2A — THE OBSERVER
TUESDAY, APRIL 21, 2020
REGIONAL
DAILY High school seniors get recognition in lights
PLANNER
EO Media Group
TODAY
Today is Tuesday, April 21,
the 112th day of 2020. There
are 254 days left in the year.
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT
On April 21, 1976, clinical
trials of the swine fl u vaccine
began in Washington, D.C.
ON THIS DATE
In 1509, England’s King
Henry VII died; he was
succeeded by his 17-year-old
son, Henry VIII.
In 1789, John Adams
was sworn in as the fi rst
vice president of the United
States.
In 1816, Charlotte Bronte,
author of “Jane Eyre,” was
born in Thornton, England.
In 1930, fi re broke out
inside the Ohio Penitentiary,
killing 332 inmates.
In 1975, with Communist
forces closing in, South Viet-
namese President Nguyen
Van Thieu resigned after
nearly 10 years in offi ce.
In 1989, the baseball
fantasy “Field of Dreams,”
starring Kevin Costner,
was released by Universal
Pictures.
In 2016, Prince, one of the
most inventive and infl u-
ential musicians of modern
times, was found dead at his
home in suburban Minneap-
olis; he was 57.
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TODAY’S QUOTE
“I try to avoid looking
forward or backward, and try
to keep looking upward.”
— Charlotte Bronte (1816-
1855)
ENTERPRISE — Wal-
lowa County schools are
lighting up their three foot-
ball stadiums each Monday
to honor each graduating
seniors.
The recognition began
Monday, April, 13, and is
part of a national trend.
Mitch Frye, Wallowa High
School athletic director,
said the idea traveled to
Oregon from Colorado
and caught on Madras and
spread across the state,
especially in rural schools.
Wallowa High School
principal David Howe
heard about it and last
week all three schools in
Wallowa County jumped
on the movement.
The principals of the
high schools in Wallowa,
Enterprise, and Joseph a
joint statement said, “We
want all of our students
and especially our seniors
to know how important
they are to us and we care
for each and every one of
them.”
The stadium lights will
continue to come on each
Monday night at 8:20 p.m.
and will remain on for one
minute of each school day
lost during the coronavirus
pandemic.
Photo by Ellen Morris Bishop/EO Media Group
Wallowa High School Athletic Director Mitch Frye checks an image of the lights at Joseph
High School after turning on the lights remotely from Wallowa.
Pearl Harbor survivor shares stories — on Instagram
By Kyle Spurr
EO Media Group
BEND — Dick Higgins
has stories to tell and wants
to share them before he
forgets.
The 98-year-old
great-grandfather from
Bend may be living in a
pandemic, but he’s survived
some of history’s greatest
crises. He grew up in small
town Oklahoma and lived
through the Dust Bowl and
the Great Depression. He
enlisted in the Navy after
high school and was pro-
pelled into history when he
awoke Dec. 7, 1941, to the
attack on Pearl Harbor.
So last month he turned
to Instagram. He is using
the social media platform
to share short videos of his
history and post them to the
account he calls quaran-
tine_chats_with_gramps.
Higgins is one of the
oldest living survivors of
the attack on Pearl Harbor,
which the U.S. surgeon gen-
eral recently compared to
the coronavirus pandemic.
Higgins has fi ve videos
so far and a following of
about 40 people.
He’s doing it from his
Photo by Ryan Brennecke/EO Media Group
Dick Higgins, a 98-year-old Pearl Harbor survivor, laughs with
his granddaughter Angela Norton on their front porch after re-
cording a video for his Instagram page in Bend on Wednesday,
April 15, 2020. With the help of his family, Higgins started the
Instagram page — quarantine_chats_with_gramps — to share
stories and the ways he has stayed busy while staying home
during the coronavirus pandemic.
Bend home he shares with
his granddaughter, Angela
Norton, her husband, Ryan,
and their two children.
Higgins, who spent his
career in radio engineering
after serving as a radio
operator in the Navy, never
heard of Instagram until his
granddaughter set up the
account for him.
“I don’t even know what
it is,” Higgins said in the
fi rst video he recorded on
Instagram on March 22.
“That came along after I
got out of the electronics
business.”
Keeping memory
alive
Norton uses her cell-
phone to record her grand-
father’s stories for the Ins-
tagram account. The posts
follow the events of his life
State faces steep drop in income taxes; seeks federal aid
Oregon has
$3 billion in
reserve funds
By Peter Wong
Oregon Capital Bureau
SALEM — Even as a
legislative panel prepares
this week to draw from the
state’s emergency fund,
Oregon faces a steep drop
in income taxes that the
state government relies on
to aid schools and to pay for
services, and the state may
need federal help.
Estimates of tax losses
still are in development, but
Oregon and all other states
are likely to require bil-
lions in federal aid that may
dwarf the amounts given
during the Great Reces-
sion a decade ago — and
far more than Congress has
approved so far to counter
the economic downturn
prompted by the corona-
virus pandemic.
While Oregon Sen. Ron
Wyden and the Democratic
majority in the U.S. House
have made aid to states a
priority, Treasury Secre-
tary Steven Mnuchin says
it’s more likely such aid will
take a backseat to replen-
ishing federal help for small
businesses, which already
have exhausted the $350
billion Congress made
available for them.
