OFF PAGE ONE
Thursday, April 29, 2021
East Oregonian
A7
BMCC: Kim Puzey has been on the board for 25 years
Continued from Page A1
BMCC Board of Education zone map
Umatilla County holds five out of the seven zones on the Blue Mountain Community College Board
of Education, but only zones 3, 4 and 6 will be up for election on May 18. Both Pendleton and
Hermiston are split into two separate zones.
221
Umatilla
Irrigon
Boardman
14
82
Co
10 miles
R
Wash.
Adams
Mission
E. Punkin Center Rd.
Lexington
Zone 4 includes
La Grande
203
244
237
ate
30
Westgat
e
84
atil
Um
North
Powder
395
ve.
urt A
30
. Co
S.W
ain
S. M
S. First Street
11
l a Ri
ve
r
11
Medical
Springs
30
St.
S.W. 11th Street
Ukiah
N
Kipp Barron
Union
Zone 7
37
HERMISTON
E. Highland Avenue
Hardman
207
ZONE 4
(East Hermiston and
Umatilla)
237
S. Ott Road
a
gon
Dia
84
North
g
ce
Pla
Zone 5
ad
l Ro
UNION
395
Zone 3
includes
voting
precincts
137, 141,
142 and 143
Dale
207
Feedville Road
395
GRANT
PENDLETON
te
rst
207
E. Elm Avenue
206
WALLOWA
82
UMATILLA
voting 74
precincts
129 and 130
Heppner
207
395
74
Pilot Rock
thga
395
at
Um illa
Lostine
Meacham
84
84
BAKER
203
86
30
Baker City
395
N
4,000 feet
Sources: Blue Mountain Community College,
Umatilla County Elections Division
American Indian students,
Sampson-Samuels said the
board could meet with the
Tribes’ Board of Trustees and
maybe even create an advi-
sory committee on the issue.
Zone 4 (East
Hermiston and
Umatilla)
Having spent 25 years on
the BMCC board, Zone 4
incumbent Kim Puzey said
he was not only the longest
tenured member currently
serving on the board, but also
the longest serving board
member in the college’s
nearly 60-year history.
For Puzey, the motivation
to continue serving on the
board lies in both the past and
the future.
The son of a man who
spent his working life on a
kill fl oor at a slaughterhouse,
Puzey credits his ability to
work an offi ce job to public
education.
“My entire family has
been emancipated from
poverty because of educa-
tion,” he said.
Puzey said his parents’
generation lived in an era
of public investment, a time
when Americans were will-
ing to raise their taxes to fund
highways, airways, dams and
other infrastructure.
But the same sense of
public investment hasn’t
Ben Lonergan/East Oregonian, File
have invested resources into
homeless services, but their
problems have worsened.
“How can you make it a
goal if you’re never going to
solve it?” he said.
Turner said the council
will formally adopt its new
goals at its next meeting on
Tuesday, May 4. From there,
the council will break up
into committees to discuss
how to measure progress on
each of the goals.
been extended to commu-
nity colleges in recent years,
Puzey said, linking BMCC’s
decreasing enrollment to the
increasing unaff ordability of
post-secondary education.
Puzey’s desire to preserve
BMCC for his grandchildren
and other future generations
led him to propose a radical
restructuring of the college’s
assets. Over a series of edito-
rials, Puzey suggested merg-
ing the college with local
school districts to create
a K-14 model. Under his
proposal, the school districts
in Hermiston, Milton-Free-
water, Baker City and
Morrow County would take
over the college’s facili-
ties at those locations while
BMCC’s fl agship campus in
Pendleton would become an
extension of Eastern Oregon
University.
Puzey is facing a chal-
lenge from Umatilla entre-
preneur Kipp Barron, who
is making his fi rst run for
public offi ce along with his
children.
While Barron is running
for the BMCC board, daugh-
ter Jubilee and son Caleb are
making bids for two sepa-
rate seats on the board of
directors for the Umatilla
County Special Library
District. Another son, Josiah,
is running unopposed for a
seat on the Umatilla School
they have no idea about job
security?” he said. “It’s like
nobody has any insight into
what it’s like to run a busi-
ness. I’d be saying something
diff erent if they could iden-
tify that the restaurants were
the problem.”
Contact tracers have
followed up on the likely
sources of the county’s
reported cases throughout
the pandemic. Murdock,
the liaison for the county’s
health department, said,
“I’m not sure I’ve ever heard
a restaurant mentioned” by
contact tracers as a source of
an outbreak.
Morrow County Commis-
sioner Don Russell said the
same is true in his county.
