East Oregonian : E.O., June 29, 2018, Page Page 5A, Image 5

RECORDS
Friday, June 29, 2018
East Oregonian
Page 5A
PUBLIC SAFETY LOG
OBITUARIES
UPCOMING SERVICES
MONDAY
Robert Lee ‘Bob’ Aune
FRIDAY, JUNE 29
ABLES, PAUL — Celebration of life at 6:30 p.m. at Sun
Terrace, 1550 N.W. 11th St., Hermiston.
FLINT, BABE — Graveside service at 2 p.m. at the Pilot
Rock Cemetery. A luncheon will follow at the Pilot Rock
Community Center, 285 N.W. Cedar Place.
HAWES, RUTH — Graveside service at 1 p.m. at the
Aberdeen Cemetery, Aberdeen, Idaho.
MICHAEL, JUSTIN — Celebration of life at 1:30 p.m.
in the big room next to the St. Anthony Hospital cafeteria,
2801 St. Anthony Way, Pendleton.
SATURDAY, JUNE 30
12:54 p.m. - The Morrow County Sheriff’s Office received a
report from Irrigon of a man abusing a female, but the investiga-
tion revealed no crime. Deputies planned to follow up with the
man later.
2:39 p.m. - Pacific Power on Threemile Road, Boardman
reported the theft of copper wire.
4:02 p.m. - The Morrow County Sheriff’s Office received
a complaint about two aggressive Rottweilers on Gravel Pit
Lane, Irrigon. The caller said the dogs were in her chicken pens
Tuesday morning and killed her chickens. The owner of the dog
yelled at them, and grabbed one by the collar, and his son got a
leash and collar for the second dog. That dog bit the son on the
wrist when he removed it.
6:54 p.m. - A man reported he tried to pick up his daughter
from a site on Anderson Road, Boardman, but a man threatened
to assault him.
TUESDAY
2:34 p.m. - A Heppner woman left her preteen and teen
children at home for four days alone without food, according to a
caller who said she fed them.
7:38 p.m. - Three raccoons prompted a call from a Heppner
resident on Northeast Court Street. She said she tried to get
them off her back porch, but they went into a tree, and she was
not sure what to do next. The sheriff’s office contacted Oregon
State Police about the situation.
WEDNESDAY
7:05 a.m. - A caller reported the theft of his tools from his
work truck at the Comfort Inn & Suites, 77514 S. Highway 207,
Hermiston.
12:06 p.m. - Umatilla police stopped to deal with code
violations on Bridgeport Avenue, including a basketball hoop in
the roadway.
12:52 p.m. - A driver heading west on East Elm Avenue,
Hermiston, stopped at the light and watched someone jump out
of a nearby pickup, run to a gray house, pick up a package, run
back to the pickup and drive off.
1:49 p.m. - The Morrow County Sheriff’s Office received a
request to run extra patrols on Southeast Utah Avenue, Irrigon,
from a caller who said someone has been turning on the lights
in an abandoned house at night.
6:46 p.m. - Hermiston police received a report of an assault
on the 1200 block of West Madrona Avenue.
10:18 p.m. - Gavin Bumgarner, 18, crashed on Highway 11
following a blackout, according to Oregon State Police.
The teen was heading south in an Oldsmobile Cutlass on
Highway 11 near milepost 8 when he had “unknown medical
episode” and blacked out. The car traveled off the right shoulder
and rolled, stopping on the passenger side. Bumgarner was
injured, and an ambulance took him to a nearby hospital.
10:54 p.m. - Several people were fist fighting on North First
Street, Hermiston, near a pharmacy. Hermiston police received
a report 30 minutes later of two females fighting in the street on
West Sunland Avenue.
ARRESTS, CITATIONS
Wednesday
•A resident on Upper Rhea Creek Road, Heppner, reported
a car broke down near her home, and the occupants claimed
they were driving from Boardman to Ukiah. But they were on the
wrong road, so she called the Morrow County Sheriff’s Office.
