Serving Central Oregon since 1903 • $1.50
TUESDAY • June 8, 2021
ALSO IN BUSINESS, A9
APPLE GROWERS HAVE
A HIT WITH HARD CIDER
• OSHA fines Cork Cellars in Sisters
• Medline sold for $34 billion
SPORTS PULLOUT, A 7
Realms’ first-ever graduating class
includes an advocate for the homeless
MADRAS
Gunfire at
truck stop
called an
accident
Man injures himself, woman
next to him during breakfast
rush; police investigating
BY JACKSON HOGAN
The Bulletin
Submitted photo
Says Realms High School senior Devan
Fine: “I’m so happy to have seen it go
from plywood rooms ... to a fully func-
tional school with four grades in it. I
adore this school.”
About three years ago, Bend-La
Pine Schools opened two small
magnet high schools: Realms and
Skyline.
This month, those schools are
honoring their first graduating
classes, including standout gradu-
ates like Devan Fine, an activist and
student leader who hopes to be-
come an acupuncturist.
Fine, who enrolled at Realms
High after the school opened in her
sophomore year, said she thrived
with the school’s emphasis on stu-
dent-guided, real world-focused
learning.
“I’m so happy to have seen it go
from plywood rooms ... to a fully
functional school with four grades
in it,” said Fine, 18. “I adore this
school.”
One of Realms High’s unique
teaching strategies even helped Fine
develop a desire to advocate for
Bend’s homeless population.
At Realms, curriculum is filtered
through “expeditions,” where all
subjects are taught through the lens
of a specific topic, like homeless-
ness. The goal is to connect school-
work to real-world issues.
During the fall of her sophomore
year, a group of homeless people
lived behind Realms High’s northeast
Bend building, and officials said they
had to be moved, Fine said. So her
group’s expedition was focused on
homelessness, and specifically help-
ing that group move safely, she said.
Now, Fine is passionate about
helping locals experiencing home-
lessness, she said.
See Realms / A13
BY GARRETT ANDREWS
The Bulletin
The breakfast rush at the Madras
Truck Stop was interrupted abruptly Sun-
day morning when a 19-year-old man
accidentally shot himself, blowing off
several fingers and injuring the woman
seated next to him.
Just before 9 a.m., employees and pa-
trons in the Madras Truck Stop at 955
SW U.S. Highway 97 called 911 to report
a gunshot, according to Madras Police
Department.
People heard a small pop and after-
ward could see smoke and smell gunpow-
der, according to Jesse Israel, manager of
the truck stop.
An unnamed man and a woman, also
19, had been hit by a single bullet, suffer-
ing injuries not considered life -threaten-
ing, said Madras Police Sgt. Steve Webb.
“It was fairly quickly learned that it was
probably an accidental discharge of a fire-
arm,” Webb said.
The two were members of a party pre-
paring to eat breakfast, Israel said.
“He had a loaded gun in his hoodie,
his front pocket,” Israel said. “And he
was playing with it, and his phone, and
switching his phone from one pocket to
another pocket. It was not on safety and
it fired.”
Making
CONNECTIONS
Phone -call program offers comfort to Central Oregon’s isolated seniors
See Truck stop / A13
Complex legal
issues swirl
in Klamath
water debate
BY ALEX SCHWARTZ
(Klamath Falls) Herald & News/Report for America
The fringe group of irrigators and Peo-
ple’s Rights Oregon volunteers who plan
to forcibly open the Klamath Project’s A
Canal say the law is on their side when
it comes to who’s entitled to the water in
Upper Klamath Lake.
As it turns out, the law may be on
many people’s sides.
Led in part by irrigators Dan Nielsen
and Grant Knoll, the group is operating
a “water crisis info center” adjacent to
the canal headworks. The red-and-white
tent, along with signs criticizing federal
water management, are visible from Ne-
vada Street.
The encampment has hosted several
speakers, including participants in the
2001 Bucket Brigade and BJ Soper, a
Redmond resident and state assistant
for the People’s Rights Network who was
with Ammon Bundy during his take-
over of the Malheur National Wildlife
Refuge in 2016. Recently, Soper pro-
vided a crash course on the Constitution
to about 100 people gathered under the
tent.
Soper focused on the Fourth and Fifth
amendments to the Constitution, which
protect individuals from unreasonable
searches and seizure and from being de-
prived of property without due process or
just compensation.
Dean Guernsey/The Bulletin
BY KYLE SPURR • The Bulletin
C
arol Allison looks forward to her
weekly calls from a friend she’s
never met.
The 85-year-old writer and il-
lustrator in Madras has talked
regularly over the phone for the past three
months with Kelli Bradley, a volunteer with
Caring Connections, a program that con-
nects volunteers with seniors experiencing
isolation through the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I just thought it would be fun to do that
and meet somebody new and talk,” Allison
said. “Since I live by myself.”
Allison, who moved from Portland to Ma-
dras in 1956, has lived alone since her husband
died of cancer in the mid-1960s. But she is not
as lonely as other seniors. She has three sons,
including one in Madras, and nine grandchil-
dren and 10 great-grandchildren.
Still, Allison lights up when she talks with
Bradley, a Sunriver resident who works in
consulting and owned an in-home care com-
pany for several years. The two talk for hours
about cooking, computer problems and how
much Central Oregon has changed since Al-
lison arrived.
“It helps people and it brings
people together. I think it
would be great for elderly
people who can’t get out or
don’t have anything at home
to keep them busy.”
— Carol Allison, 85, of Madras, pictured above
with her 20-year-old parrot, Missy. Allison
benefits from the Council of Aging’s Caring
Connections program.
They both feel grateful they were matched
through the program.
“It helps people and it brings people to-
gether,” Allison said. “I think it would be great
for elderly people who can’t get out or don’t
have anything at home to keep them busy.”
Denise LaBuda, director of communications
for the Council of Aging of Central Oregon,
said the council started the Caring Connec-
tions program last fall. The organization started
to notice seniors were more isolated than usual
due to the pandemic. More than 50 seniors
across the region signed up for the program.
“It was pretty clear people were growing
less connected,” LaBuda said.
For many of the seniors, the phone call
from a volunteer is the only social interaction
they get each week, LaBuda said. The phone
calls are also a way to check on a senior and
make sure they are staying healthy, she said.
Social isolation was an issue for seniors
even before the pandemic, LaBuda said. Na-
tional studies identified loneliness in seniors
as a growing epidemic with higher health
risks than obesity or smoking. An AARP
study found one-third of seniors nationwide
reported feeling a lack of companionship. La-
Buda believes the same is true locally.
“It’s not that this was new,” LaBuda said.
“COVID just made it all worse.”
The council on aging hopes to grow the
Caring Connections program beyond the
pandemic.
See Connections / A5
TODAY’S
WEATHER
Some clouds, rain
High 61, Low 37
Page A13
INDEX
Business
Classifieds
Comics
A9-10
A16
A11-12
Dear Abby
Editorial
Horoscope
A10
A6
A10
Kid Scoop
Local/State
Lottery
A14
A2,4
A8
Obituaries
Puzzles
Sports
A4
A12
A7-8
The Bulletin
An Independent Newspaper
We use
recycled
newsprint
Vol. 117, No. 329, 16 pages, 1 section
DAILY
See Water / A5
U|xaIICGHy02329lz[