“I think restaurants have
been unnecessarily penal-
ized by government regu-
lation,” he said. “It’s tough
Sponsor List:
NIE
Newspapers In Education
Age: 57
Occupation: Entrepreneur
and security worker
Birthplace: Pendleton
Years in Umatilla County: 50
Highest level of education:
High school diploma and
some college
Family: Widowed, four
children
Kim Puzey
Alan Kenaga/For the East Oregonian
Chairs sit in a social distancing pattern during the Pendle-
ton City Council meeting on Sept. 1, 2020.
America has solved yet, so
the council doesn’t want to
invest taxpayer money into
it, deferring to nonprof-
its like the Community
Action Program of East
Central Oregon. He added
that larger communities
like Portland and Seattle
Wallowa
Elgin
See detail; below, right
Ione
Continued from Page A1
Continued from Page A1
204
82
207
2,600 feet
State route
County line
City limits
Weston
Pendleton
MORROW
Lonerock
Interstate
Athena
Stanfield
Age: 36
Occupation: Project director
at Northwest Portland Area
Indian Health Board
Birthplace: Jeff erson City,
Missouri
Years in Umatilla County: 9
Highest level of education:
Graduate certifi cate, Oregon
Health & Science University
Family: Married, four chil-
dren and two stepchildren
Zone 7
11
Helix
Carrie Sampson-Samuels
Zone 6
Milton-
Freewater
Ordnance
er
Riv
Zone 5
Ore.
730
Echo
74
Wash.
Ore.
Hermiston
84
Ore.
ia
lu m b
Zone 4
College Place
BMCC BOARD
CANDIDATES
ZONE 3
(South Pendleton, Pilot Rock,
Echo, Ukiah and Meacham)
Zone 3
Sou
.
Wash
iv e
r
395
Risk:
Survey:
BMCC board zones
Walla Walla
12
See detail; below, left
i
N. F
accepted into a registered
nursing program when she
decided to move closer to her
father’s side of the family in
Eastern Oregon. Upon arriv-
ing, she learned that her cred-
its wouldn’t transfer, spurring
feelings of discouragement.
She began taking classes
at community college again,
including a stint at BMCC,
before transferring to Port-
land State University to study
health studies and commu-
nity health education.
She excelled in the class-
room, completing her bach-
elor’s degree in less than a
year-and-a-half, but she was
also a single mother who was
struggling without family
nearby.
After getting behind
the wheel after spending
some time at a local bar,
Sampson-Samuels was
charged with DUII in 2010.
After attending a diversion
program, the charges were
dropped. Additionally, she
checked into an outpatient
program from the Native
American Rehabilitation
Association, a decision she
credited in helping her grow
long term.
“It was a really bad deci-
sion and it was a really bad
outcome at the time,” she
said. “I felt like everything
was crumbling down on
me. But it was a really good
learning opportunity for me.
I started crawling out of a
hole, a cycle, that had aff ected
me my whole life.”
Sampson-Samuels even-
tually returned home to work
as an administrator for the
Yellowhawk Tribal Health
Center and has since moved
on to working for the North-
west Portland Area Indian
Health Board, a remote job
that allows her to stay in
Pendleton.
Sampson-Samuels said
she decided to run for the
BMCC board because she
wanted to make the college
a destination for everyone,
regardless of their age, race
or gender.
“(We should) build on its
current strengths, make it a
destination, make it a college
people want to attend and
not just because it’s the only
option.”
Given BMCC’s enroll-
ment crunch, Sampson-Sam-
uels said the college could
send out a survey to local
high schoolers and other
prospective students to gauge
which classes they want to
see.
As a way of being more
inclusive toward the college’s
A & G Property Management &
Maintenance
Barton Laser Leveling
Blue Mountain Community College
Blue Mountain Diagnostic Imaging
CHI St. Anthony Hospital
CMG Financial
CMG Financial
Columbia Point Equipment Company
Corteva Agriscience
Davita Blue Mountain Kidney Center
Desire For Healing Inc
Duchek Construction
Hill Meat Company
Jeremy J Larson DMD LLC
Kirby Nagelhout Construction Co.
Barron
Currin
Board, all but assuring him
an electoral victory.
Barron said the simultane-
ous campaigns evolved from
conversations he had with his
children about local politics.
“It’s just important to be
thinking about these things
instead of always looking
at the screen that we have
in (our hands), scrolling
(through) mindless stuff ,” he
said. “We were always look-
ing at what was going on in
the special election and we all
kind of had the same idea.”
