Jim Schild
Saturday, March 28, 2015
Pride Panhandle People
2015
Redirections lead to advancement, interesting challenges page 11
A STAR-HERALD PUBLICATION
WWW.STARHERALD.COM
Helping youth
Children’s advocate
Giving back
Keeping history alive
CAPWN director leads programs aiming to empower youth
Local woman makes a difference at CAPstone
Getting involved in community a priority for Rogers
Hashman follows more than 100 years in family service, history
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page 7
page 6
page 10
Passion for flying keeps Watkins in the air By IRENE NORTH Staff Reporter
Flying is a part of Gil Watkins’ life. He has spent 23 years as an EMS pilot, 30 years as a military helicopter pilot and 10 years as a military fixed wing pilot, with a total of 40 years in the military. Watkins was born and raised in Platteville, Colorado, and went to junior college in Greeley, Colorado. “Right about the time I was out of money and about to be drafted, I enlisted in the Army,” he said. He enlisted in 1971 and went to flight school in 1972, spending five years in active service. During that time, he flew Huey helicopters in a medivac
unit. He became aware of a flight program in the Army from a friend of a friend. “I went from high school to flight school in the warrant officer program. I didn’t need a degree,” he said. Though he would later teach others how to fly helicopters, he started flying planes because they were cheaper and, commercially, no one was aware of teaching helicopter pilots in the 1970s. After serving in the Army, Watkins returned to his home state to study fishery biology at Colorado State University and tried to get into veterinary school. WATKINS, page 2
Courtesy photo
Gil Watkins stands in front of one of the planes he flew while on deployment with the U.S. military.
Photos by Sandra Hansen
Although a lot of his radio programs are generated through phone calls, Howard Hale, left, gets a lot of material by attending area meetings. Here he interviews Henry Thompson, a speaker at the 2015 Bean Day.
Howard Hale: Nothing beats working By SANDRA HANSEN Ag Editor
MINATARE — That made-for-radio voice you hear giving agriculture reports on area radio isn’t coming live from a local station. It most likely is the result of a recorded telephone conversation from earlier in the day or a few days before. Howard Hale has been a familiar voice on radio since the 1970s. Raised on a local farm, he attended Hiram Scott Community College in the 1950s, served in the U.S. Army and obtained a degree in psychology from the University of Colorado before settling into life in the Nebraska Panhandle. Along the way, he farmed dryland and irrigated crops, raised cattle and sheep, and was in the insurance business. But the big change came 52 years ago when he married Pat, a petite speech pathologist from eastern Nebraska who came out west to work in the local school district. Hale eventually became involved in radio, beginning in 1985 as an ad salesman for KOLT. When the farm director left, Hale began his broadcasting career at age 50. He moved to KNEB in the early 90s, doing the Farmers USA Report and others such as Cattlemen’s Corner and Horsemen’s Corner. He stayed on the move, going back to KOLT for a couple of years, and then to KMOR for Tracy Broadcasting, back to KNEB and a return to Tracy. During those years, Hale decided to become an independent contract broadcasting entity, establishing Hale Broadcasting and Hale Multimedia, along with his son Brian and daughter Andi. His first contract was with KSIR in Fort Morgan, Colorado, in 1994. Since then, his broadcasts are heard from New Mexico to Montana, where they are often picked up by Canadians. A member of the National Association of Farm Broadcasters, Hale issues crop and livestock reports still featured on KNEB. Beginning in 1997, each spring Hale does a series of reports, contacting elevator operators and producers from Texas to Montana, tracking crop conditions and harvest progress. HALE, page 3
Hale prepares a radio program in his h o m e - b a s e d s t u d i o . Wi t h t h e a i d o f m o d e r n technology, he can do an interview with a farmer in Kansas, and have it edited and ready for air time in about half an hour. His interviews are broadcast from Texas to Montana, with listeners extending into Canada.
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Nathan Holloway takes a selfie of himself and a friend.
Helping the needy of Haiti By STEPHANIE HOLSINGER Staff Reporter
When Dr. Jeff Holloway first visited Haiti with a mission group of six surgeons with Northwest Haiti Christian Mission in 2004, he was hooked. He returned the next year and the next, and the next. He has since made 18 trips. “Once we were there, we just fell in love with what they were doing,” said Holloway, who performs general surgery and is a bariatric surgeon at Regional West Physicians Clinic-Surgery and medical director of the Bariatric Program at Regional West Medical Center. Since the initial medical team arrived, people from across the country continue to join the medical missionary efforts. The hospital has built on additional operating rooms to accommodate the increased number of visiting surgeons. “We doubled and tripled the output when we have a surgical unit there now,” Holloway said. In addition to a birthing center, the hospital has doctors on staff and a nutrition team. The visiting medical team brings eye, orthopedic surgeons, ob/gyn and other surgical specialists. “ We bring whomever we need based on who we have and what we have to do,” Holloway said His passion for serving the people of the poorest country in the world has become a family endeavor. Wife Kim and his five children join him on at least one of his weeklong trips every October and January. The country suffers abject poverty, said Kim and Jeff, with little infrastructure or organized health care. “Essentially there is no organized health care. Paved roads are non-existent. They have a school, church, an orphanage and clinic.” Jeff said he takes a f light from Port au Prince to his destination, but has previously taken the 10 hour bus ride to Port de Paix and it “is not fun,” especially when the roads are muddy.
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The hospital is the main infrastructure in the town of Port de Paix. The mission has a school and an orphanage in addition to the church. The daily needs of the people are met in between the medical missionaries’ visits by the mission, which helps the people establish a means to support themselves, including farming and business.
The lack of medical care is apparent. There is no screening, no treatment for cancers, no medicine. “There’s not a lot you can do. They do not have the money to buy the medicine or pay for the surgery,” he said. “These services are non-existent. “It is hard to see people dying from diseases that are easily treatable or from something that could have been caught earlier that turns into something fatal. We can go in and do the surgery. They get a good operation, but there is no chemo, no radiation,” Holloway said. “If we don’t do it, nobody will do it.” The people of Haiti struggle every day, said Jeff, walking many miles a day for the necessities for life, including food, water and medical care and they continue to struggle from lack of help after the devastating earthquake in 2009. The team brings as much medicine and supplies as they can carry. Clean water is in short supply also
and although the residents have well water, they wash and bathe in water sources that are not free from animal and human waste. They use the water they have available to them for all their basic needs, including wash i ng a nd laund r y. Wash i ng areas are communal and can be the same area that animals access, according to Jeff. But there have been improve ments, he said. In the Port de Paix area the infant mortalit y rate has declined, the Holloways said. A preschool has been established and the people are learning new and innovative ways to farm and start businesses. Jeff said, “It feels right. I have never had a disappointing trip.” Once the family began accompanying him, he said it became even more gratifying. “Not everyone comes every trip, but someone always comes on each trip.” Of the Holloway children, the youngest, Nathan, 13, has made four HOLLOWAY, page 4