2A — THE OBSERVER
DAILY
PLANNER
TODAY
Today is Tuesday, June 9,
the 161st day of 2020. There
are 205 days left in the year.
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT
On June 9, 2004, the body
of Ronald Reagan arrived in
Washington to lie in state
in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda
before the 40th president’s
funeral.
ON THIS DATE
In A.D. 68, Roman Emper-
or Nero committed suicide,
ending a 13-year reign.
In 1860, what’s considered
the fi rst dime novel, “Ma-
laeska: The Indian Wife of
the White Hunter” by Ann S.
Stephens, was published.
In 1940, during World War
II, Norway decided to surren-
der to the Nazis, effective at
midnight.
In 1943, President Franklin
D. Roosevelt signed the
Current Tax Payment Act of
1943, which reintroduced
federal income tax withhold-
ing from paychecks.
In 1954, during the Senate
Army-McCarthy hearings,
Army special counsel Jo-
seph N. Welch berated Sen.
Joseph R. McCarthy, R-Wis.,
asking: “Have you no sense
of decency, sir? At long last,
have you left no sense of
decency?”
In 1969, the Senate con-
fi rmed Warren Burger to be
the new chief justice of the
United States.
In 1972, heavy rains trig-
gered record fl ooding in the
Black Hills of South Dakota;
the resulting disaster left at
least 238 people dead and
$164 million in damage.
In 1973, Secretariat won
the Belmont Stakes, becom-
ing horse racing’s fi rst Triple
Crown winner in 25 years.
In 1978, leaders of the
Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints struck
down a 148-year-old policy
of excluding black men from
the Mormon priesthood.
In 1980, comedian Richard
Pryor suffered almost fatal
burns at his San Fernando
Valley, Calif., home while
freebasing cocaine.
In 2008, retail gas prices
rose above $4 per gallon.
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DELIVERY ISSUES?
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TODAY’S QUOTE
“Imagination was given
to man to compensate him
for what he isn’t. A sense
of humor was provided
to console him for what
he is.”
— Horace Walpole, En-
glish author (1717-1797)
TUESDAY, JUNE 9, 2020
REGION
Joseph Charter School graduates 12 seniors
By Ellen Morris Bishop
EO Media Group
JOSEPH —Joseph
Charter School showed a
style all its own for Satur-
day’s graduation.
One student rode in on
horseback. Another arrived
via stagecoach.
Joseph held its gradu-
ation on the school foot-
ball fi eld, but with ominous
skies and thunderstorms
predicted, hedged the bet
with a large tent that cov-
ered speakers. Parents and
family members were per-
mitted to attend. “Pomp and
Circumstance” heralded
the entry of seniors, who
were chauffeured in every-
thing from a new Toyota
Tacoma pickup to a vintage
Ford pickup to a slick black
Camaro convertible to a
stagecoach and 2019 Chief
Joseph Days’ queen, Rylee
Wilcox rode her palomino.
Students ringed the out-
side of the tent while Prin-
cipal Sherri Kilgore bid an
emotional and inspiring
farewell to the class of
2020.
“You are the leaders of
a new decade,” she said.
“2020 is a wonderful time
to graduate, and to move
forward, to accomplish
amazing things, which I
know that all of you will do.
But I want you to move for-
ward with fortitude, with
responsibility, with faith
that things will be getting
better. I want you to move
forward with the theme of
transformation. Make the
changes in the social, cul-
tural and environment ways
that we need, to make this
world a better place.”
The number of people
under the big top tent was
limited to 25 by the Phase
1 guidelines still in effect
— two family members for
each senior. School faculty
members provided their
messages to seniors via
recordings, rather than in
person.
The three co-valedic-
torians, Camille Cren-
shaw, Ellyse Tingelstad,
and Malichi Roberts, urged
their classmates to live fully
rounded, purposeful lives,
and then dispensed senior
gifts, including a bright wig
for Ashlie McAfee, a red
Dodge keychain to Carson
Littlepage and a fi reman’s
hat for Ronny Morello.
