2A — THE OBSERVER
SaTuRday, dEcEmBER 12, 2020
LOCAL/REGION
Daily 2021 will be a big year for Union School District
Planner
TODAY
Today is Saturday, Dec.
12, the 347th day of 2020.
There are 19 days left in the
year.
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT IN
HISTORY:
On Dec. 12, 2000, George
W. Bush became presi-
dent-elect as a divided U.S.
Supreme Court reversed a
state court decision for re-
counts in Florida’s contested
election.
ON THIS DATE:
In 1787, Pennsylvania
became the second state to
ratify the U.S. Constitution.
In 1870, Joseph H. Rainey
of South Carolina became
the first Black lawmaker
sworn into the U.S. House of
Representatives.
In 1913, authorities in
Florence, Italy, announced
that the “Mona Lisa,” stolen
from the Louvre Museum
in Paris in 1911, had been
recovered.
In 1974, “The Godfather,
Part II premiered in New
York.
In 1977, the dance movie
“Saturday Night Fever,”
starring John Travolta, pre-
miered in New York.
In 1995, by three votes,
the Senate killed a consti-
tutional amendment giving
Congress authority to out-
law flag burning and other
forms of desecration against
Old Glory.
In 2000, the Marine Corps
grounded all eight of its
high-tech MV-22 Osprey
tilt-rotor aircraft following a
fiery crash in North Carolina
that killed four Marines.
(The Osprey program was
revived by the Pentagon in
2005.)
In 2012, North Koreans
danced in the streets of their
capital, Pyongyang, after
the regime of Kim Jong Un
succeeded in firing a long-
range rocket in defiance of
international warnings.
In 2018, Michael Co-
hen, President Donald
Trump’s one-time fixer, was
sentenced to three years in
prison for crimes that includ-
ed arranging the payment
of hush money to conceal
Trump’s alleged sexual
affairs.
LOTTERY
Megabucks: $5.5 million
4-33-36-37-38-45
Mega Millions: $262 million
15-19-33-39-68 — 25 x3
Powerball: $202 million
11-14-31-47-48 — PB 4 x2
Win for Life: Dec. 9
25-48-60-75
Pick 4: Dec. 10
• 1 p.m.: 1-0-3-7; • 4 p.m.: 4-2-7-9;
• 7 p.m.: 7-4-0-9 • 10 p.m.: 1-0-3-7
Pick 4: Dec. 9
• 1 p.m.: 0-1-7-6 • 4 p.m.: 0-1-7-6;
• 7 p.m.: 2-4-4-7; • 10 p.m.: 3-5-7-6
DELIVERY ISSUES?
If you have any problems
receiving your Observer,
please call 541-963-3161.
By Dick Mason
The Observer
UNION — Bond-funded
renovation work in the
Union School District in
2021 will modernize its
aging buildings and wake
up the echoes of one struc-
ture’s past.
A presentation on the
2021 bond work made these
points Wednesday night,
Dec. 9, at a meeting of the
Union School Board. Ren-
ovation work is set to start
in March, said Cassie Hib-
bert of the Wenaha Group,
which is serving as the con-
struction management pro-
vider for the school district.
Hibbert said exterior work
will be done while school is
in session and interior proj-
ects will be undertaken in
the summer.
Projects include
restoring the steps of Union
High School’s east entrance,
which features four ornate
pillars that are least 100
years old. The stairway
work will allow the
entrance, which has been
closed for years because
of the poor condition of its
steps, to open again.
That reopening also will
boost security because the
foyer of the entrance will
be renovated into a secu-
rity vestibule where secre-
taries can monitor everyone
coming into the building,
said Union School Dis-
trict Superintendent Carter
Wells.
After the renovations,
the old entrance on school
days will serve as the only
entrance to the school,
Observer File
The pillars of the east entrance of Union High School now are easier to see after the
removal of trees. Bond-funded work in 2021 on the entrance will boost security at the
school.
“It will give all individuals access to every part of the
building.”
— Union School District Superintendent Carter Wells on the coming improvements at
Union High School
which was built about 1912.
The present main entry
point is on its north side,
and that will be closed on
school days.
The old main entryway
is much easier to see now
because of the recent
removal of large trees that
obscured its view. Richard
Higgins of BLURB Archi-
Wallowa County Chieftain
WALLOWA — A dis-
pute over pets dogged a
couple of Wallowa men
Sunday, Dec. 6, resulting
in the arrest of Jack Leroy
Poulson of Wallowa for
fourth-degree assault and
strangulation, according to
the Wallowa County Sher-
iff’s Office.
