Spring time is allergy time for many students
■ FLOWERS: Eugene has one
of the highest pollen counts in
the nation, and many people
suffer for it
By Amy Palanuk
Higher Education Reporter
As the breeze brushes by and
the sun beams down, the scents
of spring glide through the air al
most like a ffisbee over 13th Av
enue. It’s innate. People know.
It’s Frisbee time.
But that’s when the trouble
stents.
Fresh whiffs of pollen hit the
nose of allergy sufferers and the
sneezing and wheezing begins.
The once beautiful Frisbee
weather becomes a season of
Kleenex and sniffles, and people
are reminded that they live in
one of the most pollen-infested
regions of the world.
But relief is only a phone call
away. The Student Health Center
provides assistance and guidance
for those plagued with runny
noses and itchy eyes.
On a daily basis, nurses at the
clinic see students suffering from
the sneeze-infested season. They
provide insight and guidance on
how to avoid the worst allergic
reactions.
The best advice? Stay inside
when the pollen flies. Experts say
avoiding the pollen-laden air is
the best way to keep the irritating
reactions away.
The highest pollen levels right
now are from the blossoming
trees and fresh-cut grass. But the
next few months hold even more
pollen possibilities in the sprout
ing buds.
When the worst pollen counts
hit the Willamette Valley late
spring term, the health center
holds clinics for allergy sufferers.
SEASONAL ALLERGIES
SYMPTOMS
■ Sneezing
■ Watery/itchy eyes
■ Cold symptoms that won’t go
away
■ Skin rashes
■ Some types of asthma
■ Headaches
■ Persistent cough
■ Vomiting
■ Recurring ear infections
PREVENTION
■Wearsunglassesoreyeglasses.it j
provides a barrierto pollen in the air j
collected from throughout the day
■Wash bed linens regularly
■ Don't use a feather duster, damp
dust with a wet cloth
■ Don’t let your pets sleep with you,
they can carry high counts of pollen
in theirfur
■ Limit outdoor activity on windy,
dry days
■Avoid lying in the grass
■ Shower at night to remove pollen
Students meet with a nurse prac
titioner and 19 other students to
discuss symptoms and ways to
avoid hay fever. After a half-hour
discussion about allergies, the
students are then given needed
prescriptions.
Gerald Fleischli, health center
director, finds these large meet
ings better than a ten minute ap
pointment where a student
would only receive six minutes
of education.
“It increases volume and im
proves the quality,” Fleischli
said.
For students new to the area,
sometimes unfamiliar symptoms
will occur in the spring. Many
times these are the first signs of
hay fever striking. Most will no
tice itchy eyes, irritated skin and
a constant runny nose.
Over-the-counter antihista
mines are sometimes adequate
for relief, but these can cause
drowsy side-effects, Sharon Har
bert, health center registered
nurse, said. Eye drops and in
halers can also provide relief, but
for the most effective kinds, it’s
best to get a prescription.
Herbert encourages students to
talk to pharmacists in the health
center to get the best advice for
hay fever relief, or to make an ap
pointment with a nurse or aller
gist on staff. The number for the
student health center is 346
2770.
Range director for Pacific Northwest’s largest forest retires
■ TIMBER: Bob Richmond faced
tough decisions on logging and
conseiyation of the 2.3 million-acre
forest
The Associated Press
BAKER CITY — U.S. Forest Service
trucks are still green.
But that’s about the only thing that hasn’t
changed since Bob Richmond joined the
agency as a range conservationist in 1961 in
North Dakota.
Richmond was an oddity when he joined
the Forest Service as a range conservation
ist; of the 71 new employees in the agency’s
Northern Region that year, he was the only
one who wasn’t either a forester whft pre
pared timber sales or an engineer who de
signed the logging roads.
Today the Forest Service employs hun
dreds of wildlife biologists, geologists, ar
chaeologists and other specialists whose
chief duty isn’t to sell timber but to predict
how logging, grazing and other activities
will affect forests and the animals that live
in them.