Deputies responded and arrested James Dean Logsdon, 53, for
violating his post-prison supervision.
•Pendleton police arrested Robert Lee VanNattan, 42, of
Pendleton, for endangering a person protected by a restraining
order, a felony, inferring with a peace officer and on a warrant for
failure to appear. State court records show VanNattan has been
the subject of more than four dozen criminal prosecutions going
back to 1994.
OBITUARY POLICY
The East Oregonian publishes paid obituaries. The obituary can
include small photos and, for veterans, a flag symbol at no charge.
Expanded death notices will be published at no charge. These
include information about services.
Obituaries and notices can be submitted online at www.eastore-
gonian.com/obituaryform, by email to obits@eastoregonian.com,
by fax to 541-276-8314, placed via the funeral home or in person at
the East Oregonian office.
For more information, call 541-966-0818 or 1-800-522-0255, ext.
221.
Boardman
September 16, 1945 - June 22, 2018
Robert “Bob” Lee Aune
was born September 16,
1945, in Valley City, North
Dakota, the son of Arnie
and Bessie (Myhre)
Aune. He passed
away at his home
in Boardman, Ore-
gon, on Friday June
22, 2018, at the age
of 72.
Bob lived in
Jamestown, N.D.,
during his early
childhood until his
family moved to
California in his
teens. He graduated
from high school in
Escondido, Calif.
After high school, Aune
he worked at var-
ious jobs and served in the
National Guard for six years.
In the early 1970s, he moved
back to North Dakota where
he worked for Lucas West-
ern for several years. He
later lived in the communi-
ties of Auburn, Wash., Spo-
kane, Wash., and Boze-
man, Mont., before settling
in Boardman in 2006. He
worked in sheet metal fabri-
cation for over 25 years.
Bob was an avid reader,
a history buff, and enjoyed
gardening, canning his pro-
duce, working in his yard,
bowling, playing cards and
tinkering in his shop.
Bob married Yvette
Amsten on Sep-
tember 6, 1991, in
Auburn, Wash.
He is survived
by his wife of 26
years, Yvette; sons
Duane,
Thomas
and Andrew Aune;
daughter Heather
Aune; stepchildren
Michael Benavi-
dez, Rebecca Bon-
neville and Dan-
iel Albro; brother
Andrew Aune; sis-
ters Arlene Olson
and Beverly Will-
son; and many grandchildren
and great-grandchildren.
He was preceded in death
by his parents and an infant
sister, Myrna Jean.
A graveside service will
be held at 10 a.m. on Satur-
day July 7, 2018, at Desert
Lawn Memorial Cemetery
in Irrigon. A reception will
follow the service.
To leave an online con-
dolence for the family go to
www.burnsmortuaryhermis-
ton.com
CASSIDY, DIXIE LEA — Celebration of life at 2 p.m.
at the Pilot Rock Community Center, 285 N.W. Cedar Place.
FURSTENBERG, LAVONNA — Memorial service at
11 a.m. at the Vert Auditorium, 480 S.W. Dorion Ave., Pend-
leton, followed by a celebration of life at Hodgen Distribut-
ing, 4340 Westgate, Pendleton.
JACKSON, PA — Graveside service at 3 p.m. at Desert
Lawn Memorial Cemetery, Irrigon. A dinner will follow at
Stokes Landing Senior Center, 150 Columbia Lane, Irrigon.
ROSARIO, DEBRA — Service at 1 p.m. at the Pendle-
ton Eagles Lodge, 428 S. Main St.
TYLER, DENNIS — Celebration of life at 11 a.m.
at Enterprise Christian Church, 85035 Joseph Highway,
Enterprise.
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STUDENT NEWS
Local students
turn tassel at
George Fox
NEWBERG — A pair
of Pendleton students were
among the more than 800
undergraduate, adult degree
and graduate-level students
who received diplomas from
George Fox University this
spring.
Bryan Branstetter and
Andrew Burcham both
received a bachelor of sci-
ence in engineering.
