News Coverage

A woman was jogging along SW Town Center Loop East in October when a man appeared in front of her, wrapped his arms around her and commented on her physique. The woman immediately broke free and kicked the man in the groin. As the man keeled over, he said, "Nice kick!" The woman ran home.
Dallas Jessup and Catherine Wehage, sophomores at St. Mary’s Academy in Portland, have been recognized as “Super Teens” by In Touch for their DVD called “Just Yell Fire,”...

Volume 13 No. 3 - December 1, 2006
Message from OLA President, Aletha Bonebrake
In my recent travels, one in cyberspace and the other on the long road to Portland, I discovered two partnership opportunities that will enrich the resources of any library, just for the asking.
If you are not already aware of it, there is an important video called "Just Yell Fire," which was created as a project by two female students at St. Mary's Academy in Portland. The students, both skilled...

With a sexual predator still on the loose in the Stetson Hills area, women may be wondering how to fight off an attacker who may be bigger and stronger.
There's a new resource available to anyone who has access to a computer, "Just Yell Fire".
That's the title, and one of the surprising ideas to stop a sexual assault, presented on a new DVD.
We sat down with sex crimes detective Jerry Day to get his opinion on the film.
There have been three assaults linked to one...

WHAT started out as a school project has evolved into an educational self-defense video that is helping America's youth, one teen-age girl at a time.
The martial art in this video is Filipino 'street-fighting,' an almost-forgotten form of self-defense in the Philippines.
Dallas Jessup and Catherine Wehage, both freshmen at St. Mary's Academy in Portland, Oregon came up with what is now known as 'Just Yell Fire,' a DVD film distributed aimed at teaching young girls to defend...

VANCOUVER, Wash. - Two Vancouver, Washington teenagers are teaching their peers how to "fight like girls" and put a stop to date rape.
Their 45 minute self-defense film "Just Yell Fire" began as a school project, and now is getting national attention.
Dallas Jessup, at age 14, is a Tae Kwon Do black belt. When her friends kept asking her for self-defense tips, she realized most girls had no idea how to protect themselves.
Dallas enlisted the help of her best friend Catherine...

Wednesday Columbian, Pages A1 & A8
Dallas Jessup's original idea to make a self-defense video for teen girls was cheap and simple.
She planned to enlist her mother, Maggie Jessup, and a video camera.
But one phone call led to another and, before she knew it, the home movie had turned into a production. It ended up taking six months to complete, $500,000 in donations to support and even attracted a plug from a couple of actors on the hit TV series...

High school students Dallas Jessup and Catherine Wehage got a little help on their homework - from Lost stars Evangeline Lilly and Josh Holloway.
After seeing a news report about a girl who'd been abducted, the students, of St. Mary's Academy in Portland, Ore., decided to act.
"We wanted to do something to stop it," says 14-year-old Dallas.
They hit on the idea of a self-defense video aimed at teen girls. And to bring the message to a larger audience, they enlisted some star...

Sunday Oregonian, Metro Section
Background: This summer, two sophomores at Portland's St. Mary's Academy -- Dallas Jessup, 14, and Catherine Wehage, 15 -- produced a DVD called "Just Yell Fire." The DVD, which promotes self-defense for girls ages 11 to 19, can be downloaded for free on the Internet. Two stars of ABC's "Lost" -- Evangeline Lilly and Josh Holloway -- heard about the DVD through Wehage's cousin and lent their star power to the project.
Update: The DVD premiered at St....