The Hood River news., February 21, 2015, Image 10

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Hood River News, Saturday, February 21, 2015
D OG
Continued from Page A1
Photo by Kirby Neumann-Rea
F IRE T RAINING A T E XPO C ENTER
All Hood River County fire agencies participated Wednesday in a nighttime exercise at the
Hood River Expo Center on the waterfront, one of the few times in recent years that more than
a handful of people have been inside the building. Teams of four firefighters cut holes in an
interior metal door while other teams drilled for entering a smoke-filled exposed space. Mean-
while, other teams practiced rescue and extraction of an injured person, using the HRFD Tower
3, a ladder engine which enables the agency to get to roofs of multi-story buildings. A fog ma-
chine, like those used in haunted houses, replicated smoke, and LED flashers stood in for
flames, giving the exercise the feel, if not the heat, of an actual fire. The Expo Center which
was built in the 1980s and formerly hosted events such as Harvest Festival. It has been empty
for the past year, since Full Sail moved its warehouse back to its expanded downtown loca-
tion, though the Hood River Warming Shelter is temporarily using the north section of Expo
through March 8.
B USINESS
Continued from Page A1
of this stuff (because they’ve
traveled to Mexico), but some
will walk in and walk out —
they don’t know what it is.”
Everything is made from
scratch with fresh ingredi-
ents. Shredded fruit, includ-
ing mango, cucumber, co-
conut, jicama and papaya,
are typically sprinkled with
chili powder — “Most His-
panic people like anything
with chili,” Sylvia explained
— but the cups can be made
to order, with or without the
M ELODI
Continued from Page A1
As care coordinator, she
“keeps pieces from dropping
when you have this diagnosis
and have to see all these doc-
tors,” she said.
“I’ve always loved the
teaching part of nursing and
getting to know the people,
their stories and how I can
help them,” she said. “I like
helping patients make their
own good decisions.”
Still, oncolog y can be
tough. “You get close to the
patients,” Johnson said.
“Most nurses have the per-
sonality trait, they want to
try to fix things, and it’s dis-
heartening when you can’t
make it all better. You’re
there to support.”
Her schedule varies a bit
depending on if Mark is in
Salem verses Hood River. But
even when he is home, he
may not be. “It depends on
what he has for meetings,”
she explained.
She’s usually at Celilo by
7:30 a.m., with an occasional
7 a.m. meeting. After a full
day of work — Monday
through Thursday — she ex-
ercises before heading home.
If Mark is home, she exercis-
es before work. He’s the cook
in the family — “he’s a very
good cook and doesn’t mind
it,” she said — but when he’s
in Salem, she’s as likely to
grab a bowl of cereal for din-
ner as anything.
While Mark’s position is
considered a part time job —
and he’s paid as such — it’s
really full time, she said. It’s
her 36 hour workweeks that
primarily pays the couple’s
expenses.
“One thing you kind of
forget is he has to apply for
his job every two years and
raise his own funds,” she
said.
She’s not a big fan of cam-
paigning — Mark is often
gone and she has many oblig-
spicy topping.
“We can improvise any-
thing,” she added.
Besides antojitos, Tropi-
cali Fruit features juices and
sorbets — one of their
biggest seller is mango de
nikita, or mango sorbet.
“People cannot g et
enough,” Sylvia said, noting
the store goes through 12
three gallon ice cream buck-
ets of the sorbet each week.
This summer, the couple
will add a freezer to sell pop-
ular Mexican ice cream fla-
vors, coconut, guava and
mango among them.
Weekdays after 3 p.m. are
the busiest times, as are
weekends. Phone orders are
common — and so are cus-
tomers coming from The
Dalles. Because of the shop’s
popularity, the couple hopes
to expand to The Dalles with
a tentative March 2016 date
in mind.
Tropicali Fruit is located
at 1217 12th Street and is
open Tuesdays through
Thursdays from 11 a.m. to 7
p.m., Fridays and Saturdays
from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., and
Sundays from 11 a.m. to 7
p.m. The store is currently
closed on Mondays, although
Sylvia expects that to change
this spring. For more infor-
mation, call 541-399-7400.
ations to fulfill as his wife,
from chamber of commerce
events to nonprofit fundrais-
ers — but she enjoys talking
with constitutes and learn-
ing about their lives.
“I love to talk to people,”
she said. “I find out what
their story is, what they do
for a living. You find com-
monalities with whomever.
“This is a very diverse dis-
trict — there’s a lot of differ-
ent opinions,” Johnson
added. “It’s an advantage:
Not only do you need to work
harder, you get to work hard-
er to meet more people and
see different walks of life,
see the varying opinions,
look at both sides of things.”
The first year Mark was in
Salem — 2011— wasn’t bad
“because my daughter was a
senior and still at home and
active in everything. I had a
little comrade.”
The second year — 2012 —
was harder. Though it was a
short six week session, it was
also the winter an ice storm
hit the gorge, and Johnson
found herself snowed in,
without power for four days,
and melting snow to flush
the toilets. A neighbor
plowed her out, but she was
still homebound and alone
because of icy road condi-
tions.
