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3A THE DAILY ASTORIAN • MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2018 Late nursing instructor remembered for passion Choate died while hiking By EDWARD STRATTON The Daily Astorian Family, friends and col- leagues of Laurie Choate filled the First Lutheran Church in Astoria last week to memorial- ize a woman they described as a dedicated educator who gave it her all, whether instructing nurses or exploring the moun- tains in search of wildflowers. The Long Beach Penin- sula native died earlier this month while hiking in the cen- tral Washington Cascades. She is survived by her daugh- ter, Katie, an education pol- icy analyst in Seattle; her son, John, a local forester with the state; and brothers, David and Fritz Wiegardt, of Ocean Park, Washington. “I just think that she always loved empowering people, especially women, to get into Katie Choate In addition to her work in the nursing field, Laurie Choate was an outdoor enthusiast. professions they could get passionate about, and teach- ing was always easy for her,” Katie Choate said. “I would say the relationships were the most important piece.” Laurie Choate spent 30 years with Clatsop Commu- nity College teaching nurs- ing and science, and later run- ning the nursing and allied health department from 2006 to 2014. She served on the Astoria School Board from 2002 to 2014. Four years ago, she retired locally and moved to Olympia, Washington, to help the nursing program at South Puget Sound Commu- nity College regain national accreditation. Allison Sansom, who took over from Choate as director of nursing and allied health four years ago, remembers being an administrator at an assisted living facility when Choate encouraged her to attend graduate school and apply to run the college’s nurs- ing program. “I believe I inherited about the best-run nursing program in the state of Oregon,” San- som said. “It’s enormous shoes to fill, because she was so good at everything she did.” Throughout the church on Thursday were remembrances of Choate’s various passions in life — photos of the wildflow- ers and landscapes she pho- tographed while hiking; pen- dants and other memorabilia from marathons, the Hood to Coast Relay and her time run- ning track at the University of Washington; certificates from her long hours spent vol- unteering with the National Park Service and the Olympia Mountaineers; and an award Ailing killer whale declared dead By PHUONG LE and GENE JOHNSON Associated Press SEATTLE — Efforts to find a sick young orca from a criti- cally endangered population of killer whales in the Pacific Northwest came up empty, and a scientist who tracks the ani- mals declared her dead. The grim news means sci- entists believe just 74 whales remain in a group that has failed to reproduce success- fully in the past three years. The orcas have struggled with pollution, boat noise and, most severely, a dearth of their pre- ferred prey, Chinook salmon, because of dams, habitat loss and overfishing. “We’re watching a popula- tion marching toward extinc- tion,” said Ken Balcomb of the Center for Whale Research. “Unless we do something about salmon recovery, we’re just not going to have these whales in the future.” The whales are in such bad shape that experts prepared last-ditch efforts to save the emaciated nearly 4-year-old known as J50. A sharpshoot- ing veterinarian fired an anti- biotic-filled dart into her, crews ‘Unless we do something about salmon recovery, we’re just not going to have these whales in the future.’ Ken Balcomb of the Center for Whale Research dropped live salmon in front of her to try to get her to eat, and scientists even mulled captur- ing her so they could diagnose and treat her. J50 has not been seen since Sept. 10. As teams scrambled to find her last week, she failed to appear with her pod once again, despite favorable sight- ing conditions. Balcomb, who tracks the whales for the U.S. government, declared her dead late Thursday afternoon. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration called off the active search late Friday. Crews in a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter, 10 vessels, whale watch crews and other resources on both sides of the border were involved in the search. Authorities also alerted a network of people who respond when marine mam- mals wash ashore. Whale experts feared the orca was dead earlier this month when J50 lagged behind her family and went missing. But she later turned up and was seen with her family. The distinctive black-and- white orcas, known as south- ern resident killer whales, have struggled since they were listed as an endangered species in the U.S. and Canada well over a decade ago. The orcas’ numbers are now at their lowest in more than three decades. Another whale in the same pod, known as J35, triggered WANTED Alder and Maple Saw Logs & Standing Timber Northwest Hardwoods • Longview, WA international sympathy this summer when she kept the body of her dead calf afloat in waters for more than two weeks. The message, the Center for Whale Research said in a website post, is that extinction is looming “while the humans convene task forces and confer- ence calls that result in nothing, or worse than nothing, divert- ing attention and resources from solving the underlying ecological problems.” Scientist began to be con- cerned about J50 in July. Teams dropped live salmon from a boat as J50 and her pod swam behind — a test to see whether fish could be used as a means of delivering medication. Drone images taken ear- lier this month showed J50 much thinner than she was last year. Her mother, J16, has also declined in condition in the past month. for her 12 years of service on the Astoria School Board. Grace Laman, a nutrition instructor at the college and an Astoria School Board mem- ber, said it was Choate — during a Hood to Coast Relay — who encouraged her to get involved with the school dis- trict and take up the health and wellness baton. “She was sort of a cham- pion for health and wellness in the school district,” Laman said. Below one table with Cho- ate’s portrait was a soap box, presented to her by students when she retired from the col- lege as a nod to her passion on various health-related issues. Karla Glenn, who graduated from the college’s nursing pro- gram in 2011, described Cho- ate as the pre-eminent role model, both tough and highly supportive of her students. “I wouldn’t be here as a nurse today if it wasn’t for Laurie,” Glenn said. “She was very interested in your success.” After Choate’s memorial, people filled out prayer strips with their name and a word that best described her. Katie Choate plans to embroider the strips and string them together as another memorial to her mother. Asked about her fondest memories of her mother, Katie Choate thought again of the outdoors. “We did two huge hikes together, one around the Won- derland Trail that goes around Mount Rainier, and another called the Tour du Mont Blanc,” she said. “They’re my two fondest memories, and honestly the two favorite trips I’ve taken.” Many of the outdoor enthu- siasts Choate spent time with in the mountains were not able to make the memorial in Asto- ria, she said. They will meet early next month for a celebra- tion of life on Mount Rainier. Astoria woman to represent Oregon fisheries The Daily Astorian An Astorian long involved in the West Coast’s commercial fishing indus- try will now have a hand in managing those fisheries. Christa Svensson has been sworn in as a member of the Pacific Fishery Man- agement Council to repre- sent Oregon. The 19-mem- ber council directs the fisheries arm of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on the man- agement of federal West Coast fisheries. Svensson is the fleet man- ager for Ilwaco Fish Co./ Alber Seafoods. Her term on the council will expire in August 2021. Svensson was a com- mercial fisherman for seven years while paying for undergradu- ate and grad- uate school, fishing for salmon, hali- but and sable- fish in Alaska. Christa More recently, Svensson she worked at Bornstein Sea- foods for 12 years in inter- national sales, sustainabil- ity and marketing. She has also worked for National Seafood Educations, where she researched recipe ideas, taught cooking classes nationally and sold seafood cookbooks. She serves as the vice president of the American Fisherman’s Research Foun- dation and is on the board of the REALOregon, Resource Education and Agricultural Leadership Program. Happy Birthday J.M. 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