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About The Observer. (La Grande, Or.) 1968-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 8, 2020)
2A — THE OBSERVER Daily Planner TODAY Today is Tuesday, Dec. 8, the 343rd day of 2020. There are 23 days left in the year. TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT IN HISTORY: On Dec. 8, 1941, the Unit- ed States entered World War II as Congress declared war against Imperial Japan, a day after the attack on Pearl Harbor. ON THIS DATE: In 1886, the American Federation of Labor was founded in Columbus, Ohio. In 1972, a United Airlines Boeing 737 crashed while attempting to land at Chica- go-Midway Airport, killing 43 of the 61 people on board, as well as two people on the ground. In 1980, rock star and former Beatle John Lennon was shot to death outside his New York City apartment building by an apparently deranged fan. In 1987, President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev signed a treaty at the White House calling for destruction of intermediate-range nuclear missiles. In 1991, AIDS patient Kimberly Bergalis, who had contracted the disease from her dentist, died in Fort Pierce, Florida, at age 23. In 1998, struggling to stave off impeachment, Pres- ident Bill Clinton’s defenders forcefully pleaded his case before the House Judiciary Committee. In 2008, in a startling about-face, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed told the Guantanamo war crimes tribunal he would confess to masterminding the Sept. 11 attacks; four other men also abandoned their defenses. LOTTERY Megabucks: $5.3 million 5-10-16-18-25-48 Mega Millions: $244 million 3-19-24-44-50 — 8x3 Powerball: $202 million 3-4-6-48-53 —PB-10 x2 Win for Life: Dec. 5 14-27-49-74 Pick 4: Dec. 6 • 1 p.m.: 7–8-4-5; • 4 p.m.: 9-7-5-1; • 7 p.m.: 6–9-5-2 • 10 p.m.: 9-0-1-3 Pick 4: Dec. 5 • 1 p.m.: 3-3-9-3 • 4 p.m.: 8-0-4-9; • 7 p.m.: 3–7-2-9; • 10 p.m.: 9-7-5-5 Pick 4: Dec. 4 • 1 p.m.: 8-1-8-9 • 4 p.m.: 6-4-7-8; • 7 p.m.: 5-5-1-1; • 10 p.m.: 5-3-3-4 DELIVERY ISSUES? If you have any problems receiving your Observer, please call 541-963-3161. Urgent care clinic now open downtown By Kaleb Lay The Observer LA GRANDE — A new urgent care clinic in down- town La Grande aims to bring a broader range of health care options to the Grande Ronde Valley. La Grande Urgent Care, a branch of La Grande Family Medicine, opened at 2011 Fourth St. on Nov. 16. Office manager Kayla Reagan said the clinic offers a family-based approach and an alternative to seeking care in a “larger, less personal setting.” “We provide an alterna- tive option for our commu- nity, La Grande and all sur- rounding areas, for them to come into a family-owned practice,” Reagan said. The urgent care clinic includes an on-site Inter- path laboratory, meaning some lab work, such as blood testing, can be com- pleted at the clinic. Reagan said the clinic also can do ultrasounds and electrocar- diograms, though they do refer imaging services such as x-rays to Grande Ronde Hospital, La Grande. The clinic has a pro- vider and a medical assis- tant on staff at all times, Reagan said, as well as a medical office sup- port worker doing patient check-in and check-out. Kaleb Lay/The Observer La Grande Urgent Care opened downtown on Nov. 16, 2020, and has since seen a steady stream of patients, mostly for COVID-19 related issues. People can seek treat- ment at the clinic for any- thing from cold and flu symptoms to urinary tract infections, sexually trans- mitted diseases, strains and fractures and more. While the clinic provides a broad range of services, Reagan said it has pri- marily been seeing people for COVID-19 related rea- sons thus far. LA GRANDE — Eastern Oregon University welcomes Ben Dorfman, an American professor living in Germany and teaching at Aalborg Uni- versity in Denmark, to dis- cuss his research on his- tory, contemporary politics and human rights at the Thursday, Dec. 10 EOU Colloquium. Dorfman’s talk will be held via Zoom (ID: 92178553423) at 4 p.m. Dorfman has been focusing on human rights issues for 10 years, and has published two books of essays and a range of arti- cles exploring a plethora of issues in human rights, from contemporary news items to historical scenes, such as the site of the Potsdam Conference and the Bergen-Belsen concen- tration camp. “Like anybody else, it is COVID-19. That is No. 1 right now,” she said, adding that “we are leaning into this pandemic and choosing to serve our community to the best of our