FROM PAGE ONE
TUESDAY, APRIL 6, 2021
THE OBSERVER — 5A
REACT
Continued from Page 1A
Alex Wittwer/The Observer
Bob Jensen applies glaze to ceramics in his workshop at The Potter’s House in La Grande on Thursday, April 1,
2021. Jensen, along with other potters in the region, are donating handmade bowls to Shelter From the Storm’s
annual Soup Supper fundraiser.
SUPPER
Continued from Page 1A
To participate in this
year’s fundraiser, people
must purchase a ticket
online, at the Shelter
From the Storm offi ce
or from one of its board
members.
Then, starting April
17, donors will be able to
come to Shelter From the
Storm to pick up a ceramic
bowl they can keep. They
also will receive a voucher
for soup from one of sev-
eral Union County restau-
rants participating in the
fundraiser.
Participants can pick up
soup bowls and purchase
soup voucher tickets April
17-30 at Shelter From the
Storm, 10901 Island Ave.,
Island City, during offi ce
hours: Monday-Friday,
AWARD
Continued from Page 1A
nomination in the short
documentary category.
This is Fitzgerald’s
second Academy Award
nomination. His 2018 doc-
umentary “Lifeboat,” about
North African migrants
trying to make it across the
Mediterranean Sea, also
made the academy’s list.
Fitzgerald said he
believes he owes his suc-
cess to the support he
received at Eastern, where
he earned a degree in
theater.
“I have a deep sense of
gratitude (for Eastern),”
said Fitzgerald, who now
lives in Happy Valley in
Clackamas County.
Fitzgerald said if he had
attended a larger school
he might not have done as
well because he would have
been in larger classes with
less access to his profes-
sors. He credited people
such as former EOU the-
ater professor Mark Kuntz
and Mark Shadle, a former
writing and English pro-
fessor, with providing guid-
ance at a critical time of his
life.
“They took me under
their wing when I was a
young man trying to fi nd
my way,” said Fitzgerald,
who graduated with a
minor in creative writing.
8 a.m. to noon and 1-5 p.m.
While the method
of getting the soup has
changed, one element of
the event remains the same:
Local potters have made
and donated all the Soup
Supper bowls.
“They have been very
generous,” Landa said.
Bob Jensen, co-owner
of The Potter’s House with
his wife, Judy, is among
the potters who pro-
vided bowls. Jensen made
12 bowls for this year’s
Soup Supper. He has been
making bowls annually for
the fundraiser for at least
two decades.
“It is for a great cause,”
said Jensen, a retired La
Grande High School art
teacher. Jensen had his
LHS students make bowls
for the Soup Supper years
ago. He said it helped get
them interested in a valu-
able community service
organization.
Jensen is one of many
local potters who made
bowls for the Soup Supper
in 2020 when Shelter From
the Storm conducted it
in traditional fashion just
before the COVID-19 pan-
demic hit, Landa said. The
organization’s fundraising
eff orts were hurt, though,
in 2020 because it was not
able to hold its 3 Rivers
Race Against Domestic
Violence in its regular
manner due to COVID-19.
The race went on virtually
instead but was not nearly
as successful as in the past.
Despite the 3 Rivers
Race shortfall, Shelter From
the Storm made it through
2020 intact. Landa credited
this in large part to grants it
received from the Women’s
Foundation of Oregon and
the All State Foundation.
The documentary fi lm-
maker said he fears he
might have lost his way
had he attended a larger
university, especially after
growing up in Monument,
a town of less than 200
people in Grant County.
His high school graduating
class had seven members.
Fitzgerald said he
received an excellent edu-
cation in Monument, but its
small size did not prepare
him for a large university
experience, a major reason
he enrolled at Eastern. Fitz-
gerald said his interest in
theater was piqued in Mon-
ument when he appeared in
a high school production of
the “Wizard of Oz.”
“It sparked my interest,
it primed me for theater,”
he said.
Fitzgerald later appeared
in many play productions at
Eastern.
“I loved theater,” he
said.
Fitzgerald said he didn’t
switch his focus to fi lm
until graduate school at the
University of Oregon. He
originally applied to the
theater director master’s
program at Oregon because
an EOU professor encour-
aged him. At Oregon, how-
ever, chance led him to
take a fi lm class to fulfi ll a
credit requirement.
“I was literally just fl ip-
ping through the grad-
uate catalog and I stum-
bled upon this television
directing class at the grad-
uate level,” he said.
