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East Oregonian
Friday, January 4, 2019
Resolutions: Exercise can fall by the wayside without preparation
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different things until they
find out what they like,
which they will be more
likely to stick with.
“Planning ahead is a good
idea too,” she said. “Pack
your workout bag the night
before; write your workout
on your schedule.”
Orien Fiander, chief oper-
ating officer of Club 24, said
a key metric for workout
success is if people hit the
gym eight times in their first
month as a member. That
seems to be the “magic num-
ber” that indicates the person
will likely follow through on
their intent to exercise more.
The important thing
when starting or increas-
ing exercise is to focus on
the long-term, he said. Once
people decide to start exer-
cising they often push them-
selves too hard while try-
ing to achieve immediate
changes.
“A lot of times we’ll see
failures because people say
‘I’ve decided to work out’
and then they overdo it and
they’re uncomfortable,” he
said.
Another barrier can be
intimidation. Fiander said
Club 24 offers orienta-
tions, but people who join
gyms often feel intimidated
by learning how to use the
equipment and end up just
sticking to a treadmill or
elliptical, which might not
offer the full fitness benefits
they’re looking for.
Fiander said if people
want to give themselves the
best chance of success, stud-
ies have shown that people
who exercise in the morn-
ing are significantly more
likely to stick with their rou-
tine than people who fit it in
at night.
Dan Logman of Pendle-
ton found success last year
implementing an exercise
goal, and since April 19 he
has only missed nine days of
working out at the gym.
“I set a goal to do 300
workouts in a year, and I’m
going to completely destroy
that goal,” he said.
For Logman, a series of
health decisions have all
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Instructor Tom Bailor teaches a tai chi class on Thursday at the Roundup Athletic Club in Pendleton.
built on each other, each
one making it easier for him
to meet his next goal. Quit-
ting alcohol, for example —
he’s now 42 months sober
— helped him be less slug-
gish and freed up time for
healthier pursuits. And he
made his 300-day goal on
April 19 because that’s when
he started using a BiPap
machine to help him sleep
soundly through the night.
“My
energy
levels
changed completely,” he
said.
Logman said his motto
when it comes to set-
ting exercise goals is “no
excuses,” and that attitude
has paid off. His doctor just
told him his results from
recent blood work, includ-
ing blood pressure and cho-
lesterol, have all improved
significantly.
“I’m as healthy as I’ve
ever been at 47,” he said. “I
think I’m healthier now than
when I was in my 20s.”
He said that New Year’s
resolutions tend not to work
as well for people because
they’re temporary situations,
while what is really needed
is a lifestyle change.
Cindee Henderson of
Higher Power Fitness in
Hermiston also feels that
setting New Year’s resolu-
tions isn’t the best way to
create lasting change. At
Higher Power Fitness they
try to help people move
away from rigid thinking —
“I have to weigh this much”
or “I can’t ever eat this” —
and instead focus on moder-
ation and improvement.
“The whole goal of fit-
ness is to live your life and
do the things you want to do
with ease,” she said.
She said they also try to
help people have fun with
exercise — something that
can help it feel less like a
chore.
Symphony: Composer celebrates Malheur Wildlife Refuge
Continued from Page A1
Gesme suggested composer
Chris Thomas for the job.
Thomas, a Pendleton
native who now lives in
Bend, composes and orches-
trates for television and mov-
ies. Thomas, 36, was nomi-
nated for Best Orchestrator by
the Film and TV Music Acad-
emy in 2007 and Best Film
& TV Music at the eWorld
Music Awards in Hollywood
in 2011. Bowerman met with
Thomas and bonded immedi-
ately over the project.
“Chris jumped in with
both feet,” Bowerman said.
Thomas and the Bower-
mans toured the refuge with
members of the Friends of
Malheur Wildlife Refuge.
While Bowerman had spent
plenty of time there, Thomas
got his first look. Like Bower-
man, he was blown away by
the wildlife, the big sky and
the color and texture of the
hills.
“Between April and June,
there’s a cacophony of bird
sounds that washes over you,”
Bowerman said. “It’s like the
way the waves make a contin-
uous sound.”
Thomas recorded some of
those calls to insert into the
symphony along with other
sounds collected from the ref-
uge. The soundtrack would
join images meant to com-
plement the music and make
it a more full-body experi-
ence. The sound tech person
becomes another player in
the orchestra. Future orches-
tras that perform the sym-
phony are expected to use the
recordings.
“They are written right
into the score,” Bowerman
said.
Thomas said he did most
of his composing walking
around in nature. Ideas don’t
come when he sits down at his
computer, but when he walks
a trail, they often “hit like
lightning.” When they strike,
he sings them into his phone’s
recorder.
“It’s important to be by
myself,” he said, laughing.
In the beginning, the
two men envisioned a
12-to-20-minute piece. After
speaking with various groups
of people who care about
the refuge, things expanded.