George Fox University
is ranked by Forbes among
the top Christian universities
in the country. More than
4,000 students attend classes
on the university’s Newberg
campus and at teaching cen-
ters in Portland, Salem and
Redmond. It offers bache-
lor’s degrees in more than
40 majors, degree-comple-
tion programs for working
adults, six seminary degrees,
and 13 master’s and doctoral
degrees. For more informa-
tion, visit www.georgefox.
edu.
Mendenhall
initiated into
honor society
BATON ROUGE, La.
— Hailey Mendenhall of
Hermiston was recently ini-
tiated into the Honor Soci-
ety of Phi Kappa Phi, the
nation’s oldest and most
selective collegiate honor
society, at Eastern Oregon
University.
Mendenhall was among
approximately 30,000 stu-
dents, faculty, professional
staff and alumni to be initi-
ated into Phi Kappa Phi each
year.
Membership is by invita-
tion only and requires nom-
ination and approval by a
chapter. Only the top 10 per-
cent of seniors and 7.5 per-
cent of juniors are eligible
for membership.
Oregon
Connections
Academy includes
area graduates
SALEM — Several hun-
dred families, friends and
classmates attended the 10th
Oregon Connections Acad-
emy graduation ceremony,
held June 9 at the Oregon
State Fairgrounds in Salem.
Area students who grad-
uated with the class of 2018
include Breanna Bayer,
Riley Miller and Maxi-
mus Neel, all of Hermis-
ton; Shawna Hansen of Mil-
ton-Freewater and Patrick
Burch of Umatilla.
These students are among
more than 370 graduating
high school seniors who
have now joined a grow-
ing alumni base of Oregon
Connections Academy, the
state’s largest virtual school.
ORCA served nearly 4,000
students in kindergarten
through 12th grade across
the state this school year.
TREATMENT: Inmates with mental illness tend to have longer stays
Continued from 1A
Justice Center and the Amer-
ican Psychiatric Association
Foundation launched the ini-
tiative in May 2015. Accord-
ing to stepuptogether.org, the
initiative’s website, 449 coun-
ties nationwide participate
with 19 in Oregon, including
Sherman, Gilliam and Union
counties.
Murdock said the reso-
lution to step into Stepping
Up acknowledges the men-
tal health situation the coun-
try faces:
•Two million people with
serious mental illness end up
in jails across the nation each
year.
•Jail populations have three
to six times as many adults suf-
fering from serious mental ill-
ness as the general population.
•Adults with mental illness
who go to jail tend to have lon-
ger stays and a higher rate of
re-offending than people with-
out mental illness.
Sheriff Terry Rowan ear-
lier this year sought $1 million
from the Legislature to reno-
vate the jail to accommodate
inmates with mental health
issues. The state did not fund
the investment.
Under this new call to
action, the county promises
to take several steps to tackle
the crisis, from setting up a
team to address safe reduction
in jail to tracking data on the
mentally ill coming into jail,
as well as identifying local and
state policy and funding bar-
riers to treatment and to shar-
ing what it learns with other
counties.
Rowan said he supports
Stepping Up, but there may
be a practical limit on its
effectiveness.
“The only concern I have is
resources available to the pop-
ulation to go to this,” he said.
“That’s what we seem to have
to battle against day in and day
out.”
Much of what Stepping
Up strives to achieve, he said,
aligns with the goals of Ore-
gon’s Justice Reinvestment
Act, which provides state
funding for local programs to
reduce the prison population,
hold offenders accountable,
cut back on offenders commit-
ting new crimes and increas-
ing the public safety. Rowan
said more Oregon counties
adopting the initiative could
create a tipping point for state
lawmakers to take notice and
create a behavioral reinvest-
ment program.
Murdock also advocates
for that approach. The state
in 2014 shut down the Blue
Mountain Recovery Center,
a psychiatric facility in Pend-
leton, but did not establish a
new one. He said the Justice
Reinvestment Act is a model
that works well and is cost
effective.