“I can laugh about it now,”
she said.
When her kids where
younger, Johnson volun-
teered with SMART, at their
respective schools, and
served on the Young Life
board. These days, her volun-
teer work “usually has to do
with cancer.” She volunteers
with Relay for Life every
year in both Hood River and
The Dalles.
She’s also very involved
with the Christian Mission-
ary Alliance, where she at-
tends church. She serves as a
deaconess and helps with
“the fussy stuff that makes a
church,” such as cleaning or
making meals for those in
need. She set up communion
and subs in the nursery or
children’s ministry, two posi-
tions she previously held.
Johnson graduated with a
pre-nursing degree from
Western Washington Univer-
sity and received a BS in
nursing from Washington
State University’s (then) In-
tercolle giate Center for
Nursing Education, located
in Spokane, in January 1981.
The Johnsons were married
in 1980 and came to Hood
River in 1981, about 10
months after she received
her nursing certification.
Why Hood River? Mark
grew up in Parkdale, and the
two moved to the area so he
could work construction
with brother Jim. He started
Mark Johnson Construction
in 1985, a business they still
own.
Johnson’s parents were
both public school teachers,
as are her sisters. She broke
that mold.
“When I came along, I
have to do things a little dif-
ferent,” she said. Though her
parents expected her to take
higher level classes, she
pulled a mere C+ in her
upper level science class.
When she told her teacher at
a career fair that she wanted
to go into nursing, she was
told, “That’s for kids who are
good in science.”
She didn’t listen.
“You put your nose to the
grindstone and you can do
anything,” she said.
And despite not being
“particularly stellar” at sci-
ence, it’s a career she feels
good about.
“You can encourage some-
one through a difficult situa-
tion and then go home and
feel like you’ve really done
something, that you’ve made
a difference in someone’s
life,” she said. “It would be
hard to work in a job where I
felt I wasn’t making a differ-
ence.
“I think anybody can
make a difference no matter
what you do. You just be the
best you can be.”
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rescue dog in a shelter,
where it was determined
that he may have the right
stuff to become a narcotics
dog.
“By the time’s a dog’s two,
two and a half years old,
they have to kind of have a
certain criteria after their
puppy phase where they still
have got that play drive…
and he’s one of those,”
Paulsen explains.
Luke was taken in by the
Sherman County Sheriff ’s
Office, where he served as a
drug dog for several years,
trained by officers to sniff
out marijuana, cocaine,
heroin, and methampheta-
mine. HRCSO decided to
start their own program
after the deputy handling
Luke transitioned out of that
responsibility and the dog
was offered to HRCSO at no
cost.
He may not look like your
stereotypical police K9 — a
German Shepherd or a Mali-
nois — but Paulsen says
looks don’t matter, noting
that he’s even heard of Cock-
er Spaniel drug dogs.
“There’s a lot of dogs that
actually can’t do it,” Paulsen
says, “but it really doesn’t
matter so much as their
breed, but more their behav-
ior.”
Luke is also smaller than
the aforementioned breeds,
but Paulsen says that factor
works in HRCSO’s favor.
“He’s not a big dog, but
he’s just the right size, hon-
estly, to be able to get places
we need him to get to: under-
neath the floor compart-
ments of vehicles, under-
neath the steering compart-
ment, places like that… com-
mon areas where people
might hide illegal narcotics,”
he explains.
Paulsen, who’s been with
HRCSO for five years, says
he’s always been interested
in service and working dogs
and wanted the chance to
work with Luke. He began
training with his current
partner this summer, under
the tutelage of local resident
Phil Thaler, a retired Califor-
nia Highway Patrol officer.
“He’s done dog work since
1985, so he’s well versed,”
Paulsen says of Thaler.
“Without him, the county
wouldn’t have been able to
start this program success-
fully, because he’s donated
all of his time.”
Paulsen says other local
entities have also helped sup-
port the program, included
Gifted Groomers, Gorge
River Dog Wash, Hood River
Sand and Gravel, Little Bit
Ranch Supply, Coastal Farm
T RAIN
Continued from Page A1
railments, OPB reports that
tar sands oil concerns emer-
gency response planners due
to its sticky consistency,
making cleanup difficult if
the dense substance, known
as bitumen, spills into a wa-
terway, and then sinks to the
bottom.
The announcement of the
tar sands shipments comes
at a time when conversations
about oil trains have been
reinvigorated both on a re-
gional and national level.
Earlier this week, national
news outlets reported a CSX
tanker train carrying oil
from the Bakken shale for-
mation derailed in West Vir-
ginia, causing explosions
and fires that burned for
days, resulting in people
evacuating their homes.
The news also caused con-
cern for Oregon U.S. Sen.
Ron Wyden, who referred to
the delay between the start of
the shipments and when the
Oregon Department of Envi-
ronmental Quality learned
of them as “unacceptable.”
Even before this announce-
ment, both Wyden and his
colleague, Sen. Jeff Merkley,
pushed for federal legisla-
tion strengthening reporting
requirements for fossil fuel
shipments, requesting that
shippers notify first respon-
ders when trains carrying 20
Join James Nygren, current professional
pitcher for the Miami Marlins organization
on Sunday, February 22 for a fundraising
clinic at the HRVHS hitting facility.
