Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About The skanner. (Portland, Or.) 1975-2014 | View Entire Issue (Dec. 26, 2018)
Page 2 The Skanner Portland & Seattle December 26, 2018 ® Challenging People to Shape a Better Future Now The Associated Press considers the glimmers of hope that shone through the darker stories of the year Bobbie Dore Foster Executive Editor By The Associated Press Patricia Irvin Graphic Designer Monica J. Foster Seattle Office Coordinator Susan Fried Photographer 2017 MERIT AWARD WINNER The Skanner Newspaper, es- tablished in October 1975, is a weekly publication, published every Wednesday by IMM Publi- cations Inc. 415 N. Killingsworth St. P.O. Box 5455 Portland, OR 97228 Telephone (503) 285-5555 Fax: (503) 285-2900 info@theskanner.com www.TheSkanner.com The Skanner is a member of the National Newspaper Pub lishers Association and West Coast Black Pub lishers Association. All photos submitted become the property of The Skanner. We are not re spon sible for lost or damaged photos either solicited or unsolicited. ©2018 The Skanner. All rights re served. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission prohibited. In this Nov. 23, 2018, file photo, volunteers search for human remains at a mobile home park in Paradise, Calif. Task force leader Craig Covey, center left, says his team is doing a second search because there are outstanding reports of missing people whose last known address was at the mobile home park. d ay ! • L i ke u s o n • to F ac ebo o k • learn • co TheSkannerNews On Jan. 2, Gov. Kate Brown announced that she would appoint Adrienne C. Nelson, then a trial judge in Multnomah County, to the Oregon Supreme Court. Judge Nelson is the first African American to serve on an appellate court in Oregon and the second woman of color to serve on the Oregon Supreme Court. Hear about it first. Sign up for Breaking News and Events at PHOTO BY ANTHONY HARRIS Updated daily. it In this Oct. 28, 2018, file photo, Rabbi Jeffrey Myers, right, of Tree of Life/Or L’Simcha Congregation hugs Rabbi Cheryl Klein, left, of Dor Hadash Congregation and Rabbi Jonathan Perlman during a community gathering held in the aftermath of a deadly shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh. As the Jewish community grieved, Myers took a leading role during public memorials and presided over seven funerals in the space of less than a week. See 2018 on page 5 Justice Nelson Sworn In LOCAL NEWS BRIEFS m me • nts A MORBID BUT CRITICAL TASK It was the week before Thanksgiving when Craig Covey got the call for what would be his most difficult mission as a search-and-res- cue team leader: picking through the ashes of Paradise for human remains. It was a morbid but critical task. A wildfire that swept through on Nov. 8 all but oblit- erated Paradise, once home sasters across the country and beyond. Earlier this year, his team helped rescue an ex- hausted 82-year-old man who had been flushed out of his car by floodwaters and pinned in some trees amid Hurricane Florence in North Carolina. Paradise was different, but brought rewards of its own. “We weren’t shaking hands with people,” Covey said. “But we were making a difference for folks, for closure, who are missing their families.” — AP writer Kathleen Ronayne in Sacramento, Cal- ifornia PHOTO COURTESY OF THE STATE OF OREGON Local News Pacific NW News World News Opinions Jobs, Bids Entertainment Community Calendar ‘I CHOSE TO ACT’ Rabbi Jeffrey Myers said no class in any seminary could have prepared anyone for the role he was thrust into. Myers was leading Shabbat services when gunfire erupt- ed inside his Pittsburgh syn- agogue on Oct. 27. After help- ing others to safety, Myers turned back and raced up the stairs to a choir loft, where he called 911. Seven members of his Tree of Life congregation and four others in the build- ing were killed. As the Jewish community grieved, Myers took a leading role during public memorials and presided over seven fu- nerals in the space of less than a week. “I really had two choices to 27,000 people. To find and identify the 86 dead, author- ities had to call on searchers like Covey to gather up what amounted in some cases to lit- tle more than teeth, bone frag- ments or artificial hips. Then they had to rely on the exper- tise of rapid-testing DNA labs, forensic anthropologists and other specialists. “It was apocalyptic up there,” Covey said several weeks after returning home to Costa Mesa, California. Covey’s team is deployed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency to di- AP PHOTO/KATHLEEN RONAYNE, FILE D Christen McCurdy News Editor y eadliest shooting at an American high school: Parkland, Florida. Deadliest U.S. wildfire in a century: Paradise, Cali- fornia. Deadliest attack on Jews in American history: Pitts- burgh. The cities of Parkland, Par- adise and Pittsburgh became synonymous with tragedy in 2018, a year when the nation seemed to careen from one deadly horror to another. Yet in every calamity, there were people who showed their hu- manity, their selfless strength and their sense of duty amid the suffering. As the year draws to a close, Associated Press reporters on the front lines of some of the year’s heartbreaking sto- ries offer up accounts of com- passion and decency. when it came down to how to respond,” Myers said. “One of them was ... curl up with a bottle of scotch. The second choice was to act upon it. I chose to act upon it.” His response inspired Tree of Life congregants, including retired psychiatrist Joe Char- ny, 90. “There’s no question that he’s been super, and it’s hard to imagine that anybody could have done a better job,” Charny said. “He has the right touch. He has maintained through all this a sense of humor. I don’t know how he’s done that.” Myers has vowed to no lon- ger use the word “hate.” “To me, that’s the mission that has come out of this, that for 11 beautiful people to have not died in vain,” the rabbi said. “The conversation about hate speech in America must be elevated and it must gain attention, because that type of speech leads to action such as what happened at my syn- agogue.” — AP writer Mark Scolforo in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania AP PHOTO/MATT ROURKE, FILE Bernie Foster Founder/Publisher Jerry Foster Advertising Manager in y o u r c o m m u n Amid 2018’s Tragedies Were Moments of Compassion and Duty Grace Addresses MLK Breakfast Cheryl Grace, a senior VP at Nielsen, addressed an audience of about 1,000 people at the Red Lion Hotel on the River on Jantzen Beach for The Skanner Foundation’s 32nd Annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day Breakfast. Grace urged the audience to move past fear and leverage their power as consumers and business leaders, to use social media, networking organizations and churches to start organizing. Twenty-two Oregon students received scholarships at the event, the highest number in the foundation’s history. nt • lo c a l n e w s • eve