A4 The BulleTin • Friday, april 30, 2021
Food drive
Continued from A1
The two high schools help
up to 20 families with elemen-
tary school students and de-
liver at least two dozen bags of
food each week.
The food drive program is
funded and supported by the
Family Access Network, a non-
profit organization that sup-
ports children’s wellbeing in
Central Oregon, and Jericho
Road, a group that runs a food
pantry in Redmond.
Each week, the students use
gift cards from the Family Ac-
cess Network to buy food at
the Dollar Tree, Grocery Out-
let and Fred Meyer. The stu-
dents usually buy items such as
peanut butter, crackers, soups,
bread and bananas for the ele-
mentary school children.
Curtis and her Ridgeview
High School classmates, Faye
Davis, a 17-year-old junior,
and Lucy Stancliff, a 15-year-
old freshman, delivered the
food Thursday to M.A. Lynch
Elementary School in Red-
Candidates
Continued from A1
Zone 2 (northeast Bend)
Wendy Imel, 37, is an ad-
junct professor in Portland
State University’s business
school and an administrator at
the Bend Hernia Center.
She was
prompted
to run to
support her
two chil-
dren — one
a Bucking-
ham Elemen-
Imel
tary School
student and
the other a Pilot Butte Mid-
dle School student — and
the teachers of Bend-La Pine
Schools. Imel hopes to do that
by increasing outreach to stu-
dents who stopped attending
school during distance learn-
ing, as well as closely analyz-
ing test scores and attendance
data to identify where help is
needed.
“I believe strongly as a par-
ent that we need to focus our
support now more than ever
to parents, students, and ed-
ucators,” Imel wrote in an
email.
As a professor, Imel said
she can sympathize with lo-
cal teachers who have felt
demoralized and burnt out
from teaching during the
COVID-19 pandemic. She be-
lieves extra communication
and support for teachers could
help.
“I know for me, as an edu-
cator, sometimes just having
my department band together
for Zoom meetings and emails
to support each other through
the harder weeks makes all the
difference,” Imel wrote.
Imel said she disapproved
of Bend-La Pine’s hesitancy to
reopen schools in the fall. If
Bend-La Pine opened schools
to in-person learning in Sep-
tember, like Sisters and Crook
County, the state would’ve
allowed schools to stay open
despite rising cases, but Su-
Ryan Brennecke/The Bulletin
Ridgeview High School student Faye Davis, front, carries bags of donated
food to Tumalo Community School with her classmates Lucy Stancliff, left,
and Kenzie Curtis while out making deliveries on Thursday.
mond and Tumalo Elementary
School.
The Redmond High School
students deliver their food to
Terrebonne Elementary School
and Sage Elementary School in
Redmond.
Davis said she always enjoys
delivering food to M.A. Lynch
because she went to school
there and feels connected to
the students. She doesn’t get to
meet with the elementary stu-
dents in person because of the
COVID-19 pandemic, but she
likes seeing them walking be-
tween classrooms. She knows
the food drive program is help-
perintendent Lora Nordquist
planned to wait until early Oc-
tober.
“That was a lost opportu-
nity to put our children first,
to make sure they knew they
were a priority,” Imel wrote.
Marcus LeGrand, 51, is
the college and career suc-
cess coach at Central Oregon
Commu-
nity College,
and a board
member of
The Father’s
Group — a
Bend edu-
cation non-
LeGrand
profit pri-
marily led by
Black fathers.
LeGrand is the father of two
children at Tumalo Commu-
nity School in the Redmond
School District, but they will
move to Sky View Middle
School in Bend once they
reach sixth grade, starting
with his eldest daughter this
September, he said.
One reason LeGrand chose
to run for school board is to
support students who don’t
feel represented in local edu-
cation.
“I looked at the issues with
marginalized students who
are students of color, or poor
white kids — they just weren’t
really being served,” LeGrand
said in a phone conversation.
“Our students of color, there
isn’t many teachers that look
like them, and that’s kind of
daunting.”
In the 2019-20 school year,
82% of Bend-La Pine students
were white, compared to 93%
of teachers, according to state
data.
LeGrand said his experi-
ence helping local college stu-
dents find a career will trans-
late well into helping younger
students at Bend-La Pine. And
he has a passionate work ethic,
he noted.
“I’m someone students
know they can come to,” LeG-
rand said. “I fight for students
every single day.”
If elected, LeGrand hopes
to meet with teachers and
gain insight on what worked
and what didn’t from the year
of distance learning. And he
agreed with Imel that helping
emotionally struggling teach-
ers is a priority.
“I’d give them the support
they need,” LeGrand said.
“They need mental health
breaks (and) access to coun-
selors.”
LeGrand was also support-
ive of Bend-La Pine’s decision
to not immediately restart
in-person learning as soon as
possible last fall.
“I’m glad they didn’t rush
back,” he said. “I’m glad they
used all the data they could,
talked to people in higher po-
sitions to make sure everyone
was safe and good to go.”
Zone 7 (at-large)
Janet Sarai Llerandi, 40, is
the finance and administrative
coordinator
for local ed-
ucation non-
profits Bet-
ter Together
and the Early
Learning
Hub of Cen-
Llerandi
tral Oregon,
as well as the
executive director of Mecca
Bend, a Latino-focused non-
profit organization.
Llerandi is also a mother of
a seventh grader at Cascade
Middle School and an eighth
grader in the Bend-La Pine
Schools online program.
Llerandi decided to run be-
cause she felt she could pro-
vide a unique perspective
missing in Bend-La Pine’s
leadership ranks, she said.
