REGION
Friday, July 26, 2019
East Oregonian
A3
Doctor hangs his shingle in Hermiston Updated sex abuse
Dr. Daniel Buck will
be the first doctor to
serve the Hermiston
School District’s
Wellness Clinic
charges levied against
Heppner man
OPEN HOURS
The Wellness Clinic will
be open on Mondays
from 8 a.m. to noon. and
Wednesdays from noon
to 4:00 p.m. Students and
parents can reach the
Wellness Clinic at
541-667-6199.
By JESSICA POLLARD
East Oregonian
HERMISTON — Dr.
Daniel Buck has a history in
Hermiston and it’s going to
continue for a while longer.
The Hermiston School
District has partnered with
Good Shepherd Health
Care System to provide the
HSD Wellness Clinic for
the upcoming school year.
Buck will be the first doc-
tor to serve the district when
the clinic opens its doors
Monday.
“It’s a small town com-
munity,” he said. “And what
I mean by that is that people
know who you are. It’s good
to be recognized by other
people. In big cities, you
don’t get that.”
Buck moved to the west-
ern Umatilla County com-
munity from Las Vegas at the
age of 5, attending Highland
Hills Elementary School and
later Armand Larive Middle
School.
Buck looks back fondly at
his lifeguarding experience
during the summers in high
school. He still remembers
when Kyle Kennison was the
track coach, and the track
was made of cinder.
“I was there when we
raised the funds and first put
in a rubberized track,” he
recalled.
Today, that same track is
named Kennison Field for the
late coach.
“I had lots of fun growing
up around here,” he said.
Buck graduated from
Hermiston High School in
1992 and earned his associ-
ate’s degree at Blue Mountain
Community College.
He later got his bache-
lor’s degree in biology with
a minor in chemistry at the
University of Utah, where he
Contributed photo from Good Shepherd Health Care System
Starting Monday, Daniel Buck will be serving at Hermiston
School District’s Wellness Clinic.
also attended medical school.
Utah was the place of choice,
he said, because it was close
to his wife’s family.
It wasn’t until 2016, after
he completed his medical
residency in Edgewood, Ken-
tucky, that Buck came back
to his hometown of Hermis-
ton to work as an emergency
room doctor for Good Shep-
herd Medical Center.
Today, he works at the
hospital’s urgent care clinic,
seeing patients of all ages and
varieties.
When he’s not busy at the
Good Shepherd Urgent Care,
Buck enjoys fishing at Hat
Rock and Warehouse Beach
on his boat.
He’s wanted to be a doctor
since childhood, and his pas-
sion has yet to waver.
“There’s so much we still
don’t understand about how
the human body works. I
like being able to help peo-
ple, even with simple things
that improve their lives,”
Buck said.
He said it’s important to
provide early intervention for
injuries, and that a school-
based clinic like the district’s
will help with that.
“From what I’ve seen, it’s
great to provide medical help
to sports injuries that happen
at the school. Things in P.E.
classes, things that happen
with sports. Concussions are
a very common thing now on
people’s minds,” Buck said.
Another clinic was previ-
ously run by Family Health
Associates, which opened
in the winter of 2016. It was
then that HSD saw other dis-
tricts’ success with providing
on-site health care, accord-
ing to HSD communications
officer Maria Duron.
Good Shepherd partnered
with the district earlier this
year. Duron said the district’s
goal is to improve student
attendance. Staff members,
students and immediate fam-
ily can have walk-in appoint-
By ALEX CASTLE
East Oregonian
ments during class, lunch, or
prep time.
In the past, the Wellness
Clinic had seen 10 patients or
so a day, according to Duron.
The clinic will be offer-
ing free sports physicals Aug.
1-2, which are required every
two years for student ath-
letes. After Aug. 2, sports
physicals will be available for
$45 at the Wellness Clinic or
at Good Shepherd.
The Wellness Clinic will
also offer vaccinations, phys-
ical exams, treatment and
illness evaluation, and even
small stitches and sutures.
Students under 18 must have
a signed parent consent form
and a medical history from
a parent or legal guardian.
If the student has insurance,
it will be billed. The clinic’s
rates are the same as those at
Good Shepherd.
Urgent Care practice man-
ager Natasha Ellwanger said
that the clinic will rotate doc-
tors as the year progresses,
and that there will always
be a three-person staff at
the clinic, consisting of one
nurse or medical assistant,
one receptionist, and one
care provider, all from Good
Shepherd Urgent Care.
Ellwanger said she has
noticed in the past that
Urgent Care can get quite
busy during after-school
hours, and hopes the clinic
will help alleviate flow at
Good Shepherd.
“I see it as being a benefit
for the district. And, hope-
fully, as it picks up and if it
does become a busy thing
we can open more days,”
she said.
Umatilla County readies for more courthouse improvements
By PHIL WRIGHT
East Oregonian
PENDLETON — Uma-
tilla County is keeping up
its program to stay on top of
facility maintenance.
The county board of com-
missioners during its public
meeting Wednesday in Pend-
leton approved three proj-
ects for bids: replacing the
roof on the east wing of the
courthouse, replacing a fail-
ing boiler and replacing a
failing chiller. Commissioner
George Murdock noted the
trio of projects is within the
county’s preventative main-
tenance master plan for the
coming year.
Dan Lonai, county direc-
tor of administrative ser-
vices, told the board the east
wing over the law library
leaks, and that section of the
roof is the last to use bal-
last. The project will get rid
of the ballast rock, which
makes finding leaks difficult,
and replace it with a mem-
brane roof similar to what
the courthouse has on other
sections.
The second request for
proposal would replace
one of the two boilers. The
county replaced one about a
18 months ago and now is the
time to replace the other. One
boiler, he said, cannot keep
up with below-freezing tem-
peratures in the winter, and
the replacement qualifies for
energy incentives.
