This article is the first in a series profiling the varied and amazing nominees for the 2009 Alice B. Toeclips Awards, which will be presented to five winners at the Alice Awards & Auction on March 7th. This profile was written by BTA correspondent John McLaren in 2008.
After 15 years as a broadcaster, mostly in talk radio, Kim Curley decided she’d had enough on 9/11, when 3,000 people were killed by terrorist attacks. “I didn’t think it 
was a very cool job anymore, I wanted to do something more positive,” she says.
Within a few weeks, Curley joined Commute Options for Central Oregon, which serves Deschutes, Jefferson, and Crook counties. She was a board member and volunteer secretary before becoming a full-time employee. In her current post as community outreach coordinator, she promotes bicycling and walking for kids and adults on a very large scale.
In October of 2003, she started a program known as Commute Options Partner, which encourages businesses to offer benefits to employees who bike, walk, carpool, bus, vanpool or work at home, instead of driving alone to work. Under Curley’s leadership the program has grown from just 20 participating companies to 90 participating companies.
On the education front, she recently took on the role of Safe Routes to School Coordinator, establishing programs at six Bend elementary schools. Last October, she directed International Walk and Bike to School Day at five schools. “It was kind of crazy, 10 simultaneous walking school buses with 1,200 students taking part,” she recalled after the same event in 2007. (A walking school bus is a group of children walking to school with several adult volunteers; it’s cheaper, healthier and more fun than the diesel-fuelled kind of bus.)
Curley, who is based in Bend, is Central Oregon’s representative on the statewide Safe Routes to School Advisory Committee, which has secured multiple grants to support efforts in the Central Oregon region. As part of this, she helped get funding for improved sidewalk connections to the Bear Creek Elementary School in Bend, where she also has developed a biking and walking program. Good sidewalks can make the difference between a route along which parents won’t let their kids walk to school, and one that is safe and welcoming for kids and adults alike.
Curley has also coordinated area bike rodeos and health fairs and administers the HACO (Healthy Active Central Oregon) program, which promotes physical activity and better nutrition among school age children region-wide. “We get a lot of support from health organizations that recognize the need for our kids to be more physically active,” she says.
She bikes the three miles to work on nice days. Her bicycle is equipped in front with a basket for groceries and in the back with a seat for her 3 1/2-year-old son, Jak. And she’s still sort of involved in her old business of broadcasting: she is a frequent guest on radio talk shows, promoting the benefits of getting around by bike or foot.
