A16 • HERMISTONHERALD.COM
schools,” Feldman said.
“We’re just kind of the
first eyes on the ground,”
Cline said, and what they
report helps determine
future actions.
The federation also asked
nurses to bring hospital sup-
plies. Nick Bejarano, Good
Shepherd communications
director, helped Cline load
up a box of gloves, dress-
ings, ice packs and more.
“We love to support this
kind of initiative,” Bejarano
said. “It’s a selfless act to
help others in need.”
Cline said she wishes she
could bring more, but the
flights have weight and size
restrictions, particularly for
the “hopper planes” they will
take between islands.
Cline was on a planning
phone call Thursday night.
She said they were told not
to bring coats or sweatshirts
because temperatures at the
scene are plenty warm, and
don’t plan on having air
conditioning in their resort
rooms.
Yes, she said, they are
in a resort, but one that
remains closed.
Comfortable shoes are
another must because they
will be on their feet for long
stretches. Cline said nurses
tend to have that covered.
U.S. territories in the
Caribbean have far to go
in their recovery from last
year’s hurricanes. Sections
of Puerto Rico still lack
power, and major facto-
ries there remain offline and
unable to produce drugs,
fluids, and other medi-
cal resources for hospitals
around the globe. Cline said
Good Shepherd, like other
hospitals, is keeping close
watch as those supplies
dwindle.
Researchers at the Colo-
rado State University Tropi-
cal Meteorology Project pre-
dict this Atlantic hurricane
season will be a little above
average with 14 storms, and
seven will become major
hurricanes. The season is
less than eight weeks away
and lasts until Nov. 30.
NURSE
continued from Page A1
Maria left in Puerto Rico.
The federation in Octo-
ber sent 40 nurses there.
Feldman said they helped
in an array of medical situ-
ations, from people suffer-
ing mental health issues to
citizens stuck in homes and
coping with diabetes or high
blood pressure.
“They were there for
three weeks and really had a
huge impact,” he said.
This time the federa-
tion will land 10 nurses on
the island of St. Croix to
assess the general health of
5,000 children, while Cline
and 11 more nurses go to
the island of St. Thomas to
provide check-ups on 7,000
children. A nurse from Bend
and another from Medford
are making the journey. The
group returns home next
Saturday, giving them five
days to complete the work.
“Our goal is we’re going
to get every child seen,”
Cline said. “I’d hate to be
that nurse that misses the
one kid.”
The Oregon Nurses
Association in its March
9 newsletter told its mem-
bers the American Federa-
tion of Teachers was look-
ing for volunteers for the
effort. Cline, a nurse of 19
years with 18 at the hospi-
tal, said she has never done
a medical mission. She and
her husband, Bill, a cattle
rancher, have three grown
children, none at home.
Helping children is core to
who she is, Cline said, so
she asked her husband what
he thought of her going.
“He said I just have to do
it,” she recalled.
In addition to the student
screenings, the nurses will
check the schools for health
risks, such as asbestos expo-
sure or the spread of danger-
ous mold.
“These schools have been
open all this time, and no one
knows the condition of these
BTW
wide public education sup-
port campaign.
“I want to be a video
game designer who builds
three-dimensional worlds,”
he said.
In addition, a trio of Uma-
tilla High School seniors are
featured in “GRADitude”
videos. Joel Escamilla,
Leonel Corona and Daisy
Garcilazo expressed appre-
ciation to teachers that made
an impact on them.
Escamilla and Corona
said Kelly Allen, who pre-
viously taught and coached
at Umatilla, reached out to
provide guidance when they
were underclassmen. For the
video, the two students vis-
ited Allen in his classroom
in the Hermiston School
District.
“I was on the verge of just
giving up on school,” Esca-
milla said. “He motivated me
to come up and get my work
done and be better in life.”
Also, things started add-
ing up when math teacher
Nancy Swarat noticed a
change with Garcilazo.
After being a top student,
she started missing classes
during her junior year. Gar-
cilazo said Swarat, who had
a broken leg at the time,
chased her down in the hall-
way to find out why she was
slipping up in school.
Coordinated by the Ore-
gon School Boards Associ-
ation, the Promise’s goal is
to highlight public educa-
tion. To view student profiles
and videos, visit www.prom-
iseoregon.org.
———
You can submit items for
our weekly By The Way col-
umn by emailing your tips
to editor@hermistonherald.
com or share them on social
media using the hashtag
#HHBTW.
continued from Page A1
Sandstone gathered at the
Hermiston High School
commons to play games and
activities, listen to a panel
discussion featuring high
school girls from each grade
level, and enjoy a fashion
show.
The event has been a
district tradition for more
than a decade, giving mid-
dle school girls a chance to
hear from their peers what
to expect at the next level
of schooling. The event
is organized by Altrusa
International and Hermis-
ton High School leadership
students.
• • •
Leadership Hermiston
Class 21 collected nearly
$22,000 in donations for
their “Stuff the Bus” ser-
vice project this weekend.
