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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (May 7, 2016)
O nce the baby arrives, life changes. A new mom’s life is a whirlwind of diaper changes and feedings. Personal time and back-to-back hours of sleep are a thing of the past. The exhaustion is tempered by a deep, growing closeness with her baby. A group of mothers and their babies gather each month at St. Anthony Hospital for camaraderie and an exchange of ideas. They chat with a lactation consultant. Babies are weighed and passed around. The moms say they see the world in a different way through the eyes of their child. They feel a deeper bond and deeper exhaustion than ever before. The group meets the irst Friday of every month at the hospital. (Pictured) Ellie Mae Wortman plays in the midst of the mom/baby support group. — Kathy Aney Staff photo by Kathy Aney WEEKEND EDITION MAY 7-8, 2016 140th Year, No. 146 $1.50 WINNER OF THE 2015 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD PGG DISSOLUTION What’s next for grain growers By GEORGE PLAVEN East Oregonian For the irst time in 86 years, wheat farmers won’t have Pendleton Grain Growers to market their bushels from this summer’s harvest. Members of PGG voted to dissolve the co-op May 2, which means they’ll turn to other outlets for bids — which could include neigh- boring cooperatives. Umatilla County leads the state in winter wheat production, with more than 11 million bushels harvested in 2015. PGG served 1,850 farmers in northeast Oregon and southeast Washington, operating 19 upcountry elevators and barge terminal along the Columbia River at McNary. Those facilities appear likely to sell to United Grain Corporation, one of the Northwest’s top grain exporters with an operations base in Vancouver, Wash- ington. Tony Flagg, the company’s vice president of business development, said he expects a deal with PGG by June. Harvest for dryland winter wheat typically begins Staff photo by E.J. Harris Shawndine Jones, top center, and Mildred Quaempts, top right, talk about salmon with a class of kindergartners during a Umatilla language class on Thursday at the Pendleton Early Learning Center. Walk the walk, talk the talk Students learn about Umatilla language, culture See PGG/12A By ANTONIO SIERRA East Oregonian Staff photo by E.J. Harris Kindergarten teacher Sarah Yoskioka helps students working on a salmon workbook Thursday during a Umatilla language class Thursday at the Pendleton Early Learning Center. Pendleton Early Learning Center teacher Sarah Yoshioka gathered her class at the front of the room before ceding the loor to Shawndine Jones and Mildred Quaempts. Jones, the center’s heritage language teacher, and Quaempts, the Confed- erated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation language coordinator, started the class with the Umatilla afternoon greeting — niix pachwy. “Niix pachwy!” more than a dozen kindergartners chanted back at them. See LANGUAGE/12A Mentally ill in courts have few resources, options By PHIL WRIGHT East Oregonian In 2015, the Umatilla County District Attorney’s Ofice iled charges in 2,045 cases. The ofice does not track how many people charged suffer from mental illness, but they are common. Some local defense attorneys esti- mated half of their clients deal with mental illness. That estimate jumps to 75 percent or more when it includes drug and alcohol addiction. Some end up behind bars. Some end up in state facilities for the mentally ill. And others go back to the streets. Local defense attorney Kara Davis said mental illness costs the legal system a lot of money, and a big chunk of that goes to holding people in jail. Oficials at the Umatilla County Jail, Pendleton, estimate about 90 percent of its inmates have mental health issues. The jail is the most-likely facility to treat mental illness, Davis said, and that’s a big problem. “We spend a lot of money on it, it’s not effective,” she said. “And we are jailing people not so much for what they did but for their mental health problems.” Attorney Will Perkinson of Pend- leton said the situation also raises a moral issue. “Our criminal justice system has emphasized the aspect of personal choice,” he said. “Someone’s choice got them in trouble with the cops. But mental issues affect choices.” He said he sees mental problems See HEALTH/12A