OREGON
Saturday, September 21, 2019
East Oregonian
A9
Bend school brings back alumni for 100th anniversary
The school is
Bend-La Pine’s
oldest remaining
school building
By JACKSON HOGAN
EO Media Group
BEND — Patty Stell has
many memories of her six
years at Kenwood School in
the early 1960s, but the one
that stands out was the day
she brought a goat for show
and tell.
She walked the goat into
the Kenwood courtyard,
where it stayed for students
to gawk at and interact with
all day long.
“It was kind of like having
a small part of a petting zoo,”
recalled Stell, 64, laughing.
Kenwood — known as
Highland Magnet at Ken-
wood School — is turning
100 this fall, marking a cen-
tury’s worth of memories for
many who grew up in its hall-
ways and classrooms. The
brick building on Newport
Avenue welcomed its fi rst
students in the fall of 1919,
when Bend’s population was
about 5,400, according to the
U.S. Census.
Although he didn’t grow
up in Bend, Kenwood Prin-
cipal Brian Kissell said he
understands that his job
requires him to not only
oversee daily operations, but
also to serve as a steward for
Bend-La Pine’s oldest school.
“In a positive way, I feel
a lot of pressure to have that
really good experience for
people to come back and visit
their old stomping grounds,”
he said. “It’s not something
I’ve taken lightly since I’ve
been here.”
Simply mentioning that
he’s the principal of Ken-
wood in conversation can
make about 25% to 30% of
people in Bend suddenly
start sharing memories of the
school, Kissell said.
“It’s not your typical
school, where I can have that
many people all around town,
or even outside of town, have
a good chance of them hav-
ing some connection to this
building,” he said.
When walking through
the hallways of Kenwood
School, it’s hard to tell that
the building was built a cen-
tury ago.
But even after an exten-
sive, $4 million remodel
of Kenwood in 2015 put a
clean, sleek sheen on the
school’s hallways and class-
rooms, there are plenty of
quirks intact from its his-
tory. Right by the front
entrance, a metal radiator
from the 1940s remains for
nostalgic reasons, although
it no longer works. And all
the classrooms that were
part of the initial 1919
structure have their origi-
EO Media Group Photo/Ryan Brennecke
Brian Kissell, principal at Highland Magnet at Kenwood
School, reads a newspaper clipping from the 1940s while
reviewing poster boards created for the school’s 90th anni-
versary on Wednesday. Several of the poster boards will be
on display during a 100th anniversary celebration for the
school on Saturday.
nal wood fl oors, with vis-
ible marks and stains from
decades-old desks.
Larry Blanton, the for-
mer Deschutes County sher-
iff who works for the Bend
construction fi rm Kirby
Nagelhout, attended Ken-
wood from fourth through
sixth grades in the late 1960s.
Every day, he walked to and
from Kenwood from his
home on Columbia Street,
lugging his trombone with
him, he said.
“It was three or four
blocks away, but at that age, it
felt like the proverbial uphill
both ways,” said Blanton, 62.
For fi fth and sixth grades,
Blanton was taught by Jack
Ensworth, who would later
be named National Teacher
of the Year in 1973. Blanton
said Ensworth taught him
and his classmates many
skills outside the typical aca-
demic subjects, such as fl y
fi shing and American Sign
Language.
“I’m a little rusty on it
right now, but I certainly
used it in my law enforce-
ment career,” Blanton said of
learning sign language.
Redmond resident Phil-
amena White, 45, said she
remembers running around
Kenwood’s gym as a fi fth-
grader in the mid-1980s
while the hit song “Eye of the
Tiger” was playing.
Stell, who served as
Bend’s city recorder later in
life, said although typically,
she walked home for lunch
every day, on occasions when
her mother wasn’t home, she
got to eat at Kenwood’s caf-
eteria. She said those occa-
sions were “a treat.”
“They had the most won-
derful dinner rolls in the
whole world,” she said. “It’s
still hard to fi nd any that
compares.”
Kenwood’s students also
lived through historic Amer-
ican moments. White said
her fi fth-grade class took a
fi eld trip to Central Oregon
Community College to see
Geraldine Ferraro, the fi rst
woman to run as vice pres-
ident from a major party in
1984. Ferraro was stumping
for her running mate, Walter
Mondale.
