97/66
KILTS,
CABERS
AND MORE
Prosthetic
arm on a
3-D printer
CALEDONIAN GAMES/6A
OREGON/7A
WEDNESDAY, JULY 5, 2017
141st Year, No. 187
One dollar
WINNER OF THE 2016 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD
FOURTH OF JULY IN PENDLETON
Rural
nursing
homes
on edge
Administrators worry
about lack of access as
state eliminates beds
By LES ZAITZ
The (Malheur) Enterprise
ONTARIO — The elderly woman
had heard rumors of closure in the
hallways of Presbyterian Community
Care Center.
She learned the rumors were true
when Cathleen Sullivan, the nursing
home administrator, came to her room
to tell her she would have to fi nd a new
home.
“When do I have to leave?” the
resident asked.
Similar scenes played out in room
after room as Sullivan delivered the
news. And word of the impending
closure rocketed through Eastern
Oregon’s nursing home industry. The
challenges of rural health care had
claimed another victim.
Reliance on nursing homes has
See NURSING/10A
Suicide gun
bill heads
to House
Staff photos by Kathy Aney
Easton Carlson waits for the start of the Fourth of July parade in Pendleton on
Tuesday. AT RIGHT, FROM TOP: Thelma Lindner watches the parade. A classic car
motors along the route. A young girl shows her patriotic spirit as she watches the
parade. Kaylee Stroder shows her patriotic spirit as she watches the parade.
Flagapalooza
By PARIS ACHEN
Capital Bureau
SALEM — The House will consider
a bill modeled after a law enacted by
Washington voters in 2016 to allow
loved ones and law enforcement to
obtain an emergency order to block a
suicidal person from access to deadly
weapons.
The House Committee on Rules
voted 5-to-2 to recommend passage of
the bill. The Senate approved the bill
17-to-11 May 1.
Sen. Brian Boquist, R-Dallas,
proposed the bill to create extreme risk
protection orders as way to prevent the
kind of suicides he has experienced as a
father and a U.S. Army Special Forces
veteran. Boquist’s 31-year-old, a U.S.
Navy veteran, committed suicide Feb.
16, 2016, in the midst of the Legisla-
ture’s session. Boquist wrote a statement
read by Senate President Peter Courtney
the day after the suicide that said his
son, Seth Sprague, had “never fully
recovered from the tragedy of war.”
See SUICIDE/10A
down Main Street,” said Fred Bradbury, the
event’s principal organizer. “As a little kid, I
used to fi ght for space to get up front. All the
As a judge for Pendleton’s Fourth of July stores were open, the crowds were six deep
parade, Sharon Cook knows American spirit and it brought a lot of business into town.
When [the parade] started, I wanted it to go
when she sees it.
down Main Street. We’re the
“If we look at the entry and
only parade that does that
we immediately want to get
now.”
up and salute, that says you’re More inside
The parade entries were
patriotic,” she said.
Stanfi eld’s Fourth of
met by waving spectators,
Cook, the outgoing VFW July celebration draws
candy-seeking children and
Auxiliary president and one large crowd downtown.
plenty of American fl ags —
of three judges at Tuesday’s
the VFW distributed roughly
6th annual parade, said she
500 this year.
loves to see folks having fun.
“A parade’s not a parade if you don’t have
Hosted by the VFW “Let ’er Buck” Post
922, the parade featured 42 entries decked fl ags,” Bradbury said. He added that the
out in red, white and blue. Everything from symbol means everything to veterans, and
buses and antique cars to riders on horseback the VFW aims to help residents “realize how
and a marching Little League team traveled important freedom is.”
There seemed to be more people in atten-
from city hall to the convention center, with a
scenic detour down Main Street.
See PARADE/5A
“All the parades in the early days went
By EMILY OLSON
East Oregonian
“You can’t intellectualize this stuff. You can’t treat it with drugs. You just have to feel.”
— Tom Skerritt, actor and co-founder of the Red Badge Project
Veterans write to tame trauma
Red Badge writers share their stories at Walla Walla reading
By KATHY ANEY
East Oregonian
Skip Nichols walked to the
podium, breathed deeply and
shared one of his most agonizing
life experiences.
Nichols, a Vietnam veteran
and retired managing editor of
the East Oregonian, had cobbled
together the words during a Red
Badge Project writing workshop
and later agreed to share them
with an audience at the Gesa
Power House Theatre in Walla
Walla. On Friday night, he joined
fi ve other workshop participants,
two Red Badge instructors and
actor Tom Skerritt, who served in
the Air Force. The Emmy-win-
ning actor co-founded the Red
Badge Project as a way to
help veterans struggling with
post-traumatic stress disorder
fi nd their voice and reboot their
sense of purpose.
At the podium, Nichols
morphed
back
into
the
19-year-old Marine he once had
been, standing guard with two
other soldiers near the perimeter
of Camp Carroll, just south of the
demilitarized zone. They noticed
a boy on a water buffalo heading
toward the concertina wire encir-
cling the camp. The sight put the
soldiers on edge. The boy, who
appeared to be about 12, carried
a bamboo cane to prod the
water buffalo and had arms and
legs that were “little more than
sticks.” A brown cloth bag hung
from his neck.
“Did it contain rice balls
or hand grenades?” Nichols
remembered wondering. “Were
we looking into the eyes of the
enemy or an innocent boy?”
Nichols, a radio operator and
See RED BADGE/10A
Staff photo by Kathy Aney
Actor Tom Skerritt speaks about the Red
Badge Project on Friday at the Gesa Pow-
er House Theatre in Walla Walla. Skerritt
co-founded the project, which helps veter-
ans with PTSD fi nd their voice and rebuild
their sense of purpose.