Each of the groups — tribal
members, birders, Friends of
the Malheur National Wild-
life Refuge and geologists
— gave different input about
what they thought the sym-
phony should say.
Thomas realized he had
full symphony on his hands
with five different move-
ments. The first is “Dawn-
ing Light,” the sound of
life beginning. The second,
“Sacred Basin,” tells the story
of the thousands of years the
Paiute people lived freely in
the basin. The third, “Thun-
der,” came after Thomas wit-
nessed a thunderstorm on one
of his trips to the refuge. It’s
the shortest, darkest move-
ment. The fourth, Thomas’
favorite, “Curlew Scherzo,”
showcases one of the refuge’s
residents, the long-billed cur-
lew, and its operatic call. The
final movement is a big, brass
fanfare called “Awakening.”
The Central Oregon Sym-
phony will perform the work
at a world premiere in Burns
in May and later in Bend.
Thomas said the orchestra is
considering doing a multi-city
tour in the Pacific Northwest.
He hopes his hometown is
one of the destinations.
“It would mean the world
to me to go to Pendleton,” he
said.
Bowerman couldn’t be
happier with the result.
“My hope is that this music
will help with the healing pro-
cess, including the commu-
nities affected as well as the
land itself, and remind people
about the special place that is
the Malheur Refuge,” he said.
“It is pretty exciting stuff.”
Contributed photo
Jay and Teresa Bowerman helped launch the Malheur
Symphony project.
Report: Investigation determines legislative leadership ignored sexual harassment claims
Continued from Page A1
a fear of retaliation for com-
ing forward, and there is no
confidence in the processes
in place to protect them.”
The report said the con-
duct amounted to illegal
workplace conduct, but pro-
posed no sanctions.
Senate President Peter
Courtney and House Speaker
Tina Kotek both objected to
the report, saying it miscast
their efforts to address the
harassment.
The report paints an
unflattering image of some
legislators and a culture
where power trumped law
when it came to harassment
of those working in the Cap-
itol for legislators and their
committees.
The detailed allegations
will cast a political pall as the
2019 Legislature convenes
in less than two weeks, with
leaders still in place who
Avakian’s agency said were
responsible for the culture
investigators found.
House Republicans on
Thursday night said in a
statement, “Our hope is that
the report would be the gen-
esis for the development of a
harassment-free workplace
and that meaningful sanc-
tions for future harassment
cases can be put into place.”
During the interim, the
Legislature employs about
350. That doubles during
the session, and nearly
every class of employee
had victims of what the
report described as a hostile
workplace.
Avakian’s staff had to
fight its way through the
investigation as legisla-
tive leaders tried to erect
legal roadblocks to informa-
tion. They relented and pro-
duced internal records when
ordered to do so by a state
court.
Investigators
encoun-
tered a history of silence by
victims.
One legislative employee
signed a declaration in
November that other work-
ers “have disclosed to me
that they have been sub-
jected to sexually harassing
conduct at the State Capi-
tol,” the report said.
The employee said the
others didn’t want to speak
out “due to fear that doing
so will result in harm to their
career opportunities.”
The report said the evi-
dence “reflects that peo-
ple reporting issues were
told to not speak about their
complaints and some were
warned about the possibility
of defamation or retaliation
claims for doing so.”
In his statement accom-
panying the report, Avakian
said that “nobody should
have to endure harassment
at work or in a public place,
and if there were ever a place
a person should be guaran-
teed fairness and justice, it is
in the Oregon State Capitol.”
Hoyle said Thursday
afternoon she hadn’t read the
report and wouldn’t com-
ment on how she intended to
proceed after taking over the
office.
“I feel very strongly there
is only one commissioner at
a time, and I’m not commis-
sioner until Monday,” Hoyle
said.
The report recounts in
detail the reported sexual
harassment by former state
Sen. Jeff Kruse chronicled
in earlier investigations. The
latest report found Kruse, a
Republican from Roseburg,
was inappropriate toward
several women — Sens. Sara
Gelser and Elizabeth Steiner
Hayward, a lobbyist and two
law students working in the
Capitol.
Kruse, who resigned ear-
lier this year, could not be
immediately reached for
comment on Thursday.
State investigators said
they found evidence that
Democrats ignored Kruse’s
behavior because he was a
powerful Republican ally.
Steiner Hayward said
Thursday that she disagreed
with investigators’ conclu-
sion that Courtney and Kotek
allowed a hostile work envi-
ronment and should have
known about the issues after
the complaints in 2016.
“It’s not the presiding
officers’ fault that Kruse
couldn’t comply and I didn’t
choose to complain again
until November 2017,” she
said. “I believe they took the
situation very seriously.”
Courtney said in a state-
ment Thursday that he never
knowingly let harassment
take place.
“I have taken severe
actions beyond my author-
ity to stop it. I will continue
to work as hard as I can to
create a workplace free of
harassment,” he said.
