Page 12A
OFF PAGE ONE
East Oregonian
Saturday, April 15, 2017
ARNOLD: Hopes to pursue a career that involves music
“It’s a little
challenging, but
if you put hard
work into it, it’s
not really all
that bad.”
Continued from 1A
not fully developed and were
damaged when her brain got
too much oxygen. She can see
light, but no images.
“It’s a little challenging,”
she said. “But if you put hard
work into it, it’s not really all
that bad.”
Arnold lives at the State
School for the Blind in
Vancouver, and attends
school across the river at
the Oregon Commission for
the Blind in Portland. At the
school, she learns everything
from cooking, cleaning and
managing money to going
grocery shopping and getting
around alone.
Around the school, where
she lives, Arnold navigates
the kitchen and hallways with
ease. Going to the laundry
room to get her clothes out of
the dryer, she feels the door
of the machines, which have
braille instructions on them.
“Did someone close the
door?” she asks. “What the
heck! I must be blind.”
She laughs. “I like blind
jokes.”
Arnold takes a lighthearted
approach to being blind,
making fun of herself and
joking with hall-mates.
“Everyone kind of takes
that attitude,” she said.
Arnold has several tools
that make day-to-day activ-
ities a little easier: a Braille
EDGE, which is connected to
her cell phone and which she
can use to type. The keyboard
has six buttons, numbered
from one to six, and buttons
for space and backspace. She
can type letters by inputting
different number combina-
tions. For example, “J” is 245
and “C” is 14.
She has a screen reader,
called “Jaws,” which tells
her when something is on her
computer. She takes out her
cell phone and it reads options
to her. She swipes through it
to find the right one.
There are also several apps
on her phone that can help
her out. One, called “Be My
Eyes,” connects vision-im-
paired people with volunteers.
The person can point their
camera at an object, and the
volunteer will help them
identify it.
“I’ve never used it, but I
do have it,” Arnold said. “I’m
going to wait until after this,
when I’m on my own. In case
I need it.”
There are also apps that
help read documents, ones
that help take photos, and an
app called “Polyvision,” in
which a person can point their
phone at an object, and the
— Kodie Arnold,
on being blind
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Kodie Arnold walks down a city street in while participating in a conditioning class Wednesday at the Oregon
Commission for the Blind in Portland.
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Kodie Arnold performs legs lifts during a condition-
ing class at the Oregon Commission for the Blind on
Wednesday in Portland.
Kodie Arnold prepares to eat some leftover Thai food
during lunch Wednesday at the Oregon Commission
for the Blind in Portland.
app will tell them what it is.
“That can help you out in
grocery stores,” Arnold said.
Arnold also recently got
a color identifier. That’s not
on her phone, but is a small
object with a camera inside.
She holds it up to her shirt.
“Blue-green,” the device
blurts out. The device will
come in handy this term in
one of Arnold’s classes, where
she will work on figuring out
what clothes and colors work
well together.
“We’re going to work
on helping me put things
together, because I’ve never
seen color before,” she said.
Arnold is in class four days
a week, which keeps her fairly
busy. In her spare time, she
likes to exercise, and play or
listen to music. Sometimes
either public transportation or
a cab.
There have been other
challenges as well. Arnold,
who describes herself as
“not a city person,” said the
transition from Hermiston to
Vancouver was difficult. She
recalls one day when she had
first moved into the school
and was missing her family.
“The first time I walked
into the kitchen, I was trying
to become friends with
people,” she said. “I wanted
to hug someone, but I didn’t
really know anyone. I was
bawling like crazy.”
Things have gotten better
since then, Arnold said, and
she’s made friends with hall-
mates and other students.
Though she lives with
five others at the Washington
people from the commission
will go on outings: bowling,
going to the city, and exploring
the area.
Most of Arnold’s teachers
are also blind, a fact she
appreciates.
“Sometimes I feel like
I’m learning from that person
better,” she said. “They get
it, they know what I’m going
through.”
One of Arnold’s classes
is called Techniques of Daily
Living. In that class, they work
on skills a person might need
around the house, or if they’re
going out on an errand. This
week, they’re ironing.
Arnold said her biggest
concerns are orientation and
mobility, getting around on
her own. She uses a cane, and
travels around the city using
State School for the Blind,
she hopes to get her own
apartment next year — about
which she is both nervous and
excited. She had hoped to live
in an apartment closer to the
Commission where she takes
her classes, but the place was
filled up.
