NORTHWEST
East Oregonian
A2
Tuesday, April 12, 2022
OMSI teaching students the wonders of electricity
become a scientist,” he said.
By DICK MASON
The Observer
A return of assemblies
LA GRANDE — A number of
La Grande School District grades
schoolers had electrifying expe-
riences last week to the delight of
their classmates.
The manes and curls of students
in third, fourth and fifth grades are
standing up, sometimes as much as
6 inches as they learned about the
fundamentals of electricity during
“Jolts, Volts and Wires” presented
by Michael Kirby of the Oregon
Museum of Science and Industry’s
Outreach Team.
Students were getting excited
about electricity while partici-
pating in demonstrations Kirby
conducted with the aid of devices
such as a Van de Graaff generator,
which uses uses a moving belt to
accumulate an electric charge on
a hollow metal globe on the top of
an insulated column.
If a person holds the dome, they,
too, will become charged, and the
individual hairs on their head will
stand out and spread away from
each other.
Kirby enjoyed the demonstra-
tions as much as the children.
“This is like a dream job,” he
said. “I don’t feel like I am work-
ing.”
He said that even on days when
he encounters groups of students
who are hard to instruct, he counts
himself fortunate.
“Even when I have students who
are difficult, I still feel so lucky,”
said Kirby, who rates the La
Alex Wittwer/EO Media Group
Michael Kirby, outreach instructor for the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, looks on as Abri Meeks, 10,
demonstrates a hair-raising experiment using a Van de Graaff generator at a presentation April 4, 2022, in the
Island City Elementary School gym.
showing students how to create
their own circuit by touching each
other’s fingers. Two students held
a tube-like device with LED lights
that turned on when a current from
the human circuit passes through.
Kirby said this happens because
people generate their own electri-
cal current that passes through
others they are touching.
Grande School District’s students
among the best he has worked with.
Kirby put on demonstrations
last week in the gyms of Island
City, Central and Greenwood
elementary schools and gave
presentations in classrooms. At
each, he did much more than oper-
ate a Van de Graaff generator.
Other demonstrations included
Forecast for Pendleton Area
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TODAY
WEDNESDAY
THURSDAY
FRIDAY
SATURDAY
Mostly cloudy, a
shower; cold
Morning fl urries,
then a shower
Cold; a shower in
the afternoon
Mostly cloudy
A touch of
morning rain
43° 23°
43° 23°
49° 27°
48° 23°
PENDLETON TEMPERATURE FORECAST
44° 31°
50° 33°
50° 32°
HERMISTON TEMPERATURE FORECAST
50° 30°
54° 38°
55° 33°
OREGON FORECAST
ALMANAC
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PENDLETON
through 3 p.m. yest.
HIGH
LOW
TEMP.
Seattle
Olympia
45/34
36/22
42/28
Longview
Kennewick Walla Walla
41/25
Lewiston
47/34
50/28
Astoria
45/34
Pullman
Yakima 46/32
46/29
42/27
Portland
Hermiston
45/35
The Dalles 49/27
Salem
Corvallis
45/33
Yesterday
Normals
Records
La Grande
40/17
PRECIPITATION
John Day
Eugene
Bend
46/36
43/28
37/19
Ontario
49/25
Caldwell
Burns
45°
38°
65°
38°
84° (1936) 22° (2021)
24 hours ending 3 p.m.
Month to date
Normal month to date
Year to date
Last year to date
Normal year to date
Albany
46/35
0.21"
0.35"
0.30"
2.30"
1.73"
3.07"
WINDS (in mph)
47/26
37/15
0.11"
0.23"
0.52"
3.83"
3.34"
4.59"
through 3 p.m. yest.
HIGH
LOW
TEMP.
Pendleton 35/12
46/35
24 hours ending 3 p.m.
Month to date
Normal month to date
Year to date
Last year to date
Normal year to date
HERMISTON
Enterprise
43/23
48/32
44°
33°
61°
39°
86° (1913) 17° (1927)
PRECIPITATION
Moses
Lake
47/29
Aberdeen
40/24
41/30
Tacoma
Yesterday
Normals
Records
Spokane
Wenatchee
47/34
Today
Medford
46/35
Wed.
W 6-12
W 7-14
Boardman
Pendleton
N 4-8
WNW 4-8
SUN AND MOON
Klamath Falls
37/23
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Sunrise today
Sunset tonight
Moonrise today
Moonset today
6:15 a.m.
7:38 p.m.
3:02 p.m.
4:55 a.m.
Full
Last
New
First
Apr 16
Apr 23
Apr 30
May 8
NATIONAL EXTREMES
Yesterday’s National Extremes: (for the 48 contiguous states)
High 101° in Zapata, Texas Low 0° in Burgess Junction, Wyo.
“We all have electricity within
us,” he said. “It is a source of
energy being generated within us
all the time.”
