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PLAYOFFS/1B
NOVEMBER 3-4, 2018
143rd Year, No. 14
$1.50
WINNER OF THE 2018 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD
Age of the Millennials
Generation in Eastern Oregon often doesn’t fit trend, stereotypes
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Juana Ortiz, of Hermiston,
voted for the first time in
the 2018 midterm elec-
tions.
First
vote
as U.S.
citizen
Longtime
Hermiston resident
marks special
occasion
By JAYATI
RAMAKRISHNAN
East Oregonian
For Juana Ortiz, fill-
ing out her ballot on Fri-
day morning was a special
occasion.
The longtime Hermiston
resident was voting in the
U.S. for the first time, after
becoming a citizen in 2016.
“I decided to vote because
it’s a right we have,” she
said in a mix of English and
Spanish. “Your vote makes a
difference.”
Though she knew how
she wanted to vote, Ortiz
needed some assistance
with the process. She asked
her teacher in Blue Mon-
tain Community College’s
English Language Acqui-
sition program to help
her navigate some of the
paperwork.
A former Hermiston
Foods employee, Ortiz, who
has been in the United States
for 26 years, began studying
at Blue Mountain Commu-
nity College’s English Lan-
guage Acquisition program
when the facility closed
last year. The program,
which helps non-native
English speakers of all lev-
els improve their reading,
writing, listening and speak-
See VOTE/12A
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Millennial rancher Kip Krebs works on removing an old fence line at his family ranch west of Ione on Thursday.
Who are Millennials?
By JADE MCDOWELL
East Oregonian
• Pew Research Center defines
Millennials as those born from
1981 to 1996.
• In 2017, there were 56 million
Millennials in the workforce.
• There are 62 million Millenni-
als eligible to vote.
• In 2014, 32 percent of Mil-
lennials were living with their
parents.
• In 2016, 40 percent of workers
age 25 to 29 had a bachelor’s
degree or higher.
M
illennials know all the ste-
reotypes that older gen-
erations have thrust upon
them.
They’re lazy. They’re enti-
tled. They take too many self-
ies. And they’re living in their
parents’ basement because they
spent too much money on avo-
cado toast.
As much as “Millennials” has
become a shorthand for every-
thing wrong with kids these
days, half of Millennials are now
in their thirties. Some media out-
lets use slightly different defini-
tions of Millennial, but the aca-
demic definition used by Pew
Research Center is people born
between 1981 and 1996, now
ages 22 to 37. According to Pew
Research, Millennials are pro-
jected to surpass Baby Boom-
ers (ages 52-70) next year as the
largest generation in the United
States, and are already the larg-
est generation in the workforce.
Kip Krebs, 28, is one of many
Eastern Oregon Millennials who
resents being labeled as one. He
works long days as a ranch man-
ager at his parents’ cattle and
sheep ranches outside of Ione
and in Wallowa County. He has
a college degree, a house, a wife
and a son.
“About the only thing we do
is work,” he said.
Krebs said there are, of
course, people in his generation
who are every bit as entitled and
lazy as the stereotypes. But he
wants people to know there are
hard-working Millennials who
have their life together too. Peo-
ple like him, his wife and their
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Millennial Kimberly Nevil, of Hermiston, works at the Work-
source Oregon office in Hermiston.
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Millennial Megan Lauer, of Pendleton, sorts through paperwork
in her office Friday in Pendleton. Lauer is the chief operating of-
ficer of Eastern Oregon Independent Practitioner Association.
friends in rural Oregon.
“A lot of Millennials do seem
entitled to things, but I’m kind of
old-fashioned,” he said.
Jess Schiller, born in 1986, is
another Millennial in the agri-
cultural community who doesn’t
like the label. She and her hus-
band run a Red Angus cattle
operation in Umatilla County,
and she’s working on an associ-
ate’s degree from Blue Mountain
Community College.
“He bought his first bunch of
cows right out of high school and
in the last 10 years we’ve been
able to build it up enough to live
comfortably, not outlandish by
any means, but I can stay home
with our girls and he works on
his family ranch as well,” she
said in an email.
Schiller is one of a growing
cohort of Millennial moms. In
2016 Pew Research found 48
percent of Millennial women
were parents. When Generation
X (born 1965 to 1980) women
were the same age, 57 percent of
them were parents.
While Millennials overall are
getting married and having chil-
dren later than previous genera-
tions, location plays a big role.
Data from the National Center
for Health Statistics, compiled
by the New York Times, shows
the average age of first-time
mothers nationwide is 26. But
the average age in Portland is 27,
while in Umatilla and Morrow
counties women are having their
first babies at an average age of
23.
Other
Millennials
who
See MILLENNIALS/12A
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