NATION/WORLD
STUDENTS: Laura Dewey will be at a new school this fall
Page 10A
East Oregonian
Continued from 1A
made the finals in a NASA
competition.
Embry-Riddle’s spring term
ended May 2, which meant
Lacey had a serious case of
cabin fever by the time his job
as a research assistant at the
U.S. Department of Agriculture
Agricultural Research Service
center near Adams started on
June 12.
A career in agricultural
science isn’t in the cards from
Lacey, but he’s still using the
data entry tasks required for
the job to hone his spreadsheet
skills.
If Lacey has his way, he’ll
be using some of those newly
found spreadsheet skills in
Florida next summer.
In addition to Excel, Lacey
is teaching himself engineering
software this summer in the
hopes that it will help secure
him an engineering internship
in the Sunshine State next year.
———
It may have taken Cece
Hoffman a while to get there,
but she feels like she finally
found her area of study.
After starting at the Univer-
sity of Washington in the fall,
the Pendleton High School
graduate
cycled
through
majoring in public health,
anthropology and medical
anthropology before landing
in a program that covers her
current interests.
Hoffman is now majoring
in education, communities and
organization, otherwise known
as an ECO degree.
The website advertises the
ECO program as an educational
degree that covers “human
development, equity studies,
learning
across
contexts,
organizational change and
community engagement.”
Besides teaching, ECO
degrees can be used for careers
in higher education administra-
tion, education policy, commu-
nity outreach and advocacy,
and youth development, the
university website states.
Hoffman doesn’t yet know
which career path she wants to
pursue, but she likes the variety
of options the degree promises.
Following a week back
home in Pendleton, Hoffman
has already returned to Seattle
to work with an AmeriCorps
program that feeds children
over the summer.
Hoffman is subletting an
apartment in the city during her
summer stay, but her brief stint
back home has reminded her to
appreciate the strengths of both
Pendleton and Seattle.
———
If balancing football and
school isn’t hard enough,
Patrick Collins wants to add
a job to the mix at Eastern
Oregon University next year.
After finishing his first year
of college with a 3.9 GPA,
Collins returned home to
Heppner and took a job with the
U.S. Forest Service identifying
trees and marking certain ones
for timber harvest.
Collins switched from
business to the agriculture and
natural resource, an Oregon
State University program that’s
hosted at EOU.
He doesn’t yet know what
career path the degree will
lead to, but he thinks it could
help lead him to a job back
in Heppner or a community
similar to it.
A standout football player at
Heppner High School, Collins
expects to compete for some
playing time at linebacker next
season.
In the midst of trying to
grow his role on the football
team, Collins also wants to
secure an on-campus job for his
sophomore year.
Some of the jobs he’s
considered include being a
member of the grounds crew
or working in the school’s
multicultural center, a job with
flexible hours that might mesh
well with his football schedule.
When asked about the
challenge of juggling school,
work and football, Collins
doesn’t hesitate to answer.
“I’m always ready for a chal-
lenge,” he said.
———
Kodie Arnold was nervous
about living alone when she left
Hermiston, but after her first
year at the Oregon Commission
for the Blind, she couldn’t be
more excited to get back to her
studies and the friends she’s
made.
She laughed. “There’s this
thing called ‘motivation,’
and this other thing called
‘practice.’ I finally realized in
my last three months here, if I
wanted to stay.”
Arnold, who has been
blind since birth, took classes
to help her learn how to live
independently, honing skills
like cooking, household chores
and money management. She
also learned to navigate the city
of Portland, where she takes
classes to help with orientation
and mobility.
She said tasks that scared
her at first have gotten easier.
“I learned the route from
the School for the Blind to
Safeway,” she said. “I had to
write every little detail down.
When you’re blind and trav-
eling, you’ve got to know stuff.
For example, there’s a pillar
there, and you’ve got to lean
your shoulder up against it. It’s
a lot of tactile information.”
Arnold, who will spend this
summer in Salem at a work
experience program, plans to
return to the OCB in October to
continue classes.
After the next round of
classes, she’s not sure what
she’ll do.
“There’s not really an
assigned amount of time (to
stay),” she said. “It’s when you
and they think you have all the
skills it takes to be in the real
world.”
But this year has left her
excited about returning to
Portland.
“It turned out really well,”
Arnold said. “This was the best
term by far.”