And the building’s chiller
is at its end. The chiller is
from 1955, Lonai said, and
the county has paid for repair
work multiple times, includ-
ing five years ago. But now
the machine is past any mod-
ifications, he said, and one
of its three chambers failed,
leaving the other two to work
harder to keep the courthouse
cooler, which means they
will fail sooner.
The project has a bit of
hurdle, he said. The county
in 1984 built the sally port
on the courthouse, and that
blocked the way to remove
the chiller from the basement.
“We can’t get the old one
out unless we chop it up,” he
said, “but we can’t chop up a
new one to put it in there.”
Instead, the new chiller
probably will go on the roof.
The board of commission-
ers voted 3-0 to seek bids for
the repairs. The board also
gave approval for two other
projects.
Health department staff
can negotiate with contractor
Kirby Nagelhout Construc-
tion Co. for renovations to
the two school-based health
centers up to $100,000, the
amount covered under a fed-
eral grant. And the county
will contact with Pendleton
Floors for about $6,900 to
replace the kitchen, day room
and hallway flooring in transi-
tional housing.
PENDLETON — An
increased fire danger and
dry weather conditions has
prompted forest officials
to implement Phase A of
the Public Use Restrictions
(PURs) for smoking, off-road
travel, and chain saw use.
The restrictions will
go into effect on the Uma-
tilla and Wallowa-Whitman
national forests at 12:01 a.m.
Friday. Phase A is the first
level of wildfire-prevention
restrictions, generally imple-
mented when the fire danger
is moderate to high. PURs are
phased in as conditions war-
rant and may differ from for-
est to forest.
The public is also encour-
aged to be very careful with
campfires when recreating
in dispersed and developed
campsites.
The public’s awareness of
the increasing fire danger and
cooperation is essential to a
safe fire season. Recreation-
ists, firewood cutters, hunt-
ers, and other forest users can
all help by closely adhering to
restrictions, operating safely
and cautiously and keeping
updated on the latest orders
and regulations.
Walla Walla
hires M-F library
director
WALLA WALLA — The
Walla Walla Public Library
didn’t have to look too far to
find it’s next director.
The city of Walla Walla
announced Thursday that it
had hired Milton-Freewa-
ter Public Library Director
Erin Wells
to
replace
its
retir-
ing library
director.
Wells has
managed
the
Wells
Milton-Free-
water library since 2014 and
has previously worked as
the director of the Greeley
County Library in Tribune,
Kansas.
A Portland native, Wells
has a bachelor’s degree from
Portland State University and
a master’s degree in library
science from Emporia State
University in Kansas.
Wells will start her new
position on Aug. 26.
Sheriff says suspect
cleans house, takes guns
By PHIL WRIGHT
East Oregonian
PENDLETON — The
Umatilla County Sheriff’s
Office asked for the pub-
lic’s help finding a burglary
suspect.
The sheriff’s office
reported it has a warrant for
the arrest of Amanda Marie
Warren, 38, of Pendleton,
who also uses the last name
Hernandez, for a home bur-
glary and eluding police.
The sheriff’s office
Wednesday at approxi-
mately 6 p.m. responded
to a report of a theft at a
residence on Birch Creek
Road northeast of Mil-
ton-Freewater. The vic-
tim, an elderly man, stated
a woman he did not know
came to his home and
asked to clean the place.
He agreed, she cleaned the
home, and left.
After she was gone,
according to the sheriff’s
office, the victim discovered
items missing, including his
wallet and two firearms (a
revolver and a semi-auto-
matic pistol).
The sheriff’s office
warned Warren may still
possess the two guns. She
also could be connected to
an older white sedan.
Sheriff’s Lt. Sterrin Hol-
comb said investigators tied
Warren to the crime but
she could not release more
details because the case is
active.
The sheriff’s office also
cautioned residents, espe-
cially elderly who live alone,
to be aware of how the sus-
pect pulled off the crime and
urged anyone having addi-
tional information to call
detective Kacey Ward at
541-966-3638 or the 24-hour
dispatch center at 541-966-
3651 and reference case No.
19-1009. In case of an emer-
gency, call 911.
Anyone who knows of
Warren’s location should not
approach her, the sheriff’s
office warned, but call the
dispatch or 911.
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BRIEFLY
National forests
move to Phase A
to reduce fire risk
HEPPNER — The Mor-
row County District Attor-
ney’s Office upped the
child pornography charges
against Tyler Allen Chris-
tian following a review of
the case’s evidence.
District Attorney Justin
Nelson said the state dis-
missed the prior case against
Christian, 22, and a grand
jury indicted him again on
nine counts on May 29, this
time all in the first degree.
Police arrested Chris-
tian on Jan. 24 in Pendleton
on four first-degree and five
second-degree charges of
possessing and distributing
visual recordings of sexu-
ally explicit conduct involv-
ing a child.
According to a search
warrant affidavit, the Ore-
gon Department of Jus-
tice received a tip from the
National Center for Miss-
ing or Exploited Children
in 2018 that an unidentified
person uploaded 50 digi-
tal files depicting the sex-
ual abuse of children to the
social media website Tum-
blr between Aug. 4-7.
The justice department’s
investigation of Chris-
tian included looking into
the Tumblr posts, trac-
ing the email and internet
addresses associated with
the account, along with sur-
veillance of his residence in
Heppner.
During the investiga-
tion in the fall of last year,
according to the affidavit,
Christian worked at Ama-
zon as an overnight security
guard.
Christian has been out
of the Umatilla County Jail,
Pendleton, on a conditional
release since May 30. Nel-
son said a June 17 closed-
door conference to reach a
plea deal failed.
Christian’s first pre-trial
hearing was July 11, with his
next one tales place Aug. 22.
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