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About The Bulletin. (Bend, OR) 1963-current | View Entire Issue (July 29, 2021)
THURSDAY • July 29, 2021 Serving Central Oregon since 1903 • $3 IN GO! » Central Oregon’s Shireen Amini releases new album SPORTS PULLOUT, A5-8 COVID-19 Federal Reserve chair sees few problems from delta variant, A11 New surge of COVID hits tired Oregon Getting excited to learn Summer school helps students prepare for fall with STEM projects BY GARY A. WARNER Oregon Capital Bureau Dean Guernsey/Bulletin photos From left, Jackson Steedman and Wes Engel balance index cards to build a hotel for an engineering project Tuesday at Summer Blast, a STEM-themed camp at Barnes Butte Elementary School in Prineville. BY NICOLE BALES • The Bulletin P See Wave / A13 A first grade class used craft materials to construct mini boats that could float and stay upright. The class also pretended to be engineers while constructing the “Great Wall of Barnes Butte” using folded paper and a tower in the center of the classroom with paper cups. Posters displaying different kinds of careers in science, technology, engineer- ing and mathematics lined the halls of the school to get students thinking about how skills they learn in school can be applied in the real world. The students were part of Summer Blast, the school district’s STEM-themed K-5 summer school program that at- tracted 500 students. Kassiopeia Fullerton, a fifth grader at Crooked River Elementary School, said the summer program has been more fun than a typical school year. She particularly enjoyed the building activities and read- ing about science. “They have like all these true facts, and you just learn about flesh-eating flies and BY BRYAN PIETSCH AND DEREK HAWKINS The Washington Post See Masks / A13 TODAY’S WEATHER Thunderstorm High 92, Low 67 Page A12 in Prineville were bustling Wednesday with elementary school students showing off projects they had spent the past five weeks working on. Mask confusion: CDC guidance confounds and frustrates some Americans Across the country, people said they felt whip- lashed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s recommendation that even vacci- nated people should resume wearing face cover- ings indoors under specific circumstances. The frustration felt by some Americans at the chang- ing guidance comes as officials try to convince a pandemic-weary public to once again embrace health measures many believed no longer ap- plied. “I feel like the government keeps changing what they want us to do,” said Aubrey Garner, who lives in Conroe, Texas, and owns a residential cleaning service. “I’m not sure they know what the answer is to COVID.” At stake in the renewed push for masking is whether the country can control the spread of delta, which is driving up infections nationwide and threatening to reverse hard fought gains against the pandemic. New cases in the United States have risen 63% in the past week, spiking in Louisiana, Mississippi and Arkansas, where vaccination rates are low. Hospitalizations rose more than 40% in the same period, according to tracking by The Washington Post. The rapidly spreading variant could also jeopardize the U.S. economy’s fragile recovery, pushing some com- panies to reexamine whether to bring workers back into offices this fall. RINEVILLE — Classrooms at Barnes Butte Elementary School it’s so cool,” she said. School districts throughout Cen- tral Oregon have come up with cre- ative ways to try to reengage students and teachers after restrictions from the coronavirus pandemic were lifted, and generate excitement going into the fall. More than $200 million in state and federal funding was set aside to sup- port summer school programs for high school students behind in credits, sum- mer enrichment programs and wrap- around child care. School districts have used the funding to expand their regular summer programs and create new programs. The result is unprecedented numbers of students sign- ing up. From left, first graders Gemma Wilson-Pow- ell and Tatum Conklin blow on the sails of their sailboats. Crook County, one of Central Oregon’s smallest school districts, has one of the largest summer school programs, with more than 1,300 students in K-12 partic- ipating. The district’s enrollment is more than 3,000. Michelle Zistel, the vice principal of Barnes Butte Elementary, took the lead in organizing Summer Blast. She and Jonny Oelkers, the program coordinator for the school district’s online school, wanted to create a fun camp-style experience for kids while also getting them excited about learning, Zistel said. See School / A4 Fraudulent home builder gets 45 days in jail John McClean’s deceit a ‘nightmare’ for victims BY GARRETT ANDREWS The Bulletin The victims of John Vincent McClean started meeting around eight years ago, organized by a de- termined woman named Janelle Smith, a retired bookkeeper who’d INDEX Business Classifieds Comics A11-12 A14 A9-10 Dear Abby Editorial Events seen her personal finances devas- tated by the fraudulent and, now, convicted businessman. Though Smith died in 2018, the group she started met once again Tuesday, possibly for the last time, in Deschutes County Circuit Court to see McClean sentenced. The businessman was ordered to serve 45 days in jail and serve three years probation in exchange A7 A8 GO! Horoscope A7 Local/State A2-3, 13 Lottery A6 Obituaries Puzzles Sports A4 A10 A5-7 for pleading no contest to two counts of aggravated theft and one of racketeering. It was cold comfort for the vic- tims. Several pleaded with Judge Wells Ashby for a harsher penalty. “I’m begging the court,” said Bend pharmacist Katie Thraen. “You knock off a 7/11, you go to jail. You’ve heard what he did. This can’t just end like this.” A decade ago, McClean, now 60, and his brother, Glen, oper- ated several businesses involved in home construction in Central Or- egon, including McClean Brothers Construction and John McClean Construction. The charges on Mc- Clean’s indictment relate to the construction of five houses be- tween 2012 and 2014. See Fraud / A4 The Bulletin An Independent Newspaper We use recycled newsprint Vol. 117, No. 329, 38 pages, 2 sections SUN/THU A possible fifth wave of the COVID-19 is swell- ing in a pandemic-exhausted Oregon that less than a month ago seemed to be on the verge of recovery. “The highly contagious delta variant has in- creased tenfold in the past two weeks in Oregon, and it is now estimated to be associated with 80% of the new cases in Oregon,” Dr. Dean Sidelinger, the state’s top epidemiologist, said Tuesday eve- ning. The Oregon Health Authority reported 804 new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday and five deaths. It had reported 1,032 on Tuesday, along with five deaths. Statistics released on Tuesday at times are inflated by lagging reports from the weekend. Hospitalizations were up to 274 from 259 on Tuesday. The positive test rate was up to 7.8% from 7.4% the previous day. OHA officials have said that a rate above 5% indicates a spike in cases. OHA’s weekly report on variants showed 179 confirmed cases of the delta variant, up from 90 the week before. While less deadly and sweeping than earlier spikes before vaccines were available, hospitals are filling up with the unvaccinated as local and state officials in Oregon both decline to issue directives to curb the outbreak, unlike other states. U|xaIICGHy02330rzu