She’s found the classes
helpful, and they have
given her more confidence
about living independently.
That’s good, because Arnold
may soon be moving on to
another part of her education.
This summer, she will get a
summer work experience in
Salem, which will pair her up
with a job. She’s hoping for a
music store.
“Playing
instruments,
tuning,” she said. “That’s
what I’d like to do.”
After she’s done with
classes at the commission,
Arnold is not sure what she’ll
do. She’d like to go to college,
but is still figuring out what
she’ll study.
Music has been one of
Arnold’s passions for a long
time. She played the flute at
Hermiston High School, and
was in pep band. She also
writes her own music, which
she sometimes performs for
others at the commission.
There is Braille sheet music
that blind musicians can use,
but Arnold prefers to learn by
memorization.
The school has an audito-
rium, and as Arnold carefully
makes her way up the stage
toward the piano, she muses:
“I actually fell off the stage
one time. The day before
performing.” She grins slyly.
“I probably should have
opened my eyes a little more.”
Arnold has perfect pitch,
able to tell just from listening
whether something is on key.
Reaching the piano, she picks
out a few notes. “Is this tuned?
Ah! No!”
Nevertheless, she sits
on the bench facing away
from the piano and, reaching
behind her, picks out a tune on
the keys.
Arnold hopes to pursue a
career that involves music,
although she’s not sure exactly
what. She enjoys writing and
playing her own tunes, as
well as those of others. She
even wrote and performed a
song last year at a talent show
in Hermiston and ended up
winning.
Arnold talks excitedly
about musicians that inspire
her. She’s a big fan of Rhonda
Vincent, a bluegrass singer
who she hopes to see perform
this summer.
She also looks to some
blind musicians for inspira-
tion.
“Stevie Wonder, Ray
Charles,” she said. “Ronnie
Milsap, he’s blind. If he can
do it, I can do it.”
–——
Contact
Jayati
Ramakrishnan at 541-564-
4534 or jramakrishnan@
eastoregonian.com
TRAPPER: If funding is decreased, agency may have to cut employees
Continued from 1A
Twenty-six of Oregon’s 36 coun-
ties have a wildlife specialist — or
trapper — who falls under the U.S.
Department of Agriculture’s Animal
and Plant Health Inspection Service.
The Wildlife Services program is
paid for through a cooperative cost-
sharing agreement involving county,
state and federal governments. It’s
been that way for decades but, may
that be about to change.
Gov. Kate Brown’s budget would
cut $934,340 from the program
in the next biennium, a move
championed by environmental
and conservation groups as a long-
awaited rebuke of a program they
contend needlessly kills thousands
of animals each year. But rural
Oregonians and ranchers see it as
the tone-deaf response of political
leaders far removed from the daily
realities of a rural existence.
The 27 wildlife specialists in the
state respond to hundreds of service
requests each year. Some calls stem
from public safety concerns, others
from property damage. They chase
away, trap or kill animals in every
corner of the state: from packrats
in sheds, to skunks under porches,
to cougars, coyotes or bears that
threaten livestock or people.
Brown said Salem’s diminished
support wouldn’t stop trappers
from doing their job. “The state
is one of several entities that
contributes to this federal program,
which will continue to respond to
concerns caused by bears, cougars,
wolves, and others,” the governor’s
spokesman, Bryan Hockaday, said
in an email.
In the months since the spending
plan was released, the federal
agency has been in the spotlight
for unintentionally killing a gray
wolf with a cyanide trap in Wallowa
County. The incident generated
widespread criticism, prompting
lawsuits and legislation by U.S. Rep
Peter DeFazio to ban the controver-
sial device.
Courtesy of ODFW
OR17, a member of the Imnaha pack, being radio-collared in 2013.
OR17 was incidentally caught by a trapper, collared by ODFW and
released.
But for tens of thousands of
Oregonians, the obscure federal
agency is being unfairly tarnished. It
responds to nuisance and dangerous
wildlife, they say, and it’s vital that
the state holds up its end of the
funding. Oregon’s general fund
budget for the current biennium is
more than $18 billion.
“If that’s taken away, it’s kind of
like taking an arm and a leg off of
the program,” said David Williams,
who’s directed Wildlife Services
in Oregon for more than 20 years.
Williams points out Oregon law
spells out the cooperative arrange-
ment. “Appropriate measures must
be taken to assist farmers, ranchers
and others in resolving wildlife
damage problems.”
