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Official Newspaper, City of Hood River and Hood River County
HOOD RIVER, OREGON
■
W EEKEND E DITION
Vol. 109, No. 29
SATURDAY, APRIL 11, 2015
By PAYTON RIGERT
News intern
“I love giving back to the
community” is Lucas Gilbert’s
response to Hood River Valley
High School Robotics newest
project.
Gilbert is involved in an or-
ganization called Enabling the
Future, a global network of pas-
sionate volunteers using 3D
printing to give the world a
“Helping Hand”.
Enabling the Future special-
izes in creating free 3D printed
prosthetic devices for children
and adults who have wrists but
no fingers or elbows with no
hands. These devices are color-
ful, fun and provide a general
basic functional grasping mo-
tion. Enabling the Future pro-
vides the pattern for the 3D
printed device and then people,
like Gilbert, print them out and
assemble them.
Gilbert, a sophomore, has re-
cently finished his first 3D
printed hand. “The total project
took about 35 hours, but most of
it was the time it took to print
the plastic out,” he said. “It was
very easy and anybody could do
it.” Gilbert is now working on
adding to the original design to
make it easier to use. He wants
to add more of a robotic compe-
tent to it using his skills from
his time in HRVHS Robotics, an
active part of the HRVHS Engi-
neering department.
This is the first prototype
that the HRVHS Robotics class
has put together. They are look-
ing for anyone who is in need of
a prosthetic hand. The dimen-
sions can be scaled to fit any
hand and the Robotics Class
will donate the prosthetic to
anyone who would benefit from
a 3D printed prosthetic hand.
If you have any questions,
contact Jef f Blackman at
jeff.blackman@hoodriver.k12.o
r.us.
6 Sections, 54 Pages
www.hoodrivernews.com
Getting a hand up
HRVHS robotics
student gives back
to community
75 cents
Schools
looking at
$896,000 in
budget cuts
next year
By KIRBY NEUMANN-REA
News editor
Photo by Payton Rigert
HELPING HAND: Lucas Gilbert holds a prosthetic device he created in the HRVHS En-
gineering department.
Saying “it will be impossible to
make cuts that don’t affect kids,”
Superintendent Dan Goldman an-
nounced that he expects budget
cuts totaling $896,000 will be re-
quired of Hood River County
School District for the 2015-16
school year.
That’s about $96,000 more than
the district dealt with two years
ago when it had to make about
$800,000 in budget cuts due to a
flatlined biennial budget in 2013.
Goldman said the grim HRCSD
budget picture is now clearer fol-
lowing last week’s Oregon Legisla-
ture approval of a $7.235 billion bi-
ennial budget.
Meanwhile, Rep. Mark Johnson
See BUDGET, Page A11
Soto-Quintana sentenced 17 years for manslaughter, assault
By PATRICK MULVIHILL
News staff writer
A Hood River man accused of
killing the mother of his child last
year was sentenced to 17 years in
prison Wednesday after pleading
guilty to charges of manslaughter
and assault.
Miguel Angel Soto-Quintana, 29,
was convicted for the death of Ce-
cilia Campuzano-Ortiz, 23, last Oc-
tober. Soto-Quintana will serve 16
years in prison for manslaughter
and 14 months for fourth degree as-
sault.
He
will
also
serve three
years in a
post-prison
supervision
program
and
pay
$14,611 in
restitution,
Miguel Angel
most
of
Soto-Quintana
which is por-
tioned for the victim’s family.
In a written statement read by
S p o t l i g h t
a
t
u
r
d
a
y
his translator, Soto-Quintana said
he had been drinking and had “lost
control” when he caused Cam-
puzano-Ortiz’s death by suffocating
her.
“At a certain time I lost control
and, without thinking about it, I
grabbed a pillow and I put it on her
face so she wouldn’t scream any-
more … Afterwards, I realized that
she was not breathing anymore.”
Assistant District Attorney Car-
rie Rasmussen and Soto-Quin-
tana’s attorney, Clayton Lance,
agreed there was evidence that
Soto-Quintana’s three-year-old
daughter, Damaris, witnessed the
death of her mother.
“Clearly the daughter was in the
house. There is evidence that she
saw … the event,” said Lance.
Soto-Quintana expressed re-
morse for his actions. “At the mo-
ment I was not thinking,” he said.
“My bad behavior and terrible ac-
tions were the cause of her death.”
Soto-Quintana was held in
Northern Oregon Regional Correc-
tions Facility in The Dalles for
nearly six months before his sen-
tencing hearing. He was arraigned
last October and appeared in court
via video feed from jail in Novem-
ber. During the latter appearance,
Lance requested postponement of
the hearing in order to prepare a
plea.
Soto-Quintana appeared before
Judge John Wolf in a packed court-
room at the Hood River County
Courthouse Wednesday. Members
See SENTENCE, Page A11
A weekly series about a day in the life ...
Artist Robin Panzer employs ancient ‘new’ medium
BY TRISHA WALKER
News staff writer
Hood River’s Robin Panzer is a Chi-
giri-e artist — an ancient Japanese art
form (Heian period, 794-1185) that uses
layers of hand torn colored paper to cre-
ate images that, when completed, re-
semble a textured painting. Although
it’s an old
tech-
nique, she unknowingly stumbled upon
it in 2011.
A painter at the time, Panzer was
asked to donate a painting to an animal
rescue fundraiser auction. But when
she learned that many paintings had al-
ready been donated, she resolved to
make something different.
“I decided to explore my supply
shelves for a more unique approach to
my donation,” she said. “I came across
a box of beautifully made Japanese
papers I had been gifted by anoth-
er artist. Being very kinetic by
nature, I immediately felt a
kinship with these beautiful
papers as I cautiously began
tearing them. Soon, I no-
Robin Panzer is passionate about
animal rescue and donates $1 for every
like on her Facebook studio page to
such causes — up to $100 each month.
Visit Robin Panzer Art Studio 33.
ticed that the lovely fibers in the paper
had a fur-like quality to them, so I began
to assemble them using a transparent
acrylic gel medium to ‘paint’ with the
paper …
“I was delighted by the textures and
uniqueness of the art I was creating, a
likeness of one of the shelter pups that
I was hoping would get adopted.”
It was that piece that set her upon a
new path. She received so many com-
mission requests after the fundraiser
that she has had a two year waiting list
ever since.
It was a year before she realized that
her “new” art form had a name.
“It wasn’t until a year later that I
learned my medium had a name and a
long, illustrious history,” she said. “My
husband met a woman visiting our town
from Japan and, upon sharing my art
with her, she said, ‘Your wife’s Chigiri-e
is excellent, did she go to Japan to train
with one of our Masters?’
“I was so excited to hear this and en-
joyed researching the wonderful pieces
of Chigiri-e created throughout history.
My husband and I now joke that I must
have been a Japanese Artist in a former
life.”
Although Panzer has been a Gorge-
area artist for many years — she moved
to Hood River in 2004 with her husband
and son from Bellevue — this is the first
See ROBIN, Page A11
LOCAL CHIGIRI-E ARTIST
Robin Panzer will open her
Lincoln Street studio for the
first time this weekend for
the annual Gorge Artists
Open Studios Tour. Original
artwork, prints and demon-
strations are a few of the ac-
tivities she has planned for
tour-goers.
Photos by Trisha Walker