“As a family of color, as a
single-parent household, as
renters ... we face challenges
others perhaps don’t,” said Lle-
randi in a phone conversation.
“It prompted me to find out
what changes I could bring
as a parent with a somewhat
not-so-positive experience.”
If elected, Llerandi said
she’ll harness the multitude of
connections she’s established
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ing them.
“I lived here my whole life
and I went to Lynch so it’s nice
to know you are putting some-
thing back into the community
that you used to be a part of,”
Davis said.
At Redmond High School,
18-year-old senior Daisy Al-
tamirano is a part of the food-
drive program.
Altamirano said it started as
a good volunteer opportunity,
but has grown into something
she is passionate about.
“After getting involved and
seeing how many bags we do
each week, it’s a pretty impact-
ful thing,” Altamirano said,
“especially knowing you are
helping out and giving back to
the community. And making a
positive impact.”
Altamirano hopes the pro-
gram continues for future
school years.
“It’s very helpful,” Altami-
rano said. “I could see it going
further and making more bags
in the future.”
e e
Reporter: 541-617-7820,
kspurr@bendbulletin.com
in her nonprofit career, from
health care providers to early
childhood education groups,
to benefit Bend-La Pine stu-
dents and families. She’d also
use her finance expertise to
ensure federal COVID-19
funds are spent effectively, she
said.
“I can work numbers like
nobody else can,” Llerandi
said.
Llerandi also appreciated
Bend-La Pine’s recent equity
push, but she wants the dis-
trict to take things to the next
level. That means going be-
yond gathering data and tak-
ing action on suggestions that
underserved students are ask-
ing for.
“With this knowledge and
understanding, now we have
to act on it,” Llerandi said. “It
isn’t just a book we can close
and put away.”
Llerandi’s opponent is Jon
Haffner, a financial analyst for
St. Charles Bend who is also
a founding member of the
Open BendLa Pine schools
page on Facebook. He has no
elected experience.
Haffner did not respond
to multiple requests for com-
ment for this article.
Cab Burge will appear on
the ballot for Zone 7, but
dropped out of the race.
e e
Reporter: 541-617-7854,
jhogan@bendbulletin.com
TODAY
Today is Friday, April 30, the 120th
day of 2021. There are 245 days left
in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On April 30, 1975, the Vietnam War
ended as the South Vietnamese
capital of Saigon fell to Communist
forces.
In 1517, Londoners began attack-
ing foreign residents in rioting that
carried over into the next day; no
deaths were reported from what
came to be known as “Evil May
Day,” but about a dozen rioters, ,
ended up being executed.
In 1789, George Washington took
the oath of office in New York as the
first president of the United States.
In 1803, the United States pur-
chased the Louisiana Territory from
France for 60 million francs, the
equivalent of about $15 million.
In 1945, as Soviet troops ap-
proached his Berlin bunker, Adolf
Hitler took his own life along with
that of his wife of one day, Eva Braun.
In 1968, New York City police
forcibly removed student demon-
strators occupying five buildings at
Columbia University.
In 1970, President Richard M. Nixon
announced the U.S. was sending
troops into Cambodia, an action
that sparked widespread protest.
In 1973, President Richard Nixon
announced the resignations of
top aides H.R. Haldeman and John
Ehrlichman, Attorney General
Richard G. Kleindienst and White
House counsel John Dean, who was
actually fired.
In 1993, top-ranked women’s
tennis player Monica Seles was
stabbed in the back during a match
in Hamburg, Germany, by a man
who described himself as a fan of
German player Steffi Graf.
In 2004, Arabs expressed outrage
at graphic photographs of naked
Iraqi prisoners being humiliated by
U.S. military police.
In 2010, heavy winds and high
tides complicated efforts to hold
back oil from a blown-out BP-op-
erated rig that threatened to coat
bird and marine life in the Gulf of
Mexico; President Barack Obama
halted any new offshore projects
pending safeguards to prevent
more explosions like the one that
unleashed the spill.
In 2019, Venezuelan opposition
leader Juan Guaidó took to the
streets to call for a military uprising
against Nicolas Maduro; street
battles erupted in the Venezuelan
capital.
Ten years ago: A Libyan official
said Moammar Gadhafi had es-
caped a NATO missile strike in Trip-
oli that killed one of his sons and
three young grandchildren.
Five years ago: Anti-government
protesters tore down walls and
poured into the Iraqi capital’s
heavily fortified Green Zone, where
they stormed parliament in a major
escalation of a political crisis that
had simmered for months.
One year ago: The number of
Americans filing for unemployment
benefits soared past 30 million in
the six weeks since the virus out-
break took hold.
Today’s Birthdays: Singer Willie
Nelson is 88. Actor Burt Young is
81. King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden
is 75. Movie director Allan Arkush
is 73. Actor Perry King is 73. Sing-
er-musician Wayne Kramer is 73.
Singer Merrill Osmond is 68. Movie
director Jane Campion is 67. . For-
mer Canadian Prime Minister Ste-
phen Harper is 62. Actor Paul Gross
is 62. Basketball Hall of Famer Isiah
Thomas is 60. Actor Adrian Pasdar is
56. Rock singer J.R. Richards (Dish-
walla) is 54. Rapper Turbo B (Snap)
is 54. Rock musician Clark Vogeler
is 52. R&B singer Chris “Choc” Da-
lyrimple (Soul For Real) is 50. Rock
musician Chris Henderson (3 Doors
Down) is 50. Actor Kirsten Dunst is
39. Actor Dianna Agron is 35. Rap-
per/producer Travis Scott is 30.
— Associated Press
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