———
College offers many chal-
lenges, academic and social.
But after her first year at Oregon
State University, Laura Zepeda
is ready to help other students
navigate them both.
Zepeda is a science student,
who decided after an initial
interest in pharmacy to pursue a
career as a physician’s assistant.
Her classes are going well, but
she was surprised to find herself
getting involved with some
activities she hadn’t considered.
“I ended up joining my
hall council, and applied to be
an RA (resident assistant),”
Zepeda said. She was hired
to work in the residence halls
spring term of her freshman
year, monitoring and providing
assistance for the other students
in the building. The experience
was enlightening for Zepeda.
Having to deal with issues like
conflict between other students,
or vandalism of the halls didn’t
deter her.
“It was amazing,” she said.
“It was kind of a challenge,
but I’m really happy I took the
position.”
So much, in fact, that she
will continue to serve in the
role her sophomore year.
“I found it very rewarding
getting to know other people
who like the job, and helping
other college students have the
best experience.”
She said the work also
gave her an appreciation for
the students who hold down
full-time jobs along with their
studies.
Zepeda is enjoying being
home for the summer, but is
eager to return to her studies,
and her job.
“I’m looking forward to
building relationships with my
students and staff members,”
she said.
———
Laura Dewey will be at
a new school this fall, but
her goals are still intact. The
Hermiston High grad, who
spent the last year at Blue
Mountain Community College,
will transfer to Oregon State
University to study animal
sciences.
While Dewey had always
planned to take that route of
study, she had expected to be at
BMCC a little while longer.
“I moved out, so that was a
bit of a struggle,” she said. “But
I passed all my classes, and
after I moved out, I felt more
motivated to figure out my own
path.”
This summer Dewey is
staying busy, taking prerequi-
site classes and working at the
pool and the OSU Extension
office.
Dewey is excited about the
changes living in Corvallis will
bring, but enjoyed the year she
spent in her hometown before
moving away.
“It was nice to be around a
lot of familiar faces,” she said.
———
Emily Ross and Monica
Aguilar, part of the original
series, were not available for
comment in this story.
Saturday, June 24, 2017
WORLD BRIEFLY
Saudi says suicide bomber
killed in foiled Mecca plot
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — Saudi
security forces said Saturday they disrupted
a plot to attack the Grand Mosque at Mecca,
home to the holiest site in Islam, just as the
fasting month of Ramadan concludes.
The Interior Ministry said it launched raids
in Jiddah province, as well as two areas in
Mecca itself, including the Ajyad Al-Masafi
neighborhood, located near the Grand
Mosque.
There, police said they engaged in a
shootout at a three-story house a suicide
bomber, who blew himself up and led to
the building’s collapse. He was killed while
the blast wounded six foreigners and five
members of security forces, according to the
Interior Ministry’s statement. Five others were
arrested, it said.
Saudi state television aired footage after
the raid near the Grand Mosque, showing
police and rescue personnel running through
the neighborhood’s narrow streets. The blast
demolished the building, its walls crushing a
parked car as what appeared to be shrapnel
and bullet holes peppered nearby structures.
The Interior Ministry “confirms that this
terrorist network, whose terrorist plan was
thwarted, violated, in what they would have
perpetrated, all sanctities by targeting the
security of the Grand Mosque, the holiest
place on Earth.”
London evacuates residents
amid fire safety concerns
LONDON (AP) — One London
community is evacuating some 800
households from five publicly owned
apartment towers because of safety concerns
following the devastating fire that killed 79
people in a west London high-rise last week.
The move comes as residents of thousands
of tower blocks around Britain expressed
concern about safety after commonly used
building materials were blamed for rapidly
spreading the blaze at Grenfell Tower.
Camden Council in north London, which
announced the evacuation Friday night, was
the first local government to take the dramatic
step of emptying its buildings so safety
upgrades could be made.
Council leader Georgia Gould said the
borough made the decision after the London
Fire Brigade and council experts said they
couldn’t guarantee the safety of residents after
inspecting the five towers. The inspectors
were following up on previously unknown
safety complaints from residents, she said.
“I’ve made the really, really difficult
decision to move the people living there into
temporary accommodation while we do the
urgent works to guarantee safety,” Gould told
reporters outside the public housing complex.
“I know it’s difficult, but Grenfell changes
everything.”
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