Wyden was more opti-
mistic: “We are trying to
work out an agreement to
address all of these issues.”
But one expert said Con-
gress will have to do more
for states.
“States face mas-
sive budget shortfalls that
will be more severe than
they saw during the Great
Recession,” said Michael
Leachman, senior director
for state fi scal research for
the Center on Budget and
Policy Priorities, a progres-
sive-leaning think tank.
“Those cuts will make
an already-weak economy
even weaker and will hurt
families and communities
when we are already vul-
nerable,” said Leachman,
who once worked for the
Oregon Center for Public
Policy.
More than 90% of Ore-
gon’s general fund, which
represents its most fl exible
state spending, comes from
just two sources: Personal
and corporate income taxes.
The state’s next quarterly
economic and revenue fore-
cast is scheduled May 20.
“We are being impacted
by a loss of revenue because
there are fewer people
working,” Gov. Kate Brown
said last week. “The needs
are great in terms of our
public health capacity
and for our safety net. Of
course, unlike the federal
government, the state has to
balance our budget.”
In addition to almost
300,000 Oregonians fi ling
unemployment claims in
the past few weeks as a
result of business shut-
downs and curtailments
linked to the COVID-19
pandemic, demands have
increased for public health,
state-supported health
insurance under the Oregon
Health Plan, and other ser-
vices during the downturn.
Slowdown
accelerates
State economist Mark
McMullen warned in sev-
eral recent forecasts that
Oregon’s economy was
likely to slow, despite con-
tinued growth in jobs and
tax collections, as the
national economic expan-
sion passed a record 10-year
mark.
The 2019 Legislature
set a total of $23.7 bil-
lion for the current two-
year budget from general
taxes and lottery proceeds,
with an ending balance of
about $600 million. Total
state spending for 2019-21
is $85.8 billion, but more
than 70% consists of federal
grants or other restricted
funds, such as fuel taxes
and vehicle fees earmarked
for highway and bridge
work.
While there are no offi -
cial projections yet of how
much less state tax collec-
tions will fall short, Sen.
Betsy Johnson, D-Scap-
poose, said some of the
early numbers are scary:
Losses between $2 billion
and $3 billion during the
rest of the current two-year
cycle ending in mid-2021.
in chronological order.
In one video, Higgins
recalls his fi rst childhood
memory of a circus coming
to his small Oklahoma
town.
“We were running down
the street following the
circus wagon,” he said in
the video. “Seeing all those
tigers and lions and stuff we
had never seen before.”
In the latest video,
posted Thursday, Higgins
talks about living through
the Dust Bowl in the 1930s.
Soon he will discuss
Pearl Harbor, Norton said.
Recalling the day
that will live in
infamy
Higgins’ Pearl Harbor
experience is a story his
family knows well.
Higgins was a
20-year-old Navy radio
operator two years into his
service, when Japanese
planes roared over his bar-
racks on Ford Island on the
morning of Dec. 7, 1941.
Through gunfi re and
bombs dropping, Higgins
cleared the wreckage from
the airfi eld to salvage planes
that were still intact and
prepared them for fl ight.
Daniel Martinez, chief
historian for the WWII
Valor in the Pacifi c National
Monument in Honolulu,
Hawaii, said the airfi eld
where Higgins served is
considered ground zero of
the Japanese attack.
“He would have wit-
nessed the opening of the
attack on Pearl Harbor,”
Martinez said.
It is diffi cult to track how
many Pearl Harbor sur-
vivors are still alive since
there is no offi cial count
being kept, Martinez said.
But Higgins is among the
oldest living survivors in
the nation, he said. A person
who was 18 during the
attack would be 96 today.
The number of survivors
keeps dwindling. Higgins
was one of six survivors in
Bend, and now he’s the only
one.
At the national anniver-
sary ceremony in Hono-
lulu last year, only about
a dozen survivors were in
attendance.
At the 75th anniversary,
three years ago, about 200
survivors made the trip to
Hawaii.
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DOC TALK Q&A: COVID-19 (NOVEL CORONAVIRUS 2019)
A: Travel limitations have now been recommended by our
Governor, the President, local and state Public Health
Departments, and the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC). Unless your job requires it, or you have a
special exception due to family needs, I urge you to stay
home and practice physical distancing. Countries and US
states that have initiated “no travel” recommendations have a
much lower and slower spread rate of COVID-19. Limiting travel, along with
good hand hygiene and physical distancing have been the best ways of
preventing viral spread.
-Brian Reynolds, MD, GRH Emergency Department Physician
Your trusted GRH doctors are answering your COVID-19-related questions through
this Doc Talk Q&A series. For more information on physical distancing and Oregon ’s
coronavirus response, visit healthoregon.org/coronavirus.
As we navigate COVID-19, we want to be sure and remind you that the safety and health of our
patients, staff and community is our number one concern. We are working closely with CHD, OHA, and
other partners to respond appropriately and as effectively as possible. For the latest updates from
GRH, visit our web page dedicated to COVID-19 News & Updates: grh.org/covid19.