Stell said that one day
in fourth grade, a student
came back from the offi ce
and informed the class that
President John F. Kennedy
had been shot. She said her
teacher began to get teary-
eyed, and soon, a voice on the
school intercom told the stu-
dents to pack up their things
and go home.
All the students walked
home “with purpose” and
didn’t play around like on
most days, Stell said.
Stell said she was con-
fused that day, because she
had always mixed up Ken-
nedy and her principal,
Henry Hall.
“I thought Mr. Hall had
been killed, and I was very
upset,” she said. “He wasn’t,
of course.”
When the roof of Ken-
wood’s gym collapsed due to
heavy snowfall in 2017, more
memories surfaced for Ken-
wood’s alumni. Because his
new company Kirby Nagel-
hout was tasked with tearing
down and rebuilding Ken-
wood’s gym, Blanton said it
was an unusual feeling, see-
ing his old stomping grounds
in disarray.
“I remember standing
at the edge of the founda-
tion, looking into what used
to be the basement,” he said.
“Quite a number of peo-
ple had gathered around; it
wasn’t a good time for a lot of
people.”
On Saturday, Kenwood
will host an open house from
11 a.m. to 2 p.m. for commu-
nity members to reminisce.
Kissell said visitors will see
“memory boards” in each
classroom, where people can
write notes about their expe-
rience at the school.
When walking through
Ensworth’s former class-
room, Kissell noted that its
wood fl oor was ragged and
patched up with old putty. He
chuckled at how the authen-
tically worn surface had
become trendy.
“People pay to have this
put into their homes now,”
Kissell said. “It’s just here.”
Group seeking to decriminalize drugs in Oregon Portland research
shows vaping illness
may not be new
By JEFF MAPES
Oregon Public
Broadcasting
PORTLAND — An
infl uential national group
that has led the way on can-
nabis legalization around the
country is looking at asking
Oregon voters to decrimi-
nalize the possession of all
illegal drugs.
The Drug Policy Alli-
ance, which has received
major funding from billion-
aire investor George Soros,
has fi led a proposed initia-
tive for the 2020 ballot and
hired a team of political con-
sultants in Oregon.
Matt Sutton, the spokes-
man for the New York-based
alliance, said his group has
not decided whether to
move forward on the mea-
sure, known as Initiative
Petition 44.
“We’re really just assess-
ing the situation,” said Sut-
ton, adding that the group
is looking at “how we can
move away from a system
of criminalization to a more
health-centered approach.”
Sutton said his group is
also looking at similar mea-
sures in other states that he
declined to name.
Oregon has long been
a leader in lowering pen-
alties for illegal drugs. In
1973, it was the fi rst state
to decriminalize the pos-
session of small amounts of
marijuana, making the pen-
alty a fi ne equivalent to a
traffi c ticket. And in 2014,
it was third to fully legalize
the drug, behind only Wash-
ington and Colorado.
Since, the state has low-
ered several penalties for
possession of illegal drugs.
But treating possession
of drugs, such as heroin or
methamphetamine, as a
minor noncriminal violation
could spark a fi erce political
debate.
“Decriminalizing
all
drug possession would be an
extremely reckless move,”
said Washington County
District Attorney Kevin
Barton.
While seeking to decrim-
inalize drug use, the alli-
ance’s ballot measure would
require the state to make
major increases in fund-
ing for drug addiction treat-
ment in Oregon. The state
would have to pump at least
$57 million in the fi rst year
into treatment, with the
amount growing each year
thereafter.
The money would chiefl y
come from taxes on mari-
juana sales, which are pro-
jected to produce about $120
million a year for the state.
Additional money would be
redirected from savings on
prosecution and incarcera-
tion costs.
Janie Gullickson, the
executive director of the
Mental Health and Addic-
tion Association of Oregon
and one of the chief spon-
sors of the initiative, said
that Oregon is among one of
the worst states in the coun-
try in terms of providing
access to drug treatment.
“The wait list to get treat-
ment is months long, and in
some rural counties, there is
practically no treatment at
all,” Gullickson wrote in an
email.
At the same time, the
initiative has worried some
treatment groups.
Mike Marshall is the
director of Oregon Recov-
ers, a coalition of provider
groups pushing the state to
upgrade its addiction treat-
ment programs. He said he
plans to hold a community
meeting next month to dis-
cuss the initiative’s fl aws.