Once he took that class,
Fitzgerald said, he knew
that fi lmmaking was what
he wanted to do.
“Hunger Ward,” much
of which takes place in two
therapeutic feeding centers
in Yemen for children suf-
fering from malnutrition, is
the third in a humanitarian
trilogy that Fitzgerald is
directing. The fi rst was “50
Feet from Syria” (2015),
which focuses on doc-
tors working on the Syrian
border, and then came
“Lifeboat.”
Fitzgerald said “Hunger
Ward” is a fi lm he was
compelled to make because
of the magnitude of the
crisis in Yemen, where
many children are starving.
“I did not want to make
this fi lm, but I believed I
needed to,” he said.
Fitzgerald, who directed
and produced the docu-
mentary, said he was elated
when “Hunger Ward” was
nominated for an Academy
Award because this will
draw greater attention
to what is happening in
Yemen.
“It will place it on an
elevated stage,” Fitzgerald
said.
This year’s Academy
Awards ceremony will be
April 25 in Los Angeles
and broadcast by ABC.
teenagers do better without
having to get up so early.
Owen Morton, also
a LHS senior, said he is
excited about being able to
come to school fi ve days
a week, but said he will
miss the off -campus days
because they provided
him more time to com-
plete assignments.
Pat Des Jardin, a La
Grande High science
teacher, said the switch to
all in-person learning is
another step in the right
direction.
“We are getting the
educational process back
to normal, which is a good
thing,” Des Jardin said.
Sidronio Rangel, a high
school Spanish teacher,
also is excited that his
students return to class
fi ve days a week. He said
when teaching students a
subject, such as a new lan-
guage, it is better when a
teacher can see students
daily.
La Grande Middle
School social studies
teacher Anne Marie Fritz
also is looking forward
to having her students in
class every day.
“I am so excited. I
cannot wait,” Fritz said.
“I think this will be the
smoothest transition that
we have had. I hope the
whole community can
relax. We are now closer
to the fi nish line.”
Fritz said she believes
the new schedule will
help parents who have had
Dick Mason/The Observer, File
La Grande High School students leave school Thursday, Jan. 28, 2021,
after the fi rst day back to in-person learning since March 2020 because
of the pandemic. Starting Monday, April 12, students at the high school
and middle school return to in-person learning every weekday.
to spend much of their
time assisting their chil-
dren with schoolwork at
home under the current
schedule.
“I can’t imagine what
it must be like to have a
full-time job and have to
homeschool your kids,”
Fritz said.
Chris Leavitt, a La
Grande Middle School
counselor, echoed this
sentiment.
“This is the next step
back to normalcy,” Leavitt
said, a former band
teacher at the high school
and middle school.
Teachers who will
benefit from the change,
Leavitt said, include
choir and band teachers
because they will now get
to have all of their stu-
dents practicing together.
Klel Carson, a La
Grande Middle School
social studies teacher, said
having a full class of stu-
dents every day instead of
just half will allow him to
do more learning activi-
ties involving small teams
of students.
Carson said he mar-
vels at how well his stu-
dents are continuing to
adjust to changes at school
because of the COVID-19
pandemic. He said the
changes are teaching stu-
dents how to be adaptable
at a young age, something
that will serve them well
later in life.
“I told my students that
in terms of adaptability,”
Carson said, “they will be
the best ever.”
Still chance to win $20 gift certifi cate
There is still time to
submit answers in our
April Fools’ Day contest
and win a $20 gift certif-
icate to the local restau-
rant of your choice.
We ran an April Fool’s
Day gag in The Observer
on Thursday, April 1,
containing numerous pop
culture references. Find
that content — in our
print edition or online at
www.lagrandeobserver.
com — and send us an
email or a message on
Facebook with the name
of the article and a list of
the references.
The person who
lists the most correct
responses wins a $20 cer-
tifi cate to a local restau-
rant of their choice. In
the event more than one
person lists all the ref-
erences correctly, who-
ever submitted the com-
plete list fi rst is the
winner. Entries are due
by Thursday, April 8, at
noon.
Here is a hint for one
reference: John Carpen-
ter’s 1982 horror fi lm,
“The Thing.”
CALL your Union County
Commissioners
541-963-1001
Matt Scarfo
Donna Beverage
Paul Anderes
to give them your input.
Please
Leave a
Message on
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