Frances Lorraine “Lorri” Bodi was born in Rhode Island in 1951. She grew up in Pennsylvania, while continuing to spend summers in Rhode Island. She earned a bachelor’s degree in literature and a master’s degree in teaching at the University of Pennsylvania, and later earned a law degree from George Washington University in Washington, D.C. In the 1970s, she moved to the Pacific Northwest, and for 13 years, she worked as an attorney for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. In 1992, she began working as a lawyer for American Rivers, and she later became a senior fish and wildlife advisor for the Bonneville Power Administration. In 2024, she was elected deputy mayor of Lake Forest Park, Washington. Bodi died in 2025.

Sources: Vital records on Ancestry.com; information provided by Bodi in her interview; “Councilmember Lorri Bodi Profile,” (accessed November 2024, archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20241106071217/https://www.cityoflfp.gov/460/Councilmember-Lorri-Bodi); Bodi’s obituary, Seattle Times website, April 27, 2025, (accessed December 2025), https://obituaries.seattletimes.com/obituary/lorri-bodi-1092841244

In 1990, the Washington State Historical Society, Portland State University, and Washington State University Vancouver formed the Center for Columbia River History (CCRH) to promote research, education, and public programs about the Columbia River Basin. The center operated for more than 20 years. Among its work was the Columbia River Basin Project (CRBP), an umbrella project supported by a 1997 grant from the U.S. Department of Education. The CRBP included online exhibits, oral histories, and high school curricula about the history of the region's land, wildlife, and people.

As part of the project, CCRH partnered with the Oregon Historical Society Research Library’s oral history program, headed by Jim Strassmaier, to gather interviews. Oral Historian Michael O’Rourke spearheaded the Northwest Power Planning Council Oral History Series, while Oral Historian Clark Hansen oversaw the Columbia River Dissenters Oral History Series, with aid from two Portland State University research assistants, Dannette Rowe and Tania Hyatt. In addition, CCRH conducted oral history interviews for a third project, Columbia Communities, and later donated the interview recordings and transcripts to the OHS Research Library, where they are designated SRC 1.

The Columbia River Dissenters Oral History Series culminated in 59 interviews (approximately 184 recorded hours) conducted between 1998 and 2001. Interviewees included Native people, activists, farmers, conservationists, fishers, and others who contributed to the shaping of policies that have had, and continue to have, significant impacts on the Columbia River Basin in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and British Columbia. The interviewees opposed policies by agencies such as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Bonneville Power Administration, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and advocated for alternative visions of management and use of the Columbia River.

Sources: “Voices of the Columbia,” by Bryan White, PSU Magazine, Fall 1998, Page 17; Center for Columbia River History brochure, undated (circa 2000); Center for Columbia River History website (accessed July 10, 2025), https://columbiariverhistory.org/; email correspondence with Donna Sinclair, 2025; email correspondence with Tania Hyatt, 2025; Oregon Historical Society Research Library internal documentation.