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
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A7
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A6
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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.
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