Tingelstad made the
parting comments for the
three co-valedictorians
quoting from the song
“Quiet your Mind” by the
Zac Brown Band:
“The song is about
trying to fi nd a perspec-
tive on life that keeps us
sane,” she said. “’Quiet
Photo by Ellen Morris Bishop/EO Media Group
2019 Chief Joseph Days queen Rylee Wilcox rode her palo-
mino to the Joseph Charter School graduation ceremony.
your mind, soak it all in, it’s
a game you can’t win, enjoy
the ride.’ … I wish you all
a future where only you
COVID-19 experiences show range of symptoms
“I’m 53, and yes I have
some pre-existing condi-
tions, but to my family, to
my friends, to my church,
I am very valuable,” she
said. “When people say,
‘Oh, she’s old,’ or ‘Oh, they
had underlying health con-
ditions.’ ... What if that
were your mother or grand-
mother or sister?”
By Jade McDowell
and Alex Castle
EO Media Group
HERMISTON —
As COVID-19 spreads
locally, stories from Uma-
tilla County residents who
have had the virus show
its effects can run the
gamut from inconvenient to
deadly.
As of June 5, Umatilla
County Public Health has
announced 124 confi rmed
cases and six presumptive
cases of COVID-19, with
112 of those people consid-
ered recovered, and three
patients who have died.
A severe case
Sara Barnett’s expe-
rience falls on the
more serious side. The
53-year-old Hermiston
woman’s doctors have told
her she is lucky to be alive
after two weeks in the hos-
pital. She was discharged
on June 2, but is still on
oxygen.
Her symptoms started
May 10.
“At fi rst I felt achy —
everything ached — and
I had a bad headache and
cough,” she said. A fi rst test
for COVID-19 came back
negative.
Seven days after her
fi rst symptoms, she woke
up struggling to breathe
and drove to Kadlec Med-
ical Center in Richland,
Washington, where she was
admitted and took a second
COVID-19 test, which later
came back positive.
Things went downhill
from there. First they put
her on 2 liters of oxygen,
then 4 liters, then 30, before
A mild case
Contributed photo
Ben Lonergan/EO Media Group
Sara Barnett wears an ox-
ygen delivery device while
in the intensive care unit at
Kadlec Medical Center in
Richland, Washington, as a
result of COVID-19.
Sara Barnett, 53, was di-
agnosed with COVID-19
and spent two weeks in the
hospital before being dis-
charged on June 2. Barnett
remains on oxygen.
putting her on a machine
that she said “blew air so
hard my mouth was wide
open and I couldn’t close
my mouth.” Hospital staff
couldn’t get her fever below
102 degrees for days. When
she continued to deterio-
rate, she was rushed to the
intensive care unit, where
her doctor told her husband
they were trying every-
thing they could to keep her
from needing to be put on a
ventilator.
Fortunately for Barnett,
she did begin to recover
and have her oxygen use
stepped back down to 2
liters, which she is on now
at home as she recovers
from the pneumonia that is
one of the side effects of her
illness.
“They’re hoping it will
just be a couple of weeks,
but it could be forever, or
months,” she said of her
need for an oxygen tank.
“They told me it could
easily take three to six
months for me to feel like a
human again.”
Barnett said she hopes
her tale can be a cau-
tionary one for people who
think COVID-19 isn’t very
serious. She and her father,
who both have underlying
health conditions, had
been “hiding out at home”
for weeks, which she said
means that her husband
brought the virus home to
them — something he obvi-
ously didn’t intend to do.
He had serious symptoms
but was never hospitalized,
while her father was hospi-
talized for four days.
Barnett said it is hurtful
to see people write dismis-
sively on social media about
the victims of COVID-19
as “just” people who have
underlying health condi-
tions, which include com-
mons conditions, such as
asthma, diabetes, high
blood pressure, heart dis-
ease and a history of
smoking.
On the other side of the
spectrum of experiences are
Teresa and Timothy Curtis,
both 62, of Hermiston.
They recently returned to
work after recovering from
a mild case of the virus.
Timothy Curtis fi rst
started to have some con-
cerns that he may have been
infected when he started
feeling “off” and heard that
someone he knew, and may
have recently been in con-
tact with, had tested posi-
tive for COVID-19.
Though he thought
it could be attributed to
inhaling some drywall
dust at his work with the
Umatilla County Housing
Authority, Timothy Curtis
got tested May 15 and was
offi cially diagnosed with
COVID-19 on May 18.
Teresa Curtis started
developing symptoms, got
tested on May 19, and a
positive test result came in
on May 22.