He said he sympathizes
with the group’s goals but
calls the measure “too little,
too soon and too dangerous.”
Marshall said legislators,
state offi cials and health
care providers are working
on plans to upgrade treat-
ment programs and bet-
ter tie them into the overall
health care system.
He said the measure’s
treatment goals are not well
thought out. And he said it
doesn’t provide an alterna-
tive way of channeling peo-
ple into treatment that often
occurs when addicted drug
users are forced into the
legal system.
Barton, the Washington
County district attorney,
said that’s one of his major
concerns.
“If
we
completely
decriminalize drugs, there
will be a whole host of peo-
ple that will not get the treat-
ment that they need,” he
said, adding that many of
these are “more dangerous
and more addictive drugs.”
Peter Zuckerman, a
communications
consul-
tant working on the pro-
posed ballot initiative, wrote
in an email that the cur-
rent approach to drugs has
failed.
“We need to start treating
addiction as a health issue,
not something we crimi-
nally punish people for,” he
said. “Criminalizing drugs
disproportionately harms
poor people and people of
color, and punishing peo-
ple who are suffering from
drug addiction ruins lives,
is more expensive and less
effective than treatment.”
Zuckerman said he is
working with two longtime
Oregon political consul-
tants, Mark Wiener and Liz
Kaufman. All three worked
on the successful 2014 cam-
paign to legalize recre-
ational cannabis in Oregon.
The political arm of the
Drug Policy Alliance con-
tributed about $1.7 million
of the $4 million campaign
waged to pass that bal-
lot measure. The alliance
played a key role in similar
pro-cannabis efforts around
the country.
Polls show voters around
the country support mari-
juana legalization by strong
majorities, and many social
justice groups argue that
criminalizing drug use has
been devastating to many
minority
communities.
The opioid addiction crisis,
which has hit many rural
areas hard, has also spurred
a rethinking of how to han-
dle illegal drug use.
By KRISTIAN
FODEN-VENCIL
Oregon Public Broadcasting
PORTLAND — In 2011,
Cathy Markin, a lung doc-
tor at Legacy Good Samar-
itan Hospital in Portland,
had a 42-year-old patient
who came to her with seri-
ous breathing problems.
She had suffered from a
cough and a fever. She had
also vaped for about seven
months.
Markin looked at the
fl uid in the patient’s lungs
and diagnosed lipoid pneu-
monia. That’s the appear-
ance of oil in the lungs. Reg-
ular pneumonia is mucus in
the lungs.
Markin suggested she
stop vaping, and her lungs
cleared up. She wrote an
article on the case, which
appeared in CHEST, a pub-
lication for the American
College of Chest Physicians.
Markin said she had
another case three years ago,
so she’s not sure what’s new
with this recent outbreak.
“I think part of it is that
more people are vaping.
More physicians are rec-
ognizing that vaping could
be playing a role in unex-
plained respiratory failure.
But I also think that there’s
something different going
on out there. We wouldn’t
see this cluster of cases
unless there was some-
thing that was changing out
there,” Markin said.
The Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention is
not ruling out contaminants.
It just activated an Emer-
gency Operations Center to
continue investigations into
380 cases across 36 states.
The Food and Drug
Administration is testing
more than 100 samples from
those states, and has not
ruled out problems linked to
contaminants, such as THC,
Vitamin E acetate, nicotine,
diluting agents, cannabi-
noids, additives, pesticides
and poisons.
Oregon Health Author-
ity offi cials said the agency
is still investigating cases
in the state to determine the
cause of the latest illnesses.
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Annual Heritage Luncheon
“ A Right Yorkshire Lass: Fannie Kay
Bishop and the Founding of
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Guest Speaker John Bishop
Sat rday October 5, 2019
12pm-2pm
Pendleton Convention Center
Sponsored by the “Pendleton Insurance Center”
ABC’S OF MEDICARE
Helping you through the Medicare Maze
October 1st, 2019
Heritage Luncheon 2019 tickets
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Purchase tickets in advance
at Heritage Station Museum
or call 541-276-0012.
Ticket price includes a catered lunch
from CG Catering.
The Saddle Restaurant. (We’ll buy the coffee!)
Session one @ 9am and Session two at 4:30pm
Looking for a fun, no-pressure way to learn
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event. We’ll answer any question you have about
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541-276-0367 • terry@pendletoninsurancecenter.com
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