WEDNESDAY, MARCH 21, 2018
LOCAL
HERMISTONHERALD.COM • A13
STAFF PHOTO BY JADE MCDOWELL.
Sam Carpenter, left, speaks to the Hermiston Hispanic
Advisory Committee Monday night.
Republican candidate, Sam
Carpenter, wants to ‘Make
Oregon Great Again’
Carpenter faces
pushback from
Hispanic Advisory
committee
Melissa Doherty, a teacher at Rocky Heights Elementary, quizzes students in preparation for the Math is Cool regional
competition on Friday.
Students learn math can be cool
By JAYATI RAMAKRISHNAN
STAFF WRITER
Relays aren’t just for
running. For Hermiston
Mathletes, it’s one of the
many creative ways they
solve math equations. One
team member will solve
the first problem, the next
person will use that answer
to solve a related problem,
and so on. If one person
gets the wrong answer, the
whole team is thrown off.
In the Math is Cool
program, open to fourth
and fifth graders, students
compete in a variety of
different
math-related
events. There are individual
competitions, as well as
group exercises such as
the relay, multiple choice
questions and a Jeopardy-
style event. Students are
quizzed on concepts both at
and above grade level.
Three
Hermiston
schools sent fourth-grade
teams to the Math is Cool
regional competition on
Friday — Desert View,
Rocky Heights, and West
Park. McNary Heights
Elementary
School
in
Umatilla also has a team. At
the fifth grade competition
in
February,
McNary
Heights earned first place in
their division, scoring 122
points. West Park’s team
took first in its division, as
well, earning 139 points,
and Rocky Heights scored
a second place finish at 93
points.
On Friday, the three
Hermiston schools put
up a good showing in the
competition. West Park’s
fourth graders did not place
as a team, but the highest
scorer, Aries Woodward,
placed second overall in the
division and will continue
on to state. Desert View’s
team took fifth place in the
highest division. Rocky
Heights’ team took second
place in their division.
West Park students
practiced the week of the
tournament, working on a
quiz that had been offered at
a previous tournament. One
question asked students:
“Gabe and Maya are
throwing water balloons at
Mia Westfall and Kylee Morgan of West Park Elementary School work together on math
problems, studying for the Math is Cool regional competition on Friday.
a target. If Gabe has a 30
percent chance of hitting
the target, and Maya has
a 50 percent chance of
hitting the target, what is
the probability they both
hit the target? Answer as a
percent.”
Teacher Tess Neddo said
students who were high-
performing and showed
good problem-solving skills
were asked to join the class.
As the students worked,
Neddo explained how the
competition will go.
“For the multiple choice
section, if you get the answer
right, you get two points.
But if you get it wrong, you
get negative one points,”
she said. “This is the only
test where you get penalized
for wrong answers.”
Evelyn Chavez said the
team has spent a lot of time
learning about percentages,
and that they work together
to check each other’s
answers.
“Sometimes we do it in
twos, and we’ll check to see
if we’re right or wrong,” she
said.
Erica Miller said her
daughter, Aries Woodward,
has enjoyed math as an
extracurricular activity, and
hopes she will continue to
pursue it.
“She
loves
math
anyway,” Miller said. “It’s
good for her to meet other
kids that like the same thing
as her.”
S ome are really good
at math. Some are
interested in math,
and some are very
competitive.
Ben Doherty, Coach
As
Rocky
Heights
students gathered for their
weekly practice, teacher
Melissa Doherty quizzes
students on the concepts of
mean, median, mode and
range, before they worked
in teams on story problems.
The students had 45 seconds
to answer each question.
“It’s been pretty difficult,
learning about things we’re
not used to,” said Emilie
Wyant.
Students said they’ve
learned how to calculate the
area of triangles, trapezoids
and parallelograms.
“We
learned
about
converting cups to ounces,”
said McKenzie Hendrix.
“Measurement differences,
angles.”
Doherty’s
husband,
Ben, helps coach the team.
He said the program was
brought to Rocky Heights by
principal Jerad Farley, who
used to work in Washington.
“He wanted to get kids
involved and see math
differently than in class,” he
said. “Play games, have fun,
and challenge themselves
with it.”
He said the team
atmosphere allows for
several different types of
learners to thrive.
“Some are really good at
math. Some are interested
in math, and some are very
competitive. When we do
our teams, we don’t just
have the mad brilliant kids.
We want some kids who are
more methodical.”
Doherty said that some
students are encouraged to
join the class, but it is open
to anyone interested.
Some schools build the
curriculum into their school
day. Heather Mills, a fourth
grade teacher at Desert
View, said the students
spend a portion of their
math lesson working on
concepts they will use in
Math is Cool.
Motorcyclist killed in crash with semi
HERMISTON HERALD
STANFIELD
— A
motorcyclist died Tuesday
afternoon around 2:15 p.m.
after being struck by a semi
on the Interstate 84 over-
pass that connects Stanfield
and Echo.
Sgt. Seth Cooney of the
Oregon State Police trooper
reported the motorcyclist
killed was Jason Blanken-
ship, 40, of Stanfield. The
semi truck driver is Roberto
Rodriguez Diaz, 41, of
Hermiston. He was unin-
jured in the crash. Cooney
said the cause of the crash
was still under investiga-
tion, and that law enforce-
ment was still on scene as
of 5:20 p.m. The overpass
was closed Tuesday after-
noon and into the evening
while police investigated
the wreck.
