WEDNESDAY, JUNE 20, 2018
HERMISTONHERALD.COM • A3
LOCAL
Many paths to a college degree
Commencement
brings celebration
and reflection
By KATHY ANEY
STAFF WRITER
To the strains of “Pomp
and Circumstance,” 161
Blue Mountain College
graduates processed to their
seats at the Pendleton Con-
vention Center.
The mood was a mixture
of elation and solemnity.
The grads, clad in blue
gowns, mortarboards and
tassels, ranged in age from
17 to 62. They hailed from
Oregon, Washington, Idaho
and Arizona. Eleven were
veterans.
For student speaker June
Kilgore, the journey to
graduation day was espe-
cially hard-won. Kilgore
grew up with a single mom
who struggled with addic-
tion. After high school, she
made an aborted attempt at
college, eventually finding
herself “bouncing around
from couch to couch and
completely addicted to
substances.”
Before the elevator of her
life hit the bottom floor, she
had lost a marriage, a home
and nearly her life. She
STAFF PHOTO BY KATHY ANEY
A BMCC graduate listens to speeches Thursday night during commencement exercises at the
Pendleton Convention Center.
was living in a trailer in her
father’s driveway when she
found the resolve to change.
Kilgore entered treat-
ment, got clean and enrolled
at BMCC in 2014. She said
it took a while to start believ-
ing in herself.
“I felt like my life had
already been so tainted that
I could never be the woman
that I have always wanted to
be,” Kilgore said. “BMCC
has given us all a place
to learn and more impor-
tantly grow into the people
we have and are becoming.
Today I am graduating with
a degree I never in a million
years thought was possible
to obtain. I am also gradu-
ating with a sense of who I
really am.”
Kilgore, of Sheridan,
earned her Associate of Arts
Oregon Transfer degree with
an emphasis on psychology
and communications.
Student speaker Jaycee
Baron of Hermiston brought
some levity with her words.
“Perhaps the biggest myth
surrounding college is that
your professors are like the
most unreasonable teacher
you ever had in high school,
but on steroids,” she said. “I
can’t count how many peo-
ple warned me about them.
In reality, it couldn’t be fur-
ther from the truth.”
Instead, Baron said,
she encountered caring
instructors.
“During my first year
here at BMCC I was going
through a particularly rough
patch and was honestly
wondering whether or not
I belonged in college,” she
said. “One of my professors
at the time, Linc DeBunce,
pulled me to the side after
class one day just to check in
and make sure I was doing
okay. What was probably
such a small thing for him
made all the difference in the
world to me.”
The Hermiston native
served as president of Asso-
ciated Student Government
this year. She will transfer to
Oregon State University in
the fall to pursue a degree in
microbiology.
BMCC President Camille
Preus, who has spent recent
years shepherding bond
projects to completion,
talked about people instead
of buildings.
“While these new build-
ings are beautiful and the
structures provide a won-
derful foundation for learn-
ing, it’s the people who walk
through the doors — our stu-
dents, faculty and staff —
that really make them shine.”
Preus said the past aca-
demic year was bittersweet.
Students racked up accom-
plishments and awards,
but the college also lost
two employees — diesel
mechanic instructor Scott
Waggoner and academic
secretary Heather Gastin.
“Scott was and will
always be more than just an
instructor. He was a men-
tor, a friend, a father fig-
ure, and an inspiration to us
all,” Preus said. “Heather is
sorely missed as well; she
was often called the ‘glue’
— the glue that held sev-
eral academic departments
together, managing an aston-
ishing number of projects
and requests.”
Two prominent fac-
ulty alums died this year as
well. Rep. Bob Jenson, who
served nine terms in the Ore-
gon House of Representa-
tives, died at age 86. Jenson
taught sociology and his-
tory at BMCC for 26 years
and continued to champion
the college all his life. Gene
Ann McLean, former Dean
of Women, died in Febru-
ary at age 80. As advisor to
the rodeo team, she is said to
have mothered more rodeo
champions than anyone in
the world.
All are woven into the
college’s identity, she said,
like pieces of an ever-chang-
ing quilt.
“Our faculty, staff and
students all serve as pieces
and threads of that quilt. As
we say goodbye to students
each year and to faculty and
staff who retire — like eight
of them will do this month
— the quilt changes, but it’s
still special.”
Veteran reunited with the man Hermiston boy hospitalized after bike accident
who saved his life during War
acy Emanuel Medical Cen-
ter as of Friday. His father
A Hermiston boy is at a wrote on Facebook that he
Portland hospital after an is in a medically induced
accident riding his bike on coma and has swelling on
Thursday.
his brain.
Around 5:30 p.m.
Nick Gutierrez, a
Thursday, Zeddrik
neighbor and friend
Cota, 12, was riding
of the Cotas, has
his bike at the Cam-
started a GoFundMe
pus Life skate park,
page to raise money
when he did not see a
for the family.
drop-off. According
He said that Oscar
to a Facebook post
wanted to thank the
by his father Oscar Zeddrik Cota people of Hermis-
ton for supporting
Cota, “he fell off
the deep end face-first to the their family.
“He said he never knew
pavement below.”
Cota was airlifted to Port- so many people cared so
land, where he remained much about his family and
in intensive care at Leg- his children,” he said.
HERMISTON HERALD
By JADE MCDOWELL
STAFF WRITER
On Dec. 1, 1969, Artie
Kellar Jr. and Gerald Dun-
can were on a helicopter in
Vietnam when Kellar was
hit by a round that tore a
silver dollar-sized hole in
his right leg just above the
ankle. Duncan tied a tour-
niquet over the wound that
kept Kellar from bleeding
to death on the way back to
base.