Donations will be directed to
the Hood River Junior Baseball
organization and used to maintain
and improve Collins Field.
Time: 9am-11am for ages 8-11
and 11am-1pm for ages 12-15.
Photo by Ben Mitchell
LUKE THE K9 chases a tennis ball thrown by Deputy Travis Paulsen
out behind the Hood River County Courthouse. The tennis ball is
Luke’s reward when he makes a drug find. “He goes crazy for it,”
Paulsen says.
and Ranch, Hood River
Alpine Vet, Robert Stewart
Construction, and Tum-A-
Lum Lumber. Luke’s food is
also provided at no charge by
pet food company Science
Diet. Paulsen is paid a
stipend to take care of the
dog and house him at his
own home.
Luke, however does not get
a paycheck.
“His reward is a tennis
ball,” Paulsen says. “He goes
crazy for it; it’s what he
wants.”
After training with
Paulsen throughout the sum-
mer, Luke took the test re-
quired by the Oregon Police
Canine Association and
passed his first time, likely
made easier thanks to Luke’s
“hundreds of hours of train-
ing under his belt,” suggests
Paulsen.
Despite all that experi-
ence, Paulsen is still re-
quired to spend a minimum
of four hours per week con-
tinually training Luke,
which usually involves him
hiding a piece of cotton that
has been sitting in a bag of
drugs, soaking up the odor,
and then placing it in bags,
boxes, luggage, around the
courthouse, in tow yards.
There is always an item or
two that does not contain a
drug scent to make sure
Luke is signaling correctly,
and the routine is mixed up
“to make sure we’re keeping
the dog on his toes.”
When the dog finds a drug
odor, he either sits or lies
down — he’s not an attack
dog, Paulsen notes — but
learning the dog’s other body
langua g e is an ongoing
process, according to
Paulsen.
“When your dog is on drug
odor, you notice all the
things they do besides alert-
ing,” he explains. “I have to
look at his tail, at his rib
cage, watch his breathing…
there’s so much more than
just the dog sitting. You have
to observe everything.”
Luke has proved adept at
noticing things of ficers
might not pick up. Paulsen
points to an incident during
one dr ug investig ation
where Luke signaled on a
seemingly innocent-looking
Pepsi can and upon further
examination, Paulsen deter-
mined it had a compartment
in it that had been used to
conceal drugs. Paulsen says
the dog isn’t brought out in
random situations and is
only used when there is a
“reasonable suspicion” of a
drug violation.
But besides his sensitive
snout, Luke’s presence alone
can cause suspects to fess up,
knowing that it’s hard to fool
a drug dog.
“Just having him available
at a moment’s notice is huge,
because just having him and
letting people know, ‘Hey, we
have a drug K-9,’ that in and
of itself has helped in some
situations,” Paulsen says.
Additionally, HRCSO uses
Luke for PR, sending him out
to schools with deputies for
drug education programs.
He’ll also offer assistance
when the local police depart-
ment needs a drug dog.
So far, Paulsen estimates
Luke has found several
pounds of marijuana and 5
or 6 ounces of meth, along
with small amounts of coke
and heroin in his tenure
with HRCSO. He hopes the
experiment will continue to
go well.
“With Luke and me, the
first couple years are very
imperative to see how things
go, to see how it’s working,”
he says.
“I was very fortunate and
felt privileged that I was the
first person that could facili-
tate that sort of program
here,” Paulsen adds. “Hope-
fully it will be a long-running
program that’s continued on
down after I’m not involved.”
or more carloads of flamma-
ble liquids — crude oil or
otherwise — roll through
their communities.
On a regional level, legis-
lation has been introduced in
the Washington State Legis-
lature that would impose an
“oil spill response tax” on oil
terminals in the state that re-
ceive crude oil shipments by
rail. The bill, SB 5057, would
also mandate that the Wash-
ington Department of Ecolo-
gy provide grants to emer-
gency responders that would
be used for training and
equipment related to an oil
spill response.
According to a report in
the White Salmon Enter-
prise, a local delegation, in-
cluding Stevenson City
Councilor Julie Mayfield and
Hood River City Councilor
Peter Cornelison, recently
traveled to Olympia, Wash.,
to testify in support of SB
5057 and a related bill, HB
1449. The cities of Stevenson
and Hood River, along with
The Dalles, have passed reso-
lutions in recent months ad-
dressing concerns arising
from oil train shipping and
their potential public safety
and environmental impacts
on the Gorge. They join sev-
eral other cities up and down
both sides of the Gorge that
have passed similar resolu-
tions over the past couple
years.
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L ICENSED & C ERTIFIED
Athlete of the Week
Dhani Freeland
HRVHS swimming
HRVHS swimming standout Dhani
Freeland won two individual events
and set a new 100 freestyle record last
weekend at the CRC championships.
The Athlete of the Week will receive a large
pizza with 2 toppings from Papa Murphy’s.
Congratulations to our winner 2-21-15.
1765 12th St. • Hood River • 541-386-7131