Cooney said he did not
yet know whether charges
would be filed against
Rodriguez.
The wreck is the second
fatal motorcycle crash in the
area recently — Daisy Bur-
ton of Hermiston died of her
injuries earlier this month
after a crash on Harper Road
near Highway 395.
STAFF PHOTO BY JAYATI RAMAKRISHNAN
A motorcyclist died Tuesday afternoon after being struck by
a semi on the Interstate 84 overpass that connects Stanfield
and Echo.
By JADE MCDOWELL
STAFF WRITER
Gubernatorial candi-
date Sam Carpenter ran
into some stiff criticism
for his views on public
employee unions, immi-
gration and President Don-
ald Trump when he vis-
ited Hermiston’s Hispanic
Advisory Committee on
Monday.
Carpenter, a Bend-area
Republican who owns a
telephone answering ser-
vice called Centratel, is
one of 17 people run-
ning for Oregon gover-
nor. On Monday he touted
his business capabilities,
promised to get Oregon’s
economy growing at a
faster pace and criticized
Oregon’s “out of control”
bureaucracy and govern-
ment spending.
The group at Hermis-
ton City Hall was more
interested in talking about
his views on immigration,
particularly a line in the
brochure he handed out
promising to end Oregon’s
sanctuary status for “ille-
gal aliens.”
Carpenter stated that
he was only talking about
removing people who had
committed other crimes
besides immigration-re-
lated ones.
“I’m sorry, they need to
go away. Those folks are
giving the Hispanic com-
munity a horrible reputa-
tion,” he said, adding that
they were “probably more
of a danger to you than
to the native Americans
here.”
He repeatedly stated
that under Trump, fam-
ilies are not being bro-
ken up and people are not
being deported solely for
their immigration status.
When audience members
contradicted him, he said
they should not get their
information from the news
media, which he called
corrupt. When some-
one brought up a recent,
local instance they knew
of where a man was taken
into custody during a rou-
tine traffic stop, Carpen-
ter said he wasn’t there
and neither was the per-
son bringing it up so they
didn’t know for sure what
happened.
Carpenter said his two
children from a previous
marriage are Puerto Rican
so he is sympathetic to the
Hispanic community. He
said the country needs to
stop focusing on divides
between races, genders,
sexual orientations and
religions.
“I believe in small gov-
ernment and I believe indi-
vidual rights are the ulti-
mate minority, which
means if you can’t respect
an individual’s rights you
can’t respect anybody’s,”
he said.
Eventually, as audience
members continued to
question him on immigra-
tion issues, he said it was
a federal issue anyway and
what he could do was get
Oregon’s economy grow-
ing, which would cause
a lot of other problems in
the state to take care of
themselves.
Many in the audience
questioned the tactic.
“You’re trying to dis-
tance yourself from the
federal government, but
you’re embracing a slogan
from someone who ran for
federal government and
is in a federal position,”
committee member Roy
Barron said, referencing
Carpenter’s campaign slo-
gan “Make Oregon Great
Again.”
“No I’m not,” Carpen-
ter replied. “That’s my
slogan.”
He said he did sup-
port Trump, however, and
praised him multiple times
throughout the night, stat-
ing that the economy was
doing “things it’s never
done before” and that ISIS
is now “gone” thanks to
Trump.
When Barron and com-
mittee member Carlos
Gallo said that Carpenter
was making his support of
Trump clear, and Trump
had been very “blatant” in
stirring up racial tensions
and criticizing Latinos,
Carpenter asked “What
has he said that is very
blatant?,” drawing laugh-
ter from the audience and
committee.
Carpenter touched on
a number of other issues
Monday night. He said he
is in favor of school vouch-
ers, which would improve
schools by encouraging
competition between pub-
lic and private schools,
and said the state needed
to stop wasting money on
things like the failed Cover
Oregon exchange and
address serious problems
like mental health, drugs
and the “horrible” state of
child protective services in
Oregon.
Many in the audience
disagreed with his stance
on unions, asking what
it meant in his campaign
literature that he wants
to “stand up to public
unions.”
Carpenter said gov-
ernment employees are
employed by the taxpayers
and therefore it is a “con-
flict of interest against the
people” for those employ-
ees to collectively bargain
against the government.
He said he wouldn’t break
up the unions but he dis-
agreed with them.
Several public employ-
ees and retired public
employees in the audience
disagreed with his char-
acterizations of the prob-
lem, including statements
that all three tiers of the
Public Employee Retire-
ment System were very
similar in terms of payouts
and that people were get-
ting $800,000 per year on
PERS (a 2017 Oregonian
report found the top annual
payment in the state was
$663,354, with three more
employees getting over
$400,000).
Despite
heated
exchanges on specific
issues like unions and
immigration, at the end
of the evening Carpenter
asked the group to read his
website, www.makeore-
gongreatagain.com, with
an open mind and remem-
ber the important thing
was what he could do for
the state’s economy and its
efficiency.
“The forests are burn-
ing down, PERS is going
to bankrupt the state. A lot
of what’s been going on
is bad management. I’m a
manager,” he said.