Chief Deputy Fred
Steen said Tuesday, Dec. 8,
that Sunday’s call came at
1 p.m. as an assault in prog-
ress. He did not know the
name of the caller or that
of the building.
“It will give all individ-
uals access to every part of
the building,” Wells said.
This will help the school
district meet its top bond
project goal, which is to
ensure very person can
access the campus with dig-
nity, Wells said.
Major renovations also
Wallowa County schools prep for virtual Christmas programs
By Bill Bradshaw
Wallowa County Chieftain
WALLOWA COUNTY
— Two of Wallowa Coun-
ty’s three school dis-
tricts are planning virtual
Christmas programs due to
the coronavirus pandemic
restrictions.
The schools at Wallowa
and Joseph have programs
planned, while Enterprise
does not.
“It’s another casualty
of COVID,” said Steve
Roundy, office manager
at Enterprise Elementary
School. “We’re not going to
be able to have one.”
Wendy Stauffer, music
teacher at Wallowa Ele-
mentary School, said
although the program still
is a work in progress, she
plans to have it posted on
the school’s Facebook page
Wednesday, Dec. 16, or the
day after. There also will be
a list of the songs the var-
ious classes will perform.
She said each class will
do songs that will include
singing and instrumenta-
tion. There is no overall
theme to the program other
than Christmas.
“I usually pick songs
appropriate to their grade
level,” she said.
Stauffer said the concert
won’t be live, but it will be
a compilation of recorded
sessions from each class
and a combined one of all
the classes.
“That’ll allow us to do
a couple of joint pieces so
I can combine the videos,”
Dogged dispute leads to assault arrest
By Bill Bradshaw
tects, the firm doing the
design work for the bond
projects, praised the school
district for taking this step.
Seeing the entrance, he
said, “adds to the grandeur
of the building.”
Additional work at
the high school in 2021
includes the installation of
an elevator on the south side
will improve accessibility to
the school’s gym building,
including the installation of
wheelchair platforms near
the gym floor.
Work in 2021 also calls
for replacing the grass
field in front of the east
entrance of Union Elemen-
tary School’s S.E. Miller
building with a parking lot.
Parents then could drive up
to the front of the school to
pick up and drop off chil-
dren rather than at the the
building’s south entrance
parking lot, which has more
traffic because it is about
100 feet from the high
school, Wells said.
The $4 million bond
school district voters
approved in 2019 will fund
the renovations, along with
another $4 million in a
grant from the the Oregon
School Capital Improve-
ment Matching Program.
The Union School Dis-
trict, under state law,
has three years to spend
85% of the $8 million in
funding it will receive.
Bond project work started
this past summer with the
replacement of the roof for
Union Elementary School’s
Hutchinson building.
Wells said rising con-
struction costs may mean
the school district’s bond
and grant funding will
not go as far as some had
anticipated, but it still will
help the school district
enormously.
“The long-term impact
for future groups of stu-
dents will be tremendous,”
Wells said.
of the victim, other than
the victim’s last name was
Daugherty and is a male in
his 40s.
“What we learned was
that the victim of assault
had run into or found large
dogs belonging to Jack
Poulson that were trying to
attack his small dog,” Steen
said. “The victim allegedly
picked up a splitting maul
and tried to chase the dogs
away.”
Steen said the threat-
ening dogs were two “Aki-
ta-type dogs,” much larger
than the victim’s dogs.
she said.
Stauffer said she doesn’t
want the pandemic to
totally ruin the holidays for
the area and part of this is
having the concert “to share
it with the community.”
But the pandemic does
require a certain amount of
adjustment.
“It’ll be different
because of COVID, but
the kids are having fun
anyway,” Stauffer said.
Michelle Homan,
director of music education
at Joseph Charter School,
said a similar program is
planned for Joseph.
She, too, plans to prere-
cord the different classes
performing and then edit
it together into a single
program.
“Technically, it’s still
virtual, even though it’s not
live. It’ll be prerecorded at
different times,” she said.
“The kids say it’s like a
movie.”
Homan said each class
will perform two songs that
will be a mix of classic hol-
iday tunes. As in Wallowa,
there is no overall theme
beyond Christmas.
The older students, those
in fourth through sixth
grade, will accompany the
songs with instruments.
However, Homan said,
because of the COVID-19
restrictions, they’ve only
been able to practice since
Nov. 1.