ability, which we absolutely could not do without the hard work and dedication from our staff. They are true heroes.” The clinic provides COVID-19 testing ser- vices, and results are usu- ally available within three to five days. “We’re doing a ton of COVID testing right now,” said certified nurse practi- tioner Jennifer Provence, who added she was unsur- prised to be dealing so heavily with the pandemic. Provence said the urgent care clinic has been well received by the community and patients have not been in short supply. “It’s been great,” she said. “We’re busy. The first couple of days were slow, but I don’t think the word was out, really, that we were open.” Staff agreed that increased health care options are a benefit to the local community. “Patients love that they can come in, and if they can’t be seen with their pri- mary they can just come over here and see us,” said medical assistant Kaitlyn Henry. Clinic staff noted patients can check in and reserve a spot online, allowing them to forgo some of the waiting that may happen in medical offices. Prospective patients also can see when the next avail- able appointment slot is and can receive text message alerts reminding them about their visit. To make an appoint- ment, go to lagrandefami- lymedicine.com or call 541- 962-7808. The clinic also accepts walk-in patients. La Grande Urgent Care is open seven days a week, from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. on weekdays and from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays. Pearl Harbor attack had immediate impact on LG By Dick Mason A Dec. 8, 1941, story stated that guards were being posted at La Grande’s city reservoir, at the rail- road and at telephone and electric plants 24 hours a day. The American Legion was posting the guards and asked all unemployed vet- erans to volunteer. As another precaution, police reserves and air raid wardens were activated in La Grande. Later in December they helped con- duct air raid drills at places such as La Grande’s ele- mentary schools. In one December air raid drill, students were The Observer LA GRANDE — Air raid drills, blackouts and the sudden presence of guards throughout La Grande. All became part of the daily lives of La Grande residents in the days imme- diately following the Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese. Fear of attack and sab- otage suddenly became all too real according to sto- ries that appeared in The Observer, then named the La Grande Evening Observer. EOU Colloquium welcomes human rights researcher The Observer TuESday, dEcEmBER 8, 2020 LOCAL Recognizing that human rights invite many opin- ions and ideas, Dorfman acknowledges many feel the need to weigh in on the subject. “There are very few people that you can say the words to and they don’t light up immedi- ately and feel like they have some sort of sense of the meaning of the term and imaginations they engage in about different sceneries from the past and present,” Dorfman said in a press release from EOU. While on sabbat- ical in the U.S., Dorfman is working on a book explaining why human rights continue to play a central role in modern culture. During his col- loquium, he plans to cover the role rights have played in the recent elec- tion, including the right to be recognized as a polit- ical subject, a voting indi- vidual or a participant in democracy. Initially, Dorfman didn’t realize human rights was the blanket term under which the social concerns he was looking to address fell. His definition of human rights has changed as his research developed. “The important point is the realization that even though we may imagine that we come from irrec- oncilable political posi- tions, in fact, we don’t,” Dorfman said. “That’s because we have a bedrock of ideas that flows under- neath the multiple places we stand. We have our- selves convinced that we don’t. But we do.” For more information about upcoming EOU Colloquium topics, visit eou.edu/colloquium. asked to return to their homes within 15 minutes. About 85% of the children succeeded. In addition to air raid drills, blackouts were con- ducted throughout the state as a precaution. For example, a radio blackout was conducted the day after the Pearl Harbor attack. On Dec. 8 all radio stations in Oregon and Washington were ordered off the air. Stations remained off from 11 p.m. Dec. 8 through Dec. 9. After that radio stations were allowed to operate during the daytime but not at night. La Grande had one radio station then — KLBM. At the