrigal first moved to Madras in 1979.

“Back in those days, there was no Mexican items that you could buy at all,” he said, “just by having [El Torito] here, it shows that yes, there is plenty of business with the Hispanic people.”

In the town of about 7,500, Latino and Hispanic people make up 36% of the population, according to census data. That’s more than double the statewide percentage.

Read the full story by Kathryn Styer Martínez.

A handful of patients were cured of HIV. OHSU won $8.4 million to decode their cells for a cure

In August, the National Institutes of Health placed a big bet on Oregon scientist Jonah Sacha, awarding him and his colleagues an $8.4 million, five-year grant for their work developing a cure for HIV.

Sacha’s current work on a cure for HIV builds on a study his research group published in 2023. The team infected macaque monkeys with the parent virus of HIV and was able to cure them, using stem cell transplantation. The macaques are still alive today and free of the virus.

What makes Sacha’s next research project extraordinary is his collaborators: OHSU announced three men will contribute to Sacha’s attempt to engineer a cure for HIV.

The trio are patients who were cured of HIV after they received allogeneic stem cell transplants for cancer.

“I think within our lifetimes for sure, we will see a cure,” Sacha said.

Read the full story by Amelia Templeton.

Umatilla Tribes navigate modern development on reservation land

In Eastern Oregon, tribal-led initiatives are breaking ground toward business and residential development on ancestral lands.

Through a partnership with a financial institution geared toward Indian Country, the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation worked this summer to open a food truck park and more investments meant to keep tribal members home.

“Our tribe generates plans upon plans upon plans,” said Dave Tovey, the executive director of Nixyaawii Community Financial Services. “People are used to having a lot of plans, but when they can actually start seeing and touching things, it kind of changes the game.”

Read the full story by Antonio Sierra.

Oregon is digging deep to tap into an uncommon renewable energy source — Super Hot Rocks

At a site west of Oregon’s Newberry Volcano, something is brewing below the surface.

Not an impending eruption.

Alain Bonneville, chief geoscientist at Mazama Energy, has teamed up with other expert groups to drill deep. The quest: generate a new kind of geothermal energy.

Read the full story by Monica Samayoa.

View this post on Instagram

Washington School for the Blind goalball players geared up for a national competition

Goalball is a sport that tests players’ senses other than sight — a 3.3-pound ball is thrown at speeds of 30 mph, and with their eyeshades on, players use their bodies to stop it.

In the fall, teams from across the nation faced off at the 2025 Junior Cascade Classic Goalball Tournament held at the Washington State School for the Blind in Vancouver.

Corey Grandstaff is the associate director of transition and residential programs at the Washington State School for the Blind. He started playing goalball in the early 2000s while attending the Ohio School for the Blind.

“There’s a lot of other sports that have been adapted for people who are blind, but this is a sport specifically made for people who are blind,” he said.

Read the full story by Erik Neumann.

View this post on Instagram

Oregon earns ‘Accessibility Verified’ status from disability nonprofit

The nonprofit Wheel the World helps people with disabilities find accessible tourist spots. This year, it designated Oregon as its first “Accessibility Verified” state.

To make the designation, the nonprofit’s members visited 750 spots around Oregon, measuring things like the number of wheelchair ramps, the height of toilets and hotel beds, how many disabled parking spaces were available and the ease of recreating outdoors.

“Oregon, it has everything,” said Jennifer Allen, a travel writer for people with disabilities. “You’ve got the ocean, with the mountains, and you can have a city or country, and it seems like it’s all kind of right there.”

Read the full story by Kristian Foden-Vencil.

All of OPB’s stories are made possible by our generous members. In 2026, we’ll continue to bring independent, regional journalism that serves the Pacific Northwest and beyond.

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2025/12/31/positive-news-stories-2025-mini-art-galleries-pet-parade-oregon/