But for the roughly 10
days that she and her hus-
band had symptoms of the
virus, it never progressed to
more than fatigue and some
minor body aches “like if
you worked too much in the
yard for a day,” along with a
loss of their senses of taste
2nd Congressional District still looking red
By Gary A. Warner
For the Oregon Capitol Bureau
SALEM — It’s bigger
than some states, includes
two time zones and is a
bright red Republican
stronghold in a deeply blue
Democratic state.
Oregon’s CD2 — short-
hand for the 2nd Congres-
sional District — has been
on electoral autopilot the
past two decades, sending
Rep. Greg Walden, R-Hood
River, to Washington, D.C.
11 straight times.
Something that hasn’t
happened this century will
occur Nov. 3. There will be
no CD2 incumbent on the
ballot — Walden is retiring
at the end of the session.
Republican Cliff Bentz, a
former state senator from
Ontario, emerged as the
winner from a scrum of
11 candidates in the May
19 GOP primary. He’ll
face writer and political
strategist Alex Spenser of
Klamath Falls, winner of
the Democratic primary.
Odds are the Republican
will take the oath of offi ce
next Jan. 3 when the the
117th United States Con-
gress convenes.
“Cliff Bentz is as close
to a sure thing as you can
get,” said longtime Oregon
election analyst Jim Moore,
a politics and govern-
decide your defi nition of
success, all while enjoying
every single moment along
the way.”
ment professor at Pacifi c
University.
A more than 40,000
Republican voter registra-
tion edge over Democrats,
combined with Spens-
er’s lack of name recogni-
tion and campaign funds,
is enough for Bentz to win
the district, Moore said, and
the 203,000 nonaffi liated
registered voters “break
the same way as whatever
the Republican-Democratic
split goes.”
Dems betting on
‘Dump Trump’ wave
Spenser, 55, said she
knows she has a tough
task to get to Capitol Hill.
But 2020 is different: an
unprecedented election year
of pandemic, record unem-
ployment, and a “divisive”
President Donald Trump at
the top of the ticket.
“There’s going to be a
blue tsunami,” she said.
Spenser said she wants
to tap into the large number
of nonaffi liated voters,
along with Republicans
who can no longer support
the party’s agenda under
Trump. She sees water as
one of the keys that will res-
onate with district voters.
She supports a $450 mil-
lion plan to restore the
Klamath River by removing
four hydroelectric dams
in Oregon and California.
Wind farms can provide
electricity and also help
with irrigation, Spenser
said. She wants a more effi -
cient and equitable way to
distribute water in Eastern
Oregon.
“You have 90% of the
water going to irrigation
and 40% of that is lost
through evaporation,” she
said. “Meanwhile, wells
are running low in Harney
County. At the bottom is
arsenic — we’re going to
poison these people.”
The Cook Voting Index
rates districts by their pro-
pensity to back one party
or the other in presidential
races. CD2 is “R+11” —
meaning it is expected to
give the Republican nom-
inee 11% more of the dis-
trict’s vote than the national
average. In 2016, the dis-
trict gave nearly 55% of its
vote to Trump, while Dem-
ocrat Hillary Clinton won
35%. In 2012, Republican
Mitt Romney received 56%
of the vote compared to
40% for President Barack
Obama.
crats to win and hold the
other four House seats in
Oregon.
One of the ironies is
among the most politically
fl exible in the country —
just not in a way that helps
Democrats.
and smell.
“That was the weirdest
part,” she said.
The two spent a majority
of their time isolating inside
their home and only left to
go on an occasional drive
together. Teresa Curtis said
they found the virus wasn’t
as frightening as they
expected.
“I had more fear before
I got it than when I actu-
ally had it,” she said. “The
thing I was most afraid of
was spreading it to some-
body else.”
A moderate case
Stacie Borgaard falls
somewhere in the middle.
She found out on a
Thursday that a co-worker
had COVID-19, and the
next Tuesday, May 19,
she “kind of woke up not
feeling myself.”
“My taste and smell
were off, but I thought it
might just be one of those
days,” she said.
A few hours later she
started to cough, and that
progressed to other symp-
toms that included aches
and pains, chest tightness,
chills, fever and a loss of all
sense of taste and smell.
She ran a fever of
between 99 and 101 degrees
for six days, and said during
that time she was so tired
that just walking from the
couch to the bathroom
exhausted her.
“It kind of feels like
when you get the fl u, but
this was a whole other
level,” she said.
After a full week without
running a fever, she said
she feels mostly better.
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