Richmond, 59, retired last week, 36 years
after beginning that first job in North Dakota,
and a decade after moving to Baker City to
supervise the largest national forest in the
Pacific Northwest: the 2.3-million-acre Wal
lowa-Whitman.
Like most career Forest Service employ
ees, Richmond rarely had time to become
accustomed to a job before he had.a_new
one.
In his first 27 years with the agency, he
moved nine times. In 1980 he moved to
Portland, where he became director of range
management for the Forest Service’s Pacific
Northwest region.
Duringhis tenure in Portland, Richmond
visited the Wallowa-Whitman several times
and in the process “fell in love with North
east Oregon.”
Richmond said the region reminded him
of his native Wyoming, where he grew up
on a ranch about 20 miles from Cody. But
when he left Portland in 1984, his destina
tion was not the rural West, but the urban
East Coast and a job at Forest Service head
quarters in Washington, D.C.
Richmond worked there for three years.
It didn't take him that long to decide he was
n’t interested in “climbing the ladder”, to a
higher job. ~ “ J
“I was less than taken with the intera
gency politics,” Richmond said. “I wanted
to get back to the field. ”
He started work in Baker City on Sept. 14,
1987i_
On that September day, the Wallowa
Whitman was two weeks from the end of its
1987 fiscal year, during which the forest of
fered for sale 205 million board-feet of tim
ber. The majority—141 million feet—con
sisted of live trees. * \
Much of that volume was in the form of
old growth ponderosa pines, the staple of
Eastern Oregon’s timber industry since the
19th century.
The statistics for that year were typical,
but even before Richmond arrived in Baker
City there were signs of change, particularly
in the ambunt of ponderosa pine the forest
would sell.
Wallowa-Whitman officials were work
ing on a plan that Would guide activity on
the forest for the next 10 to 15 years, includ
ing the amount of logging the Forest Service
would allow.gThat proved to be ;a con
Hentioifs itetfd.'dffwhat would complicate
Richmond s eijUre tenure.
“When I got here,’ the debate had started
about thefotest phtff,” Richmond said. “The
timber industry felt the [logging] projects
were too low.” j
Environmentalists began to appeal most
timber sales on the Wallowa-Whitman, forc
ing the forest to postpone, or in a few cases
cancel, logging.
In 1991 the W$Jo|Sa-Whitinan offered for
r safe ^SEf'.njfljjiph l^ejsbf green timber. That
pluiSfriefedfe^l ffilBBn in 1993. The'annual
t average from 1991-96 was 13.8 million.
“It was frustrating to be on the one hand
cursed by the timber industry arid to be
cursed on the other side by environmental
groups who said forest supervisors like
Richmond are just wood butchers §vho are
only interested in getting a timber sale out,”
Richmond said. “I just couldn’t understand
why we couldn’t meet our targets.”
some things you need to
know before the world
ends:
A Final
Evening
with the
9
minati
Larson and Levi Lee
April 9,10,11,
12,17,18,19
8 pm
Arena Theatre . Villard Hall
a second season production
UNIVERSITY
THEATRE
UT box office
346-4191
EMU tickets
346-4363
ODE Classifieds
346-4343
New this term!
NIKE's test of speed, agility
and quickness
April 19 9 20
COED (3 males, 3 females)
Challenges include:
• Flag football * Agility competition
• Tug-O-War m Mini triathlon
m Obstacle Course
• Muscular endurance competition
IT’S FREE! DEADLINE: APRIL 9
Challenge your friends, dorm floors,
fraternities/sororities.
Sign UP at the RIM office and win
NIKE gear!
RIM • 102 ESSUNCER • 346-4113
P E L A N GL
rl Cakrawala
EMU BALLROOM
April 13,1997
6:00 p.m.
Tickets sold at ^9.00 each
available at the EMU Front Pesk
For more information call:
Lisa at 683-5411
Shinta at 302-6982