Courtney did pull Kruse
off legislative committees
in October 2017, days after
allegations against Kruse
became public.
The scandal unfolded in
the Capitol as the #MeToo
movement took hold across
the nation. At the center was
Gelser, who finally went
public with her complaints
against Kruse and touched
off a maelstrom at the Capi-
tol. She proved a key witness
for state investigators, shar-
ing details about her own
harassment and what she
had heard about other such
conduct.
Thursday, Gelser declined
to comment, writing in a text
message that she was out
of the country and couldn’t
study the report.
The report found that the
Legislature’s chief attor-
ney, Dexter Johnson, and
Lore Christopher, its human
resources director, advised
at least one lawmaker not to
go public with a complaint
against Kruse.
Gelser asked Steiner Hay-
ward in a November 2017
text message why she was
keeping secret her complaint
against Kruse, according to
the report.
“Not my choice,” Steiner
Hayward replied. “Dexter
and Lore’s based on official
process.”
Christopher didn’t return
email and voicemail mes-
sages seeking comment.
In a message to the Ore-
gon Capital Bureau Thurs-
day, Steiner Hayward said
investigators took the text
message out of context.
“Johnson and Christo-
pher merely asked me to not
to release my statement until
the investigation was for-
mally started,” Steiner Hay-
ward wrote.
Steiner Hayward said
she was not questioned as
part of the Labor Bureau’s
investigation.
“All he has is his and oth-
ers’ interpretations of my sit-
uation,” she said.
Avakian is a Democrat,
and it’s rare for a leader to go
after others in the same party
as aggressively as he has.
Avakian has often declined
to be interviewed about
the complaint. He has been
characterized as a lone wolf
within the Democratic Party.
He ran for secretary of state
in 2016 but lost to Dennis
Richardson. In 2017, he said
he would not seek another
term as labor commissioner.
The report found Kruse’s
conduct was so well known
through the Capitol that there
was a running joke that he
was out smoking a cigarette
during the sexual harassment
training. Ironically, Kruse
was known to smoke inside
the building despite prohibi-
tions against doing so.
“The record suggests that
respondents, at least initially,
took more serious steps to
curb former Senator Kruse’s
smoking than they did to
curb his sexual harassment,”
the report concluded.
The report found that
when legislative leaders did
act, they often did so in pri-
vate, treating complaints
informally rather than doc-
umenting them. A law-
yer hired by the Legislature
to investigate allegations
against Kruse left two stu-
dent interns believing they
weren’t entitled to sue the
Legislature because they
weren’t paid employees.
While the report found there
was no intent to mislead
them, it did note that such a
response would discourage
people from complaining.
The report said lead-
ers should have seen how
women like the interns
were vulnerable to Kruse’s
advances, but failed to act
“due to an acceptance of
unwelcome conduct that is
erroneously thought to not
rise to the level of sexual
harassment.”
The report referenced
inappropriate hugs by Kruse,
and quoted Courtney’s chief
of staff, Betsy Imholt, say-
ing she wouldn’t have com-
plained about such behavior.
The misconduct also
extended beyond Kruse, the
report said. In 2017, a report
surfaced that Rep. Diego
Hernandez, D-Portland, had
a list ranking lobbyists on
attractiveness. Gelser told
investigators that after she
heard a complaint had been
made about that, Christopher
told lobbyists it would go
nowhere because Hernandez
was an up-and-comer who
would have a lot of power.
A legislative investiga-
tion into the matter in 2017
ended with no one acknowl-
edging such a list existed, the
report said.
The more recent inves-
tigation uncovered hand-
written notes taken by a
human resources employee
at the Legislature relating
to an incident observed by
a person whose name was
redacted. That source report-
edly witnessed state Rep.
Bill Post, R-Keizer, holding
a female staff member’s chin
while out having drinks at a
bar and “saying something
about her being cute,” the
report said.
The report said the notes
indicated the female staffer
shared with a witness text
messages from Post while
they were at the bar.
“Post mentioned at least
5 times that his wife was out
of town,” according to the
notes quoted in the report.
Post said the allegation an
investigation in 2017 “found
nothing happened.” He said
he didn’t learn who com-
plained and was told by leg-
islative administrators not to
discuss the matter.
Included in the 100,000
pages of materials the Leg-
islature turned over to inves-
tigators were handwritten
notes from Kotek discuss-
ing informal complaints
about Rep. David Gomberg,
D-Otis, alleging inappro-
priate touching, telling a
young woman to get ready
for “birthday spankings”
and saying an intern was a
stripper.
The report said the notes
appear to be from 2013, and
indicate Gomberg was told
to stop his behavior.
The note went on: “Not
helpful for you if you discuss
this conversation w/people
in this building.”
By Aubrey Wieber, Paris
Achen and Claire Withy-
combe of the Oregon Cap-
ital Bureau contributed to
this story.