Gov. Tina Kotek’s tour of Oregon’s 36 counties fascinated me. It was an audacious commitment to accomplish within her first year in office, especially if the visits were to be more than PR stunts.

Kotek wrapped up her One Oregon Listening Tour last week in Lane County, having talked with 973 Oregonians in 83 towns.

“I’ve been to a lot of communities in Oregon prior to being elected [governor], while I was speaker of the House,” she said during her Dec. 14 press conference in Eugene. “But it’s different when you’re governor. It’s different when you feel the responsibility that you have for every Oregon resident to make sure people have what they need.”

Along the way, Kotek appears to have won respect from more constituents, despite her dismal poll numbers earlier this year. As a Salem reader wrote in response to my Dec. 7 Capital Chatter, “I think Kotek is growing into the job. And though I did not support her election, I must say that I am cautiously impressed.”

While House speaker, Kotek arguably amassed the most influence in the Oregon Capitol, given Gov. Kate Brown’s perceived lackluster style and Senate President Peter Courtney’s heading into retirement. Kotek could be iron-fisted in pursuing her political goals while keeping fellow Democratic lawmakers in line.

Like many folks inhabiting the Capitol, she also was known for her occasional temper. Democratic and Republican lawmakers say House tensions eased when Rep. Dan Rayfield, D-Corvallis, succeeded her as presiding officer.

Kotek’s first county visit, last December as governor-elect, left me wondering whether she would commune only with her political allies around the state. Yamhill County is a microcosm of Oregon’s political divides, but the leaders meeting with Kotek in McMinnville mostly reflected her progressive ideology.

It’s dangerous for a leader in any field, not just politics, to surround oneself with sycophants and yes-people. If truth comes through the collision of ideas — as I believe it does — a leader must seek out and listen to contrasting ideas and solutions. That should be a benefit of her “One Oregon” tour.

I attended Kotek’s press conferences, and other events if allowed by her staff, in a fourth of Oregon’s counties — Clackamas, Columbia, Lane, Lincoln, Marion, Morrow, Multnomah, Tillamook and Yamhill. At each stop, I asked the governor, “What did you learn today that you didn’t know before?”

In Lane County, Kotek answered by recalling a “very sobering” conversation in Leaburg with firefighters, businesspeople and others about recovery from the Holiday Farm Fire that burned the McKenzie River Valley, including, “[H]earing from a small business owner who says, ‘There is nothing for me. Right? I was insured to the maximum I could be, and several days after the fire I had nothing.’”

Kotek told me: “It made me think, ‘What can we do as a state to fill in some gaps there?’ My commitment is to make sure those communities impacted by the 2020 Labor Day fires do recover, and we are still on that path. And for small businesses in particular, it is a very tough recovery.”

Throughout her statewide tour, Kotek maintained her gubernatorial focus on three priorities: housing and homelessness; behavioral health and addiction; and education and early childhood.

In Roseburg, she and first lady Aimee Kotek Wilson, who joined the governor on 27 county visits, explored the Gary Leif Navigation Center, which serves homeless individuals. In Vernonia, the governor read to first-graders and answered questions from a fourth-grade class.

As time went on, Kotek expanded the agendas and audiences.

In Astoria, she toured Hyak Maritime at Tongue Point. In Lincoln County, Toledo Mayor Rod Cross showed off the Greater Toledo Aquatic and Community Center. In John Day, Kotek conversed about using 3D home printing to create more housing in Grant County. In Eastern Oregon, she discussed water contamination in the Lower Umatilla Basin and committed to an improved state response.

She dined at the Crook County ranch of then-House Republican Leader Vikki Breese-Iverson of Prineville. Over dinner at the farm of Rep. Mark Owens, R-Crane, she talked with Harney County leaders “about the importance of relationship-building between elected leaders in Salem and communities in frontier counties.”

In Oregon City, her lunch companions included Tootie Smith, chair of the Clackamas County Board of Commissioners, who is as conservative as Kotek is liberal.

The governor said such visits deepened her understanding of state-local relationships: “You always know that there can be a disconnect between communication from state government to local government or local business leaders about what they need. I think what was helpful about the tour was getting those nuances.”

The obvious question: What does Kotek have in mind as an encore in 2024?

“This has been an amazing experience to do — the intense, very targeted conversations we were having in communities. I think future visits will shift a little bit,” she said last week. “I don’t see us doing every county next year, but that doesn’t mean that we’re not going to have different ways to communicate with Oregonians.

“And I think we’re still trying to figure that out.”