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GO! EASTERN OREGON MAGAZINE | INSIDE
Wednesday, October 13, 2021
153rd Year • No. 41 • 16 Pages • $1.50
MyEagleNews.com
Man of steel
Ben Lonergan/East Oregonian
Ann Marie Hardin, a hospital chaplain, pos-
es for a portrait Friday, Oct. 8, in the chapel
at St. Anthony Hospital in Pendleton.
Chaplain
oﬀ ers solace
in pandemic
By BRYCE DOLE
East Oregonian
PENDLETON — The patient had
been ﬁ ghting in the intensive care unit
for weeks, and the nurse had grown
attached.
He was younger than most COVID-
19 patients admitted to CHI St.
Anthony Hospital in Pendleton. It was
August, and the delta variant was rag-
ing through Oregon, ﬁ lling hospitals
with patients and exhausting health
care workers.
A record number of Umatilla
County residents who contracted the
virus died that month. He was one of
them.
Ann Marie Hardin, a hospital chap-
lain, was called in to help with the next
steps, telling the family and the funeral
home. She turned a corner and saw the
nurse, who burst into tears and fell into
Hardin’s arms.
“She felt that it was such a waste,”
Hardin said. “The patient was young.
Had the patient been vaccinated, there
potentially could have been a diﬀ erent
outcome. And that was really hard to
process for her. She felt that it shouldn’t
have had to happen. He shouldn’t have
had to die. And she looked to me as a
safe place to lay some of that sadness.”
Hardin did what she has done
throughout the pandemic — she lis-
tened. The nurse vented to Hardin
about things she knew few would
understand but her.
“We had a conversation about
how hard this was for her because
she had gotten attached to the
patient,” said Hardin. “And I was
reminded that I do this job to try to
help our nurses through these hard
moments.”
As one of St. Anthony’s three chap-
lains, Hardin’s job is to walk around
the hospital and talk to health care
workers, helping them ﬁ nd solace and
make sense of what they witness. It’s
a job several health care workers say
has become especially critical as they
endure the pandemic’s toll.
See Chaplain, Page A11
Steven Mitchell/Blue Mountain Eagle
Bruce Ward stands in front of a steel-framed house under construction. Ward, who owns Sunrise Construction Specialties, is a longtime evangelist for
the ﬁ re-resistant construction technique.
Local homebuilder touts beneﬁ ts of
steel-frame construction
He said part of the reason the project’s build-
ers opted for a steel frame was that termites
were a signiﬁ cant problem in Hawaii.
s wildfires in Oregon become
Termite resistance is “one of the side bene-
ﬁ ts” of framing with steel, he said.
more frequent and destruc-
“I’ve had several people I’ve built houses
tive, residents in at-risk areas,
for over the years say to me, ‘We don’t have any
including Grant County, have
bugs in our house,’ and I’ve told them, ‘Well,
begun to explore ways to keep
there’s nothing for them to bur-
their homes safe.
“I’VE HAD SEVERAL PEOPLE I’VE BUILT
row into,’” Ward said.
With hot, dry summers
The overriding beneﬁ t of a
now a fact of life, an increas-
ing number of the county’s HOUSES FOR OVER THE YEARS SAY TO ME, steel-framed home, Ward said,
new homeowners have opted ‘WE DON’T HAVE ANY BUGS IN OUR HOUSE,’ is its resistance to ﬁ res and other
natural disasters.
for steel-framed, ﬁ re-resistant
AND I’VE TOLD THEM, ‘WELL, THERE’S
“The components in my
homes.
house
are not going to fuel a
Grant County resident
NOTHING FOR THEM TO BURROW INTO.’” ﬁ re,” Ward
said. For example,
Bruce Ward, who owns Sunrise
Bruce Ward, owner of Sunrise Construction Specialties
he told the Eagle, a faulty elec-
Construction Specialties with
trical box inside a wall, a com-
his wife, Kimberly, has been
mon cause of house ﬁ res, would
building steel-framed homes
for decades.
Later, Ward said, he was recruited by the not burn in a steel-framed home. Within an inte-
In fact, he is somewhat of an evangelist for head of U.S. Steel and teamed up with an engi- rior wall, with ﬁ re-resistant studs on each side,
the construction technique. For ﬁ ve years in neer from a national research center to conduct he said the ﬁ re has nowhere to go. Indeed, Ward
the early 1990s, Ward hosted seminars across weekly seminars around the country for ﬁ ve said no home is 100% ﬁ reproof.
In addition, Ward said, he uses non-combus-
the country on the beneﬁ ts of steel houses after years and later across the globe, to Europe and
tible building materials, metal roofs and roof
spending the ﬁ rst part of his career at a steel Japan.
plant in Salem.
Ward said he went on to work with a struc- sheathing products.
Ward said he branched out on his own as tural engineer from Oregon State University to
See Ward, Page A16
lumber prices shot up and people started to con- develop a steel roof truss for a project in Hawaii.
By STEVEN MITCHELL
Blue Mountain Eagle
A
sider building steel-framed homes.
Ward said he started out building spec
houses on the weekends and noticed that he was
frequently getting calls with questions about
steel-framed homes.
“I was on the phone every night for hours
giving away information,” he said. “I felt this
could be a (trend).”
Pﬁ zer booster shots available for eligible recipients
By STEVEN MITCHELL
Blue Mountain Eagle
JOHN DAY — Grant County residents 65
and older and those with underlying medical
conditions such as diabetes and chronic lung
ailments who have received the Pﬁ zer-BioN-
Tech vaccine against COVID-19 now qualify
for booster shots to help increase their protec-
tion against the worst eﬀ ects of the disease six
months after receiving their second dose.
According to a news release from the Grant
Count Health Department, the Western States
Scientiﬁ c Safety Workgroup reviewed the
federal process and recommended Oregon,
Washington, California and Nevada make
the booster shots available to the following
groups:
• People over 65.
• Those living in a long-term care facility.
• People 18-64 with underlying medical
conditions.
• People 18-64 working in a high-risk set-
ting, such as ﬁ rst responders, educators, food
and ag workers, and corrections oﬃ cers.
• People living in high-risk settings, such as
correctional facilities and homeless shelters.
While Grant County Health Administra-
tor Kimberly Lindsay noted that the Pﬁ zer
HOW TO GET A BOOSTER
The Pﬁ zer-BioNTech booster is available to
people over 65 and over, adults with weak-
ened immune systems or those living in a
long-term care facility who had their second
shot at least six months ago.
Eligible recipients can call the Grant County
Health Department at 541-575-0429 to sched-
ule an appointment.
Eagle ﬁ le photo
A health care worker ﬁ lls a syringe in the Trow-
bridge Pavilion at the Grant County Fairgrounds
in January.
vaccine has been available locally only since
June, the Food and Drug Administration plans
to hold public meetings with its panel of inde-
pendent vaccine experts on Thursday and Fri-
day, Oct. 14 and 15, to consider booster shots
for adult recipients of the Moderna and John-
son & Johnson vaccines.
The committee will also deliberate over
whether people should get a shot from a diﬀ er-
ent vaccine than they originally received.
The FDA plans to hold another public ses-
sion Oct. 26 in anticipation of a request for
emergency authorization of the Pﬁ zer-BioN-
Tech vaccine for children 5 to 11.
Since mid-August, people with compro-
mised immune systems have been eligible to
receive third shots of the Pﬁ zer-BioNTech and
Moderna vaccines 28 days after their second
dose of the vaccine.
See Booster, Page A16