Not just killing
Susan Roberts has lived all her
70 years in northeast Oregon’s
Wallowa County, and says there’s a
sense in the Willamette Valley that
wildlife services are just “indiscrim-
inate killers.”
But Roberts, the county’s
commission chair, said that’s not the
case. When someone has packrats
in a shed, the trapper gets the call.
When rodents are in the cemetery,
the trapper gets the call. And when
beavers flood a section of Imnaha
Highway, as they did last month, the
trapper gets the call.
“The beavers are cute and they’re
kind of fun to watch,” she said, but
when they become fond of certain
areas “it complicates things.”
In Wallowa County, population
6,800, a portion of property tax
bills pays for a trapper. Though that
worker is shared other counties,
having one was important enough
for voters to approve the levy.
She views Brown’s plan as
both onerous to local residents and
punitive: “I understand we’re in a
punishment phase for rural Oregon.”
Though Dawson has spent
upward of $30,000 on fences, lights
and other non-lethal protection,
the Roseburg rancher says he loses
anywhere from 30 to 100 sheep a
year to coyotes, and another 20 to
25 to cougars and black bears. He
depends on the wildlife specialists
to diagnose what animal may be
responsible. “Without them, all
we’re doing is guessing,” he said.
In 2015, Dawson and fellow
rancher Ron Hjort pushed Roseburg
legislators to allow farmers to form
a voluntary predator control district,
where residents could opt in and
pay an annual fee to trappers. The
Legislature passed the bill.
The district is still being formed,
and the annual fee participants will
pay is uncertain. “We’re trying to fill
that gap in,” he said.
But Dawson, who estimates the
killings cost him at least $10,000 a
year, is adamant that the coyotes,
cougars and black bears “killing our
personal property belong to the state
of Oregon.
“It really shouldn’t be our
responsibilities,” he said. “They’re
the public’s animals.”
‘Wildlife-Slaughter’
The Audubon Society of Port-
land and other wildlife advocates
applaud Brown’s proposed cut.
“It is long past time that Oregon
stopped investing in this program,”
said Bob Sallinger, the nonprofit’s
conservation director, noting the
agency’s role in killing thousands
of cormorants on East Sand Island
in the mouth of the Columbia River.
Arran Robertson, a spokesman
for Oregon Wild, said everyone
should shoulder the cost-cutting
given the state’s projected $1.6
billion budget revenue shortfall. He
also believes there should be more
information about its operations.
“If we’re going to spend taxpayer
money on an agency like this it
should be more transparent and
accountable to the public,” he said.
Wildlife Services’ role stretches
far beyond Oregon. In mid-March,
the Center for Biological Diversity
said the agency killed 2.7 million
animals nationwide last year.
“The Department of Agriculture
needs to get out of the wild-
life-slaughter business,” Collette
Adkins, a biologist and attorney
with the nonprofit, said at the time.
“Wolves, bears and other carnivores
help keep the natural balance of
their ecosystems. Our government
kills off the predators, such as
coyotes, and then kills off their prey
— like prairie dogs — in an absurd,
pointless cycle of violence.”
What happens next
Conflicts with wildlife aren’t
contained to 26 Oregon counties.
Williams said the others also have
issues, but can’t afford the expense.
“They can barely hold onto that they
have now.”
State wildlife officials say they
will occasionally respond and trap
and kill big game — typically
cougars or bears — in counties
where there are no trappers if there
is a public safety concern or live-
stock damage.
“We can, but we don’t have in
many cases the staff to be able to do
that,” said Doug Cottam, the state’s
wildlife division administrator.
Though Oregonians can legally
hunt cougars and bears, they are
protected. Wildlife services has the
necessary permits to respond to
public safety concerns or property
damage. “You can’t just go out and
shoot them” he said.
If the state’s funding is cut as
projected, Williams said the agency
may have to cut agents. Those
employees, many of whom have
worked in the same cities or counties
for decades, are difficult to replace
because their skills and knowledge
of the regions are “earned over
years.
The Oregon Cattleman Associ-
ation, which represents more than
2,000 ranchers across the state, will
continue lobbying to restore some
funding.
Jerome Rosa, the group’s exec-
utive director, said the program’s
benefits are clear. “What is a
problem on private land one minute
is something that may be a problem
on public land the next minute,” he
said.
But he’s unsure if the lobbying
will be successful. “My crystal ball
is just as foggy as everybody else’s
right now.”