The class parked school
buses outside Fiesta Foods,
Safeway and Walmart and
requested donations of sup-
plies or cash from shoppers.
They collected donations for
four local organizations —
Agape House, Hermiston
Domestic Violence shel-
ter, Desert Rose Ministries
and the Hermiston Warm-
ing Station. The group col-
lected more than $21,000 in
supplies and close to $800
in cash donations Saturday,
and spent Sunday sorting
and delivering the items to
the organizations.
• • •
Education is building
promises for the future for
a Umatilla School District
student. Alejandro Esco-
vedo of Clara Brownell
Middle School was recently
featured as part of “The
Promise of Oregon,” a state-
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 11, 2018
FROM PAGE A1
OUT WITH CABLE.
IN WITH SAVINGS.
STAFF PHOTO BY E.J. HARRIS
Human resources office manager Kristina Olivas presents a check to Lions Club representative Phil Hamm during a 20-
year celebration for the Walmart Distribution Center in Hermiston.
WALMART
continued from Page A1
He also praised the asso-
ciates and managers there
for an impressive safety
record that continues to
improve. He said having the
“best supply chain” will be
what helps Walmart con-
tinue to succeed in a chang-
ing era.
“We look forward to the
example you will set across
our organization,” he said.
The Hermiston Walmart
DC isn’t just important to the
company — it’s also an eco-
nomic driver for Umatilla
County. The DC employs
about 1,100 people. Mark
Morgan, assistant city man-
ager for Hermiston, said
about eight percent of jobs
on the west side of Umatilla
County are found at the DC.
That doesn’t count the hun-
dreds of people who work
for the Walmart store also
found in Hermiston, or an
estimated additional 1,100
jobs created indirectly by
the presence of the DC and
its employees. The city has
grown by more than 6,000
people since the DC came
to town.
“Walmart really is the
Hermiston
community,”
Morgan said. “If not for
Walmart we wouldn’t have
the same community here.”
That’s the type of thing
many of the company’s
employees wish people
understood when they crit-
icized the massive corpo-
ration. Becky Lowrance,
who has worked at the DC
since it first opened in 1998,
said critics often miss all of
the community service and
donations provided by the
company in addition to pro-
viding stable employment
for so many people.
She pointed to the
Walmart Heart Program, in
which drivers for the com-
pany “adopt” children with
chronic or terminal illnesses
for a special day focused on
lifting their spirits.
“We have a lot of driv-
ers volunteer their time to
it,” she said. “For me, it has
been my baby for a long
time. I tear up any time I
think about it.”
Lowrance was working
as a waitress when the DC
was being built, and decided
to apply after some of the
managers there for the hir-
ing spree started frequent-
ing the restaurant where she
worked. She started out in
the warehouse and is now
the transportation opera-
tions manager.
Miguel A. Ornelas,
another operations man-
ager, said he started at the
Distribution Center after
graduating from college and
figuring he could work for
Walmart until he got a “real
job.” Twenty years later he
is happy to still be with the
DC, where 80 percent of the
management was promoted
from within.
“They
were
so
growth-focused on the asso-
ciates and their develop-
ment,” he said. “They made
me feel part of a team.”
After speeches, cake
and a special recognition
by name of each of the 50
employees who have been
with the DC from the begin-
ning, attendees were offered
tours of the facility.
The distribution center
acts as a hub, taking in ship-
ments of everything from
dog food to kayaks from
the company’s various sup-
pliers and then sorting them
into trucks bound for 106
individual stores across the
western United States.
“Say Johnson & John-
son sends us a box with 70
shampoos and a store only
needs 12, we can pluck
those out of a box and send
them to the store,” said HR
office manager Kristina Oli-
vas during a tour.
The process is helped
along by a combination of
22 miles of conveyor belts
winding through the facility
and an army of associates
who can wrap up individ-
ual items on pallets or han-
dle items too large or fragile
for the conveyor belts. After
boxes are unpacked, flat-
tened and sent back out of
the center in loads they will
be reused multiple times
until they wear out.
At the end of the process
are the associates who load
the outbound trucks.
“It’s not a matter of just
loading everything onto
trailers, it’s actually quite
intricate,” Olivas said, lik-
ening it to “a giant game of
Tetris.”
The associates must
quickly fit a variety of odd-
shaped cases and pallets in
as efficiently as possible,
keeping labels upright while
also taking into account fac-
tors like a safe weight distri-
bution for when trailers are
turning sharply.
The massive facil-
ity is the last of that spe-
cific design built before
a new design was imple-
mented, but the company
is impressed with what the
facility’s employees have
accomplished, and Burns
said as general manager
he hoped everyone who
worked at the Hermiston
Walmart Distribution Cen-
ter was extremely proud of
their work.
“I just want to close
with one word and that’s
‘proud,’” he said. “... This
team is amazing, what we
do here is amazing and
spread across 20 years that’s
amazing.”
———
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