time of the Pearl Harbor attack there were at least 30 young men from Union County stationed overseas in the military. The number included sev- eral men at Pearl Harbor. Family members did not know for at least a day who had survived the attack. The Dec. 8, 1941, edition of The Observer stated that casualty lists would begin appearing in the next edition. In addition to mem- bers of the military, Union County residents were also concerned about the wel- fare of three Willamette University football players from La Grande. The players — Glen Nordquist, “Buddy’’ Reynolds and Dave Kelly — had traveled with Willamette Univer- sity’s team to play a game against the University of Hawaii in Honolulu. Willamette played on Dec. 6 and was in Hawaii the next day when the Jap- anese attacked. None of the players were injured in the Pearl Harbor attack. However, this news did not reach La Grande until Dec. 9. Getting down and dirty in the trenches Dick Mason/The Observer Tim Forsythe of InfraSource Services does trench work on Wednesday, Dec. 2, 2020, on Terrace Avenue in La Grande for Avista Utilities. Preventing suicide with ‘Question, Persuade, Refer’ method may save lives By Dick Mason The Observer MORE INFORMATION ISLAND CITY — Sometimes asking a ques- tion is the best way to save a life. This is critically true if one is using the “Question, Persuade, Refer” method for reaching out to someone feared to be so depressed they may commit suicide. La Grande High School counselor Teresa Dowdy emphasized this while giving a QPR training ses- sion, Friday, Dec. 4, to teachers and staff at Island City Elementary School. Dowdy said under- standing this method for emergency mental inter- vention is akin to knowing The La Grande School District is providing “Question, Persuade, Refer” training to teachers and staff to strengthen its conformity to Measure 52, which the Legislature passed in 2019. Measure 52 requires Oregon school districts to have a comprehensive plan for student suicide prevention in place. The La Grande School District already had a good plan, La Grande High School coun- selor Teresa Dowdy said, but adding training will boost it. CPR to revive someone whose heart has stopped. Using the QPR method — question, persuade and refer — she said, allows one to address a mental health crisis before professionals can help the person. She said many people in the community know CPR and she hopes that soon will be true for QPR. “It is important to have people community-wide who can recognize the signs (of someone considering taking their own life) and know how to respond to help them,” said Dowdy, a certified QPR trainer. To apply the QPR method one first asks someone they are con- cerned about if they are considering hurting them- selves; then, if they say yes, the individual tries to per- suade the at-risk person to seek help and next, if they are successful, they refer the person to a counselor or another mental health professional. Dowdy said when asking the initial question, one can use a direct or less direct approach but always should do so in a sensitive manner. Someone using a less direct approach, she suggested, could ask, “Have you been so unhappy lately that you’ve been thinking about ending your life?” or “Do you ever wish you could go to sleep and never wake up?” Someone choosing a more direct approach could say: “You look upset and down. Are you thinking about suicide?” She added that research has shown once the ques- tion is asked, people often express a sense of relief and open up about their feelings. Dowdy said if someone is trying to per- suade another to seek help and is unsuccessful, that is when they should call a crisis worker or 911 if they are concerned. When someone agrees to go to a mental health pro- fessional, it is important to get them to make a brief commitment. “If they say ‘yes,’ ask them, ‘Will you promise me that you will not to hurt yourself in between now and the time you talk to a mental health profes- sional?’” Dowdy said. In terms of making a referral, Dowdy said it is important to always have contact information for mental health professionals available one can share when needed. Friday’s QPR training was one of about half a dozen Dowdy will be con- ducting in the La Grande School District and online for the public over the next month. Dowdy’s next online training for the public will be Dec. 15 at 6 p.m. To sign up, go to the Center for Human Development Inc.’s website at www.chdinc.org or visit its Facebook page.
