Dec. 2016 / Jan. 2017
Volume 4 • Issue 12
Richland surgeon, SIGN make connections across globe BY KRISTINA LORD editor@tcjournal.biz
Holiday cooking for one or two
Page 7
Ben Franklin Transit rolls out nostalgia
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Kennewick woman honored at luncheon
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save the date
Dec. 16 - 17 7 p.m. A Big Band Christmas Columbia Basin College Theatre 2600 N. 20th Ave. Pasco
The stainless steel rods manufactured in north Richland mend and connect broken bones and improve lives all over the world. The Richland doctor who invented the implants also works to forge similarly strong connections by mentoring the surgeons who place the rods into the bodies of the injured poor in developing countries. Dr. Lewis Zirkle, 76, founder and president of SIGN Fracture Care International, and CEO Jeanne Dillner recently returned from a two-week trip to Myanmar and Bangladesh where the orthopedic surgeon helped with about 30 surgeries between the two south Asian countries. He also spoke and mentored young surgeons and identified emerging surgical leaders among them who will train others in the SIGN technique. “Once they’re trained, they’re reaching out to others to foster a mentor relationship,” Zirkle said. The surgeries aren’t usually routine either because the “high energy fractures” shatter the bones into many pieces. “We are not second rate. We offer the best implants, though I’m biased, than anyone in the world,” Zirkle said. The fractures are common when the typical mode of transportation is a rickshaw or wheelbarrow piled high with goods maneuvering down a busy, dangerous street. The World Health Organization reports that between 20 million and 50 million people worldwide suffer injuries as a result of road traffic crashes, with many incurring a disability. About 1.25 million people die each year as a result of road traffic crashes with half of those dying on the world’s roads being “vulnerable road users,” such as pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists. uZIRKLE, Page 2
Workers from Ray Poland and Sons prepare the parking lot for paving at the new modular building on First Avenue near the Amtrak and Greyhound bus station in Pasco that will house most of the city’s senior programs, including Meals on Wheels and the foot care clinics. The building is expected to open in mid-December. The city sold the senior center on Seventh Avenue to the Pasco School District.
Pasco Senior Center to close, programs to move to new building BY KRISTINA LORD editor@tcjournal.biz
The regulars at the Pasco Senior Center building soon will be 3- to 5-yearolds instead of those over 60. The city of Pasco sold the building to the Pasco School District for $1.26 million and will be out of it by Dec. 30. City officials say declining use of the senior center at 1315 N. Seventh St. over the past 15 years prompted the sale. Senior programs will now share space with other city recreation programs inside a triple-wide modular building at 505 N. First Ave. Meals on Wheels and foot care clinics
along with other senior recreation programs will be located there. “We’re not going to dedicate any space just for seniors. It’s just not successful anymore. Assisted living places provide (activities) for them now, or they just aren’t coming anymore and are more active,” said Rick Terway, the city’s director of administrative and community services. The majority of the senior center’s programs will be moved to the newly remodeled triple-wide previously used for city storage and offices. The building adjacent to the Greyhound bus and Amtrak station is expected to open in mid-December.
uSENIOR CENTER, Page 6
Holidays bring joy, but also loneliness to those grieving loss of loved one BY KRISTINA LORD editor@tcjournal.biz
A Richland woman dreaded the holidays after losing her daughter to leukemia. She didn’t want to celebrate. She didn’t want to keep up the same traditions. She wanted space to feel her grief. And to remember. Sandy Fishback, 69, credits a Chaplaincy Health Care class with empowering her to feel her grief during the holidays. The death of her daughter and what
she learned in the Hope for the Holidays class changed her life in countless ways but perhaps the most important one is how it helped her to be a better person. She now regularly gives to charity to “put good out in the world.” “I do more random acts of kindness… with her in mind,” Fishback said. The class also gave her permission to “do what I thought was right, versus being locked into, ‘You’re the mom and you have to invite these people for Thanksgiving and Christmas.’ I didn’t want to and didn’t,” she said. uCHAPLAINCY, Page 3
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