Page 12A
OFF PAGE ONE
East Oregonian
EXPO: Turning skills, interests into job
opportunities a central conceit of CTE
Thursday, April 28, 2016
PENDLETON
Continued from 1A
on servers and another on
professional teamwork.
As he watched small
groups of students igure
out how to put together a
computer, IMESD Director
of Business Development
Rob Naughton said the expo
is part of an effort to keep
technologically-minded
students in Eastern Oregon.
As the expo’s sponsor,
the IMESD’s information
technology
department
also represented a potential
career opportunity for the
attendees.
Naughton said many
of the students already
had hands-on experience
working with computer
hardware in their spare time,
a trait the IMESD would
value in job candidates.
Transitioning these raw
skills and interests into
formal education and job
opportunities is the central
conceit of CTE courses,
which some Eastern Oregon
districts are heavily investing
in.
Pendleton and Morrow
County school districts were
each awarded $390,745
grants to bolster their CTE
programs.
The Pendleton School
District
had
already
committed to hiring a CTE
coordinator and turning one
of its elementary schools to
a tech and trade center when
it received the grant, which it
will use to stock its planned
EO ile photo
Workers with state contractor Clean Harbors sort
hazardous household waste at the collection event
April 16 in Pendleton.
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Instructor Jaco Thompson holds out a cooling fan from a computer tower while
talking about computer repairs to high school students during the STEP Tech Expo
on Wednesday in Pendleton.
professional quality kitchen
and lab space.
The Morrow County
school system plans to
use its grant to upgrade
the equipment in its high
school manufacturing and
welding labs — careers in
high demand at the Port of
Morrow.
While some students
were just happy to be out of
the classroom for the day,
others were eager for the
expo’s opportunity.
While checking out a
booth for Dell computers,
Cristian
Gonzalez
of
McLoughlin High School
said he was looking forward
to the programming session
because he was interested
in becoming a video game
designer.
La Grande High School
Eleanor Des Jardin had a
very speciic ambition — to
start an engineering company
specializing in green transit
and manufacturing.
“I could use all of it,” Des
Jardin said about the topics
covered in the sessions.
Des Jardin was one of
just a handful of female
students at a conference
that sometimes relected the
gender gap that has plagued
industries related to science,
technology, engineering and
math.
IMESD operations analyst
Karen Smelser said the state
speciically instructed the
IMESD to target a diverse
set of students with its grant,
which will also cover tech-
nology summer camps in the
summer.
Smelser said the district
will heavily recruit girls for
its camps, especially at the
middle school level.
———
Contact Antonio Sierra at
asierra@eastoregonian.com
or 541-966-0836.
DOGS: Spectators will get to see 124 different breeds
Continued from 1A
Club shows. He and his wife,
Linda, have Shiloh shepherds
that compete in International
All Breed Canine Associ-
ation shows. He welcomes
the inlux of dogs and their
owners to town.
“They’ve had as many as
1,200 dogs at their shows,”
Kennedy said. “This year,
they are expecting about
650.”
Kennedy said he’s not
worried about all those dog
owners not being able to ind
lodging.
“Motels and RV parks
have come to realize that
people travel with their pets,”
Kennedy said. “Most have an
open dog policy.”
Calls to local hotels
proved Kennedy right.
Oxford Suites, for instance,
allows guests to bring dogs
for a charge of $25 each.
For
this
weekend,
however, the hotel negotiated
a contract with the Walla
Walla Kennel Club for up
to two dogs with no charge.
The Red Lion Hotel charges
$15 per stay. A quarter of
the hotel’s 170 rooms are
designated as pet rooms.
The pet-friendly motels are
another reason the kennel
club likes Pendleton.
“To our knowledge, only
one motel doesn’t allow
dogs,” Robles said. “In Walla
Walla, there aren’t nearly as
many. Pendleton has been
extremely welcoming and
encouraging.”
Kennedy isn’t worried
about being able to accommo-
date the dog show activities at
the convention center either.
The venue has hosted other
highly specialized events in
the past, including the Yoga
Round-Up, horse auctions,
state basketball tournaments
and cowboy shooting compe-
titions. Conformation trials
for large dogs will take place
in the main hall with small
dogs in the facility’s smaller
meeting rooms. Obedience
trials will happen in the
nearby Round-Up Pavilion.
The convention center will
provide a room for grooming.
“In the main hall, they
will need to put down some
kind of carpet or something
because of the slick loors,”
Kennedy said.
The
weekend
will
include rally and coursing
events. Robles said rally is
a combination of agility and
obedience. Coursing happens
outside where dogs chase
lures (in this case, plastic
bags) that move around a
course.
Robles said community
dog owners are welcome to
bring their dogs and try the
course.
“Anyone can come and
do this if there are openings,”
she said. “Pay your fee and
run your dog.”
Admission to the dog
show is free. It runs from 8
a.m. to 4 p.m. both Saturday
and Sunday. Show Chair-
woman Debbie Milks said
spectators will get to eyeball
124 different breeds.
Milks also invited the
public to bring their dogs (for
a fee) to take the 10-step AKC
Canine Good Citizen Test that
includes such behaviors as
allowing a friendly stranger
to approach, sitting politely
for petting, walking on a
loose lead, moving through a
crowd, staying on command
and others.
