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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (June 29, 2018)
BEAVERS WIN! Oregon State beats Arkansas 5-0 to capture national title SPORTS/1B FRIDAY, JUNE 29, 2018 142nd Year, No. 181 PENDLETON Your Weekend • • • One dollar WINNER OF THE 2017 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD Get fresh produce at Irrigon Farmers Market Community Night Out Friday in Athena Watch a movie at Community Park For times and places see Coming Events, 5A Weekend Weather Fri Sat Sun 80/55 85/60 84/54 Watch a game Hermiston vs. Pendleton in Little League District Tournament 7 p.m., Saturday Ken Melton Park Mentally ill would avoid jail with new initiative Umatilla County would start team to address treatment By PHIL WRIGHT East Oregonian Umatilla County is step- ping up to reduce the num- ber of mentally ill people in the county jail. Commissioner George Murdock said mental illness is a major concern nation- wide and Umatilla County is no different. “We have way too many people in jail suffering from mental illness,” he said. To help take on the prob- lem, the county board of commissioners is adopting the Stepping Up Initiative, a national program to get county officials to work with law enforcement, judges, district attorneys and treat- ment providers to divert peo- ple with mental illness from jails and into treatment. The National Associa- tion of Counties, The Coun- cil of State Governments See TREATMENT/5A Staff photo by E.J. Harris Dr. Norman Sitz sorts through items in his office Thusday in Pendleton while getting ready to close his medical practice. The doctors are out Pendleton Internal Medicine to close after both doctors retire By KATHY ANEY East Oregonian E very day for the past month, Dr. Norman Sitz has torn a link off of a paper chain made by his wife, Michelle. Each link represents a remaining day of his career. The chain has shrunk to the point of vanishing. On Friday, he hangs up his stethoscope. Sitz isn’t clear exactly how many patients he’s seen during 39 years of practicing medi- cine in Pendleton. “I’ve probably had 1,500-to-2,000 patients who would say I’m their doctor,” Sitz said. Those patients must find a new physician. The 70-year-old reports for work for the last time on Friday and heads into retirement. His partner at Pendleton Internal Medicine, Dr. Dan Marier, retired at the end of last year. The clinic, started by Dr. Joseph Brennan in the 1950s, will close. “It’s the end of an era,” Sitz said. Long-time patient Joyce Hoffman hates to see her doctor go. “I have known many good, skillful doctors, but the best of them have equal measures of skill and compassion,” Hoffman said. “Dr. Sitz has always been at the top of that list, more like a good friend or family member than just a great doctor.” Staff photo by E.J. Harris Dr. Norman Sitz holds out a copy of an ancient Syrian medical script while clean- ing out his office Thursday in Pendleton. Hoffman remembers a time some years ago when her husband Johnnie was too sick to get out of bed for an appointment. She called and canceled, but requested that Sitz call back and advise her. He never called. “But not long after, my doorbell rang,” Hoffman recalled. “There was Dr. Sitz: ‘I was in the neighborhood. Thought I’d stop and see how Johnnie was doing.’” Sitz started his career as one of three doc- tors in Grand Coulee, Washington. The town had no emergency room physicians, so Sitz Everything must go regularly rushed to the hospital after being called at home. Though an internist, he often colored outside the lines of his specialty. “I delivered babies, did minor surgery, hooked people up to ventilators,” Sitz recalled. “I did just about everything.” He moved to Pendleton in 1979 to work in the St. Anthony Hospital emergency room, not planning to stay long. “Pendleton was the last place I wanted to come, but it turned out to be the best place ever,” he said. “I have loved the town of Pendleton.” Sitz also found love, meeting his wife Michelle at St. Anthony Hospital where she worked in the lab. Norm began stopping by to check on lab results on the chance he might run into her. Michelle also noticed Norm, who was known for driving a red pickup and tuck- ing his tie in his shirt pocket so it wouldn’t interfere with his stethoscope. Both were run- ners who happened to be training for the Port- land Marathon. They began running together. “Really, a lot of our courtship happened training for the marathon,” Michelle said. “Many of our dates were runs.” One “date” particularly stands out, a 20-mile, high-elevation, out-and-back slog See DOCTOR/5A Gun ban backers holster initiative Supporters did not have time to collect new batch of signatures by July 6 By CLAIRE WITHYCOMBE Capital Bureau Staff photo by E.J. Harris A trio of excavators work in concert while demolishing the old Albertsons building on Thursday in Pendleton. Rod Anderson Construction began demoli- tion of the building Tuesday morning and the entire structure should be down by the end of next week. PORTLAND — Supporters of an initiative petition to ban certain firearms in Oregon say they’ll withdraw the initiative, but maintain efforts to restrict firearm posses- sion in the state. Initiative Petition 43, an effort to ban certain types of semiautomatic firearms and magazines holding more than 10 rounds, was proposed by a coalition of faith leaders in the wake of the shooting that killed 17 people at Mar- jory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., on Feb. 14. Supporters were enthusiastic, but encountered legal opposition to their efforts when gun rights advocates filed challenges at the Oregon Supreme Court against the lan- guage used to describe the measure. Opponents said the petition language didn’t adequately See GUN/6A