“If the state would make a
companion mental health rein-
vestment initiative, I think that
would make huge inroads for
us,” he said.
The county commissioners
vote on the Stepping Up Initia-
tive when they meet Tuesday
starting at 9 a.m. at the court-
house in Pendleton.
DOCTOR: Sitz enjoyed an easy relationshp with many patients
Continued from 1A
on graveled Summit Road.
They wore boots.
“It felt like uphill, going
and coming,” Michelle said.
She forgave him. They
married and raised three
children. Michelle now
works at the Yellowhawk
Tribal Health Center. Norm
also has two daughters from
a prior marriage.
Sitz enjoyed an easy rela-
tionship with his patients.
Though his phone number
was in the telephone book,
he said his patients didn’t
abuse the easy access. When
they called, they were usu-
ally in dire straits. Dealing
quickly with issues, he said,
saved time and agony for
everyone.
The physician saw plenty
of change since graduating
from medical school in 1974
— some good and some not
so good.
A welcome change came
eight years ago with the
addition of hospitalists at St.
Anthony Hospital. No lon-
ger did Sitz and fellow phy-
sicians need to be on call.
Prior to hospitalists, “there
were a lot of long nights. I
would work a full schedule
the next day.” He described
the group of Pendleton hos-
pitalists (doctors who spe-
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Licensed practical nurse Mary Coleman fills a box with
unused medical supplies on Thursday at Pendleton In-
ternal Medicine while packing up to close the medical
office in Pendleton.
cialize in caring for patients
at the hospital) as “superb.”
Negative
changes
included increased paper-
work, insufficient payments
for Medicare patients and
the advent of electronic
medical records.
Of the latter, he said,
“You spend $500,000 for
an EMR that cuts your pro-
ductivity in half. The advan-
tage is that you document all
the things Medicare and the
insurance companies want
documented.” Sitz hired a
scribe to take notes so he
could focus on patients.
Another change and a big
source of physician burnout,
he said, was prior authori-
zation requirements from
insurance companies. The
doctor (or staff member)
must fill out a form or spend
precious time on the phone
justifying prescriptions or
procedures. Several years
ago, Sitz and Marier sold
their practice to the Praxis
Medical Group to escape
much of the paper chase.
The veteran physician
doesn’t hedge when asked
his thoughts about the U.S.
health care system.
“The whole system is a
mess and getting worse,” he
said. “It’s not going to work
until we have a single-payer
system.”
He doesn’t expect such
a system to materialize any
time soon, however. He
paraphrased Winston Chur-
chill as saying, “You can
count on the U.S. to do the
right thing after they exhaust
every other possibility.” A
single-payer system would
benefit both Republicans
and Democrats, he said.
“Free enterprise will not
solve health care. The inter-
face does not work,” Sitz
said. “It’s not liberal or con-
servative — it just makes
sense.”
Despite the distrac-
tions, Sitz focused on his
patients, sometimes spend-
ing extra time checking on
them. When Hoffman’s hus-
band passed away in 2008,
the retired teacher was dev-
astated, feeling sure she
had somehow failed as a
caregiver.
“One of the first phone
calls I got was from Dr.
Sitz,” she said. “I wasn’t
home, so he left a message
on my machine, offering his
condolences and telling me
what a wonderful job I had
done taking care of John-
nie all those years. I’m not
sure how he knew what I
needed to hear, but I left
that message on the machine
for quite a long time. Is it
any wonder his patients are
devoted to him?”
Sitz said he will miss his
patients, many who have
become friends.
“But I’m looking forward
to Monday,” he said.
That’s his first day as
a retired person. On tap is
plenty of gardening, fishing
and trips to see friends and
family, including six grand-
children. Sitz knows it might
take a while to settle into a
rhythm.
“I will miss the people,
the patients,” he said. “I’ve
known them so long.”
———
Contact Kathy Aney at
kaney@eastoregonian.com
or 541-966-0810.
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