During this weekend’s
dog show, Kennedy will be
right there in the thick of it.
Likely, he’ll have a smile on
his face.
“I’m really excited about
this opportunity for our
community,” Kennedy said.
“I’m hoping this will be a
long-term relationship.”
———
Contact Kathy Aney at
kaney@eastoregonian.com
or call 541-966-0810.
Hazardous waste totals
thousands of pounds at
local disposal event
By PHIL WRIGHT
East Oregonian
Locals turned in thou-
sands of pounds of pesti-
cides, paint and more at a
recent hazardous household
waste collection event in
Pendleton.
Umatilla County won
a grant from the Oregon
Department of Environ-
mental Quality to host the
event April 16-17. The irst
day was for agriculture and
small industrial waste and
day two was for households.
Coordination fell to Gina
Miller, who heads up code
enforcement in the county
planning department. She
promoted the two-day event
for months, worked with
the city of Pendleton to set
up the convention center
and recruited volunteers
from the community and
Pendleton FFA and Boy
Scout Troop 700 to help
direct a steady stream of
trafic.
“Our vehicle count was
581 through the collection
event,” Miller said.
The last event of this size
in Pendleton was back in
2004. The state contracted
with
Clean
Harbors
Environmental to handle
all the waste. According
to an email she received
from Clean Harbors, Mill-
er’s efforts paid off. The
collection brought in the
following:
16,837 pounds of lam-
mable toxic pesticides;
3,033 pounds of motor
oil;
2,053 pounds of aero-
sols;
2,083 pounds of lam-
mable solvents;
1,623 pounds of anti-
freeze for recycling;
87 propane cylinders;
140
car
batteries
weighting more than 5,700
pounds;
more than 1,000 pounds
of alkaline cleaners;
and 427 pounds of acids.
Clean Harbors recycled
the motor oil and antifreeze
and blended the lammable
solvents for fuel.
The largest drop-off was
paint.
Latex paint totaled
18,185 pounds, according
to Clean Harbors, or
more than 1,500 gallons,
depending on the quality
and
color.
Oil-based
paint and related material
hit 22,587 pounds. The
company reported that was
enough to ill 26 55-gallon
drums and 49 cubic-yard
boxes.
Taylor
Simpson,
Clean Harbors hazardous
household waste program
manager in Clackamas,
told Miller the paint was
the most he saw at a single
event.
“Sounds like Umatilla
County made quite a dent
into keeping these harmful
substances out of our land-
ills and soil/water,” Miller
said.
Getting rid of old
paint also was popular
at Hermiston’s second
All-City Recycle Event on
April 9, which collected
1,350 gallons, according to
the city’s report, The year
before, locals brought in
1,275 gallons.
Miller also plans to
present information and
photos of the collection
event at the May 4 meeting
of the county board of
commissioners.
———
Contact Phil Wright at
pwright@eastoregonian.
com or 541-966-0833.
WILDFIRE: Season extended
by average of 78 days since 1998
Continued from 1A
despite an El Nino weather
system that brought near-av-
erage snowfall to its northern
mountains. Wildires have
already broken out in Alaska
after a warm winter with
below-average precipitation.
Slightly more than half the
land scorched by wildires last
year was in Alaska, according
to the National Interagency
Fire Center, which coordi-
nates ireighting nationwide.
Washington and Oregon
accounted for 18 percent.
The Forest Service, the
nation’s primary ireighting
agency, spent a record $1.72
billion on ireighting last
year.
The overall bill for wild-
ires, including prevention
programs and the cost of
putting crews, equipment
and aircraft on ire lines,
is consuming a growing
share of the Forest Service
budget. That has forced cuts
in forestry research, camp-
ground and trail maintenance
and other areas, Tidwell said.
The Obama administration
has been pressing Congress
to pay the cost of ighting
the worst ires from natural
disaster funds, rather than
the Forest Service budget.
Tidwell said the largest 1 or
2 percent of wildires account
for about 30 percent of the
costs.
Congress has not agreed to
the change, but it did approve
an additional $520 million
for ighting ires this season,
Tidwell said.
He said climate change
is making wildires worse,
heating up the air, drying
out forests and extending
the wildire season by an
average of 78 days since
1998. A growing number of
homes at the forest’s edge,
which ireighters call the
wildland-urban
interface,
also drives up costs by
forcing managers to concen-
trate crews and equipment to
protect communities, he said.
Tidwell said state and
federal agencies need to
thin those forests to a more
natural state to prevent ires
and make them easier to ight.
Researchers say decades of
over-aggressive ireighting
have left forests dense with
living and dead trees and
more prone to deadly mega-
ires.
With a chuckle and a
smile, Tidwell defended
Smokey Bear, his agency’s
memorable mascot, from
allegations of making things
worse by portraying ire as
evil instead of part of the
natural cycle that kept forests
healthy. Smokey’s original
message, “Only you can
prevent forest ires,” has been
updated to “Only you can
prevent wildires.”
“Really, Smokey was just
talking about those human-
caused ires which actually
occur at the wrong time of the
year, not where the natural
ire occurs,” Tidwell said.
Those are the ires that the
Forest Service still wants to
stop, he said.
“Smokey Bear gets no
blame for the situation we
have today,” he said.
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