“They’ve only been
playing a few weeks, but
they sound pretty good
given the short amount of
time they’ve been able to
play,” she said.
The school will post the
performance on YouTube
on Monday, Dec. 14. A link
to the YouTube page will
be available on the school’s
Facebook page, Homan
said.
Even though things are
different because of the
pandemic, it doesn’t seem
to have dulled the kids’
enthusiasm.
“The kids are excited,
even though it’s not the
way they usually perform,
since they can watch it at
home with their families,”
Homan said. “They all
think they’re going to be
famous because they’ll be
on YouTube.”
Christmas tree COVID-19 style
The 60-year-old Poulson
allegedly drove up in his
pickup and began the
scuffle, putting Daugherty
in a chokehold, thus the
strangulation charge.
“Those were the alle-
gations that were reported
to us,” Steen said. “Mr.
Poulson had a different ver-
sion of the events.”
Poulson was able to post
10% of the $15,000 bail and
was released, Steen said. He
added the sheriff’s office
referred the case to the Wal-
lowa County District Attor-
ney’s Office for prosecution.
Caution tape bars
access to the holiday
tree in the gazebo at
Union City Park on
Monday, Dec. 7, 2020.
Entry to the gazebo —
and more such gather-
ing places — are under
COVID-19 pandemic
restrictions.
Kaleb Lay/The Observer
Artificial intelligence powered chatbot offers answers without judgment
By Kathy Aney
East Oregonian
PENDLETON — Blue
Mountain Community Col-
lege recently launched an
artificial intelligence-pow-
ered chatbot to improve
communication with stu-
dents and the commu-
nity. Conversations happen
online or via text message.
“Timboto is a robot ver-
sion of our beloved mascot,”
said Daniel Anderson,
BMCC’s dean of instruction
for arts and sciences.
The chatbot is the cere-
bral side of the school’s
mascot, a wolf named
Timber who was known
pre-COVID-19 for his high
fives and hugs. His alter
ego, Timboto, responds to
computer queries at any
time of the night or day.
Such bots are emerging
in academia and in other
venues. They are powered
by a knowledge base of
questions and answers and
an algorithm that detects
nuances in the written dia-
logue. The chatbots learn as
they go.
Anderson said he learned
about the technology in an
academic context during
a presentation by Georgia
State University. GSU,
which comprises both a
university and a commu-
nity college, uses a chatbot
to improve communications
and credits the technology
for increasing enrollment
and the graduation rate at
the community college.
Anderson floated the
idea on his own campus
in Pendleton. The bot,
he said, would be avail-
able to students outside
of normal business hours
whenever they felt like
East Oregonian, File
Blue Mountain Community College, Pendleton, recently
launched an artificial intelligence-powered chatbot to im-
prove communication with students and the community.
Conversations happen online or via text message.
communicating.
“Our students work
during the day. They’ve got
families,” Anderson said.
“First-year students some-
times feel a little embar-
rassed. You can ask it all
sorts of questions at any
hour. This is a tool that
doesn’t judge you.”
He said the program
comes with a database
of 800-plus questions,
with follow-up questions
attached to those.
“The best part is it gets
smarter,” Anderson said.
“It learns the ropes and gets
better at responding.”
Library Director Brit-
tany Young tackled the job
of getting Timboto ready to
go live. She said the tech-
nology supplier AdmitHub
furnished an initial pool
of questions and answers.
Young’s staff tweaked the
knowledge base to ensure it
made sense for the BMCC
community.
“We did a day of testing
the bot,” Young said. “Stu-
dents and staff had conver-
sations with Timboto and
asked it questions.”
When Timboto couldn’t
respond, Young’s team fed
it more answers. Testers
also asked a few silly ques-
tions to see how the bot
would handle them. When
asked “What is love,” Tim-
boto supplied a link to
a YouTube video of pop
singer Haddaway singing
“What is Love?” When
someone inquired, “Do you
like animals?” the chatbot
responded with, “Ani-
mals are fun, but person-
ally I prefer bots.” The team
left both answers in place.
Timboto, who Young says
has personality, also uses
emojis.
The bot, which went
live a week ago, generally
answers more serious ques-
tions regarding registration,
financial aid and how the
school is handling the pan-
demic. If someone doesn’t
speak English as their first
language, Timboto can
translate into whatever lan-
guage is desired.
The chatbot is avail-
able on BMCC’s homepage.
Simply press the “Talk to
us” button. Eventually the
button will appear on every
page on the website.