Barron said he was moti-
vated to run for the board
because he’s taken BMCC
classes in the past, and as a
native of the area, he wanted
to give back.
Puzey
Sampson-
Samuels
Age: 69
Occupation: General man-
ager at Port of Umatilla
Birthplace: Salt Lake City,
Utah
Years in Umatilla County: 27
Highest level of education:
Master’s degree, Eastern New
Mexico University
Family: Married, six children
and 18 grandchildren
ZONE 6
(Milton-Freewater, Athena
and Weston)
Abe Currin has a bache-
lor’s degree from the Univer-
sity of Oregon in political
science and a master’s degree
in teaching from Eastern
Oregon University, but he’s
made a career as a cider
maker for Blue Mountain
Cider Co. in Milton-Freewa-
ter.
Currin grew up in the
area, and when incumbent
Tony Turner approached
him about replacing him on
the BMCC board, Currin
welcomed the chance to
bring “fresh blood” to the
board.
“I’m a big proponent of
community colleges, espe-
cially in rural areas,” said
Currin, who is running unop-
posed.
Addressing the college’s
current budget crunch,
Currin said higher educa-
tion is always trying to navi-
gate budget crunches and the
board’s challenge will be to
balance their fi scal responsi-
bilities while cutting as few
services as possible, includ-
ing those provided by the
college’s satellite campuses
in Hermiston, Boardman and
Milton-Freewater.
Currin said he’s “neutral”
about BMCC’s impending
staffing cuts until he can
learn more about the situa-
tion, but he did speak about
the college’s falling enroll-
ment.
Currin said he spent a year
at Walla Walla Community
College before transferring
to the University of Oregon,
so he knows the importance
community colleges play in
education.
He added that boosting
enrollment could involve the
college spreading awareness
over the role it plays in help-
ing people get an education.
to stay in business. Some of
them may never come back.
Even though there’s been
grant money available to
them, it’s not enough to make
them whole. And then how
do you get your employees
back when they’ve been laid
off for a while, and then you
open back up?”
To cushion the fi nancial
blow to businesses, Brown
said she is working with
the Oregon Legislature on
an emergency $20 million
fi nancial aid package.
With restaurants at
limited capacity, Murdock
said he’s concerned it will
drive people to gather in
environments more suscep-
tible to infection.
“After 13 or 14 months,
people want to get together,”
he said. “They’re limited
in going to a restaurant, so
they find somewhere else
to gather, and it’s usually
under circumstances that
are far less safe than going
to a restaurant. The aver-
age home doesn’t utilize
the same health and safety
precautions. So we’re forcing
people to have gatherings, I
guess.”
County offi cials have said
social gatherings combined
with the county’s low vacci-
nation rates are driving the
case spike.
“In almost every single
case, the people who are now
being infected aren’t vacci-
nated,” Murdock said.
The county has long
reported some of the lowest
vaccination rates in the state.
According to the Oregon
Health Authority, approxi-
mately 23% of the county’s
population is at least partially
vaccinated, the lowest total
in Oregon.
Umatilla County commis-
sioners, along with offi cials
from across Eastern Oregon,
have previously requested
the state relinquish its
authority over local govern-
ments, claiming individual
county governments are
better suited to make deci-
sions that best serve their
communities.
“We know the local
circumstances best, we know
the local situation,” Murdock
said. “And we think we could
be boots on the ground and
manage it better than having
it come from the state. Plus,
it’s diffi cult for us to keep
track of the (state’s) regula-
tions, because they change
all of a sudden.”
Russell said he is confi -
dent in the ability of Morrow
County’s health department
to take the reins.
“It seems like local
government knows the terri-
tory more than state govern-
ment,” he said. “And I know
Gov. Brown has a really
tough job. She’s trying to
protect the populous from
this horrible pandemic that
has covered the world. But,
again, I think the hospital-
ity industry has been picked
on unnecessarily in some
cases.”
Zone 6 (Milton-
Freewater, Athena and
Weston)
Kopacz Nursery & Florist
Landmark Tax Services
McEntire Dental
McKay Creek Estates
NW Metal Fabricators Inc
Pendleton KOA
RE/MAX Cornerstone
Rob Merriman Plumbing & Heating Inc
Starvation Ridge Farming, LLC
Sun Terrace Hermiston
Tum-A-Lum Lumber
Umatilla Electric Cooperative
Umatilla Electric Cooperative
WalMart
Abe Currin
Age: 42
Occupation: Cider maker at
Blue Mountain Cider Co.
Birthplace: Baker City
Years in Umatilla County: 38
Highest level of education:
Master’s degree, Eastern
Oregon University
Family: Single