The two men were
reunited for the first
time this week as Dun-
can stopped by Kellar’s
home in Irrigon during a
cross-country trip.
“This guy here saved my
life,” Kellar said.
Back in 1969, Kellar
was 18 and Duncan was 21.
Both were “Copperheads”
— gunners for the Army’s
162nd Assault Helicop-
ter Company. Kellar had
enlisted at 17 and Duncan
had been drafted.
Duncan said door gun-
ner was the most danger-
ous job in the Army — one
buddy told him during his
infantry days he got shot at
maybe twice, but as soon as
he went up in a helicopter
he got shot at 15 times on
his first day. Gunners were
more likely to get hit than
the pilots, he said, because
enemies shooting at the
craft had a habit of aim-
ing directly at the helicop-
ter instead of slightly ahead
of it.
On Dec. 1 they were pro-
tecting troop carriers when
they took fire. Suddenly,
Kellar was “grabbing his
leg and screaming.”
It’s interesting what peo-
ple think of in a moment
like that, Duncan said.
“What
was
going
through my mind at that
time was that he was bleed-
ing all over my helicopter,
and he was not going to be
there to help clean it up at
the end of the day,” he said.
He jumped into action,
applying a tourniquet and
providing medical care
until they landed. Kel-
STAFF PHOTO BY JADE MCDOWELL
Artie Kellar Jr., left, and Gerald Duncan stand together at
Kellar’s Irrigon home after reuniting for the first time since
1969.
lar said the feeling of get-
ting shot was “like being
hit with a 10-pound sledge-
hammer and your leg is on
concrete.”
His fighting days over,
Kellar was transported
back to the United States
to recover at Walter Reed
National Military Medical
Center.
“It took a year for me to
learn how to walk again,”
he said.
Eventually he learned
to move well enough to be
trained as a mechanic and
work at various car deal-
erships, including Sherrell
Chevrolet and Harley Swain
Subaru in Hermiston.
Duncan, too, returned
to civilian life, growing
out his hair and for a while
staying quiet about the fact
that he had been overseas
so he could avoid the vit-
riol that was heaped on
Vietnam veterans after the
war. Kellar remembers peo-
ple screaming “baby killer”
and “woman killer” at him
while he and other soldiers
were being wheeled out of a
plane “on our backs and full
of holes.”
The men lost touch for
many years, finally finding
each other online as social
media made it easier for
members of the 162nd to
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start reconnecting.
“I saw on a Facebook
photo, someone said ‘This
guy saved my life,’” Dun-
can said. “I had kind of for-
gotten about it.”
Duncan, who has been
living in Kansas, decided to
travel around the country,
including a stop in Portland
to see his adopted daughter.
Afterward, he came to Kel-
lar’s home in Irrigon, where
he joked that Kellar didn’t
look the same as he remem-
bered. He enjoyed look-
ing at Kellar’s medals, pho-
tos and other mementos,
as his own were all stolen
shortly after the war when
he momentarily took his
eye off his suitcase at the
Los Angeles airport.
Kellar will always be
deeply grateful for what
Duncan did, but Duncan is
modest about his actions
that day in 1969.
“Everything I did for him
was kind of automatic,” he
said. “It was what we were
trained to do. If it had hap-
pened to me, he would have
done the same thing.”
Gutierrez relayed that
Cota’s brother, Junior,
called the paramedics.
He said Oscar Cota men-
tioned that there were no
barriers that prevented kids
from using the skate park at
the youth center on South
First Street near the high
school, and he felt it was
unsafe. He said he believes
Cota was wearing a helmet
at the time of the accident,
and that his father was pres-
ent when it happened.
Cota attends school
in Hermiston, and has a
brother and sister.
“He’s just an awesome
kid, and full of energy,”
Gutierrez said.
I-82 bridge work on schedule for October completion
By JADE MCDOWELL
STAFF WRITER
Work on the Interstate
82 bridge over the Colum-
bia River at Umatilla is
currently on schedule to
wrap up in early Octo-
ber, according to a proj-
ect engineer for the Wash-
ington State Department of
Transportation.
“Because of the weather
it could be pushed back a
little, but it’s scheduled for
October,” Alex Sanguino
said.
The eastbound bridge
(headed into Oregon)
has been closed since the
summer of 2017, when
WSDOT announced it
would be embarking on
a roughly 18-month proj-
ect to replace the bridge’s
deck. The roadway was full
of patches and had sprouted
new holes multiple times in
recent years.
After about a year of
necessary prep work —
including construction to
re-reroute all traffic to the
parallel bridge that had pre-
viously carried two lanes
of traffic west — San-
guino said contractors just
did their first deck pour last
week and have 12 more to
go, then an overlay. While
the new deck is being put
into place crews, are also
working on replacing steel
parts on the bridge.
“There’s quite a bit of
structural work going on,”
Sanguino said.
The bridge was built in
1955 and originally carried
one lane of traffic in each
direction. In 1988 a second
bridge was built to carry
traffic into Washington and
the 1955 bridge was desig-
nated for carrying vehicles
into Oregon.
Sanguino said that over-
all, narrowing traffic down
to a single bridge hasn’t
created many delays, as
long as there is not a crash
on the bridge. There was
a backup recently before
Hermiston High School’s
graduation at the Toyota
Center in Kennewick.
The project costs about
$10 million, split between
Oregon and Wshington.
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