The OMSI educator is striv-
ing to help children discover that
learning about science is fun and
they should not be intimidated by
it.
“Everybody has the ability to
At Island City, Central and
Greenwood, Kirby has served as
one of the first outside presenters
in the schools since the COVID-19
pandemic hit Northeastern Oregon
in March 2020. The pandemic
forced all in-person instruction in
Oregon schools to be canceled in
the spring of 2020. When in-person
instruction resumed, state safety
rules still prevented guests from
coming into schools or large assem-
bly gatherings.
Kirby has been able to give
demonstrations in gyms with mini-
mal restrictions only since Febru-
ary after COVID-19 infection
rates began dropping. He said he is
booked solid throughout the state for
the rest of the school year. He cred-
its the busy schedule to the pent-up
demand in schools for outside
presenters created by the COVID-
19 restrictions.
Island City Elementary School
Principal Brett Smith said Kirby’s
presentation was the first assembly
Island City third and fourth graders
had attended since the COVID-19
pandemic hit.
“They were super excited. There
was a lot of anticipation,” said Smith,
who added he is always impressed
with the OMSI programs.
Central Elementary Principal
Monica West echoed the sentiment.
“It was great to have an assem-
bly like this,” she said. “It was some-
thing different, something we had
not had in two years.”
Wallowa County commissioners
back effort for jobs-training grant
By BILL BRADSHAW
Wallowa County Chieftain
ENTERPRISE — In
an effort to provide local
training for skilled work-
ers, the Wallowa County
Board of Commissioners
lent its support Wednes-
day, April 6, to a project the
Wallowa County Educational
Service District is undertak-
ing in a partnership with
Viridian Management to
create a vocational training
center in Enterprise.
The ESD and Virid-
ian — the latter part of the
Enterprise-based Chrisman
Group — hope to enter into
a public-private partnership
to obtain a U.S. Department
of Agriculture Rural Devel-
opment Rural Innovation (for
a) Stronger Economy grant.
The grant, which could be
anywhere from $500,000
to $2 million, would be to
purchase the former Chev-
rolet dealership building in
Enterprise, into which the
ESD would move. It now
shares a building with Virid-
ian.
Patrick Patterson, pres-
ident of Viridian, empha-
sized the public-private
nature of the project.
“The private entity would
be our group — the Chrisman
Group and the entities that we
have,” he said. “We employ
about 250 people. The public
group would be the ESD,
which would also be the lead
applicant of this grant. Should
we get this grant, the ESD
would be the one who would
administer the grant and take
possession of anything we
purchase with the grant.”
He emphasized that it’s
still uncertain if the partner-
ship will be able to get the
grant.
“We’re under the gun
right now,” he said. “We
came across this at the 11th
hour, but we felt like it gets
every single thing that they’re
trying to get with this grant
and it supports what every-
body’s trying to figure out:
to get people trained, to get
people interested in training.
We just thought it was a natu-
ral partnership to involve the
high schools and get the kids
into that.”
If the grant comes through,
Patterson said, Viridian
would purchase the ESD’s
share of the Wallowa Valley
Professional Building, giving
Viridian room to expand its
training facilities. The ESD
would have more room, too,
in the former Chevrolet deal-
ership.
“I would just say that
the schools have been fully
supportive of this concept,”
said Karen Patton, superin-
tendent of the ESD. “We’re
all just very excited about the
possibilities.”
She added that the
public-private partnership
would be a lasting one.
“It would be a long-term
partnership,” she said.
Patterson said they were
not asking the county for
money, but told the commis-
sioners that the grant must be
matched with 20% nonfed-
eral funds.
“At least 20% of the funds
have to come from a nonfed-
eral source,” he said. “We
can also do in-kind dona-
tions, which means that if
someone uses their time, that
time counts as a donation.
So our funding use if we
did this would be to build or
support a community facility
and to provide worker train-
ing to assist them to provide
new jobs, create an existing
workforce and develop basic
skilled workers and improve
the opportunities to obtain
other high-wage jobs.”
NATIONAL WEATHER TODAY
IN BRIEF
Wyden announces
upcoming town halls
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WASHINGTON — Oregon U.S. Sen. Ron
Wyden recently announced he is holding
town halls in April across the state, includ-
ing for Eastern Oregon counties.
Heading into this month’s virtual town
halls, Wyden has held 1,007 town halls
statewide in fulfillment of his pledge to hold
at least one town hall each year in each of
Oregon’s 36 counties.
“Keeping my commitment for town halls
each year in each of our state’s 36 coun-
ties has been essential to my public service
because it provides any Oregonian the oppor-
tunity to ask questions and share their ideas,”
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keep my promise to continue these direct
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discussions that help to shorten the distance
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That’s the Oregon Way. and I very much look
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The upcoming virtual town hall schedule
is as follows for Eastern Oregon:
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