2010 Pole Pedal Paddle • Four-page special section wrapped around Sports • Full results on C2 • Your submitted photos and more at www.bendbulletin.com/ppp Marshall Greene wins fifth straight race — and Stephanie Howe wins her first
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Costs jump in new state health plan for teachers
Less than 2 years after losing (and then regaining) his arm, Summit High’s Cole Ortega is back in the swing — and ready to play at state
Honorary no more
By Sheila G. Miller The Bulletin
When school districts and other education entities around the state joined the Oregon Educator Benefits Board, they expected the large, statewide pool would stabilize health insurance rates. So district officials were shocked to see some rates jump more than 20 percent. Now some educators are questioning whether OEBB is doing what the Legislature intended, while OEBB supporters are blaming the increases on overuse of benefits and a bad economy. OEBB started in 2007 after the Legislature created a statewide insurance pool for employees and some retired employees of the state’s school districts and education service districts. Districts are required to participate in the plan, while community colleges can opt into the pool, which Central Oregon Community College did last fall. The board offers nine medical, eight dental and five vision plans from ODS, Providence, Kaiser Permanente and Willamette Dental. Employee groups around the state can select as many as four medical plans, three dental plans and one vision plan to offer members. Bend Education Association President Bob Markland said the rate increases, which go into effect in October, were alarming. “The fact that this is a piece of legislation, that we’re forced to stay within this system, is very frustrating,” he said. “I’m just disappointed that we can’t control our own insurance costs locally. We had such a positive experience with our previous carrier, and I think our membership appreciated that.” See Health plan / A4
TOP NEWS INSIDE ELECTION: Three Senate primaries to test voter ire at incumbents, Page A2
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The Bulletin
Deschutes County government and two of its unions are negotiating just what their pay and benefits will look like. And not surprisingly, they see things differently. The two unions voted recently not to make concessions that would have saved the county about $365,000. One of the unions put forward an Inside alternative pro• This year’s posal to take four cost-offurlough days living raises to cut personnel for county costs by about employees, $250,000. But Page A4 County Administrator Dave Kanner plans to oppose the idea because the union is also seeking changes in how the county lays off employees. County personnel costs are expected to increase 2 percent in the upcoming budget year. To save money, the county will have about 14 fewer employees. Still, officials expect to spend $75.7 million on salaries and benefits in the budget year that begins in July, according to the proposed budget. See Deschutes / A4 Photos by Pete Erickson / The Bulletin
Summit sophomore Cole Ortega, center, practices with senior Jesse Heinly at Bend’s Broken Top Club last week. On Monday, a day before his 16th birthday, Cole and his varsity teammates will begin competing in the state golf tournament, less than two years after his left arm was surgically reattached following a surfing accident on the Oregon Coast.
By Beau Eastes • The Bulletin t the start of last golf season, Summit High coach Mark Tichenor made a noble, if not entirely unselfish, gesture toward Cole Ortega. As head coach of one of the better high school boys golf programs in Oregon — Summit of Bend would go on to finish third at the 2009 Class 5A state championships — Tichenor invited Cole, then a 14-year-old freshman, to be an honorary member of the Storm golf team. A promising golfer, Cole was just 10 months removed from a horrific surfing accident on the Oregon Coast in which the propeller of a dory boat severed his left arm just above the elbow. Almost miraculously, doctors reattached the limb. “I thought it’d be good for him to be with the guys he grew up with,” Tichenor recalls. “We liked him and he’d been with these guys (playing golf in junior leagues). We wanted him to feel like this was a place he could come hang out and be part of the program.” Tichenor says he also liked the perspective
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Cole could bring to the golf course. Getting down on yourself after a rough day off the tee? Go talk to the kid over there hitting one-handed chip shots less than a year after his arm was surgically reattached. “Selfishly, with the game of golf, when guys get down a bit, I thought Cole would be a great motivator,” Tichenor says. “He wouldn’t moan about things. “From there,” the coach recounts, “things progressed on their own.” Remarkably, one season after being a nominal member of the Storm golf team and less than two years after walking out of the Pacific Ocean with a bloody stump where his left arm should have been, Cole Ortega has become a full-fledged member of the Summit varsity golf team. This past week, he helped the Storm win the Intermountain Conference title for the first time in seven years. And this week, he and his teammates will be competing for the first boys golf state championship in Summit High history. See Cole Ortega / A6
By Phuong Le The Associated Press
An Independent Newspaper
Vol. 107, No. 136, 56 pages, 7 sections
Mount St. Helens, in southwest Washington, erupts on May 18, 1980.
CASTLE ROCK, Wash. — Thirty years after the eruption of Mount St. Helens leveled a forest and rained volcanic ash for miles around, the devastated mountain remains an important center for volcano research and science. But some critics of the way Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument is USGS
Quest for oil leaves scars worldwide By Tom Knudson McClatchy-Tribune News Service
“It was pretty much relearning how to golf. I hadn’t used two hands in over a year and a half.” — Cole Ortega, 15
St. Helens: 30 years on, still a hot topic
The Bulletin
SUNDAY
Living costs, layoff policy snag union, county talks By Hillary Borrud
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DESCHUTES
managed argue it could be much more, perhaps even a national park on par with some of the grandest — Yosemite, Mount Rainier and the Grand Canyon. Since its catastrophic eruption on May 18, 1980, the picturesque mountain with its telltale horseshoe-shaped crater has captivated scientists and visitors alike. See St. Helens / A8
Like many of her neighbors, Celina Harpe is angry about the oil pollution at her doorstep. No longer can she eat the silvery fish that dart along the shore near her home. Even the wind that hurries over the water reeks of oil waste. “I get so mad,” she said, and then “I feel very sad.” Harpe, 70, isn’t a casualty of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. She lives in a remote corner of Alberta, where another oil field that’s vital to the United States is damaging an important ecosystem: Canada’s northern forest. Across the globe, people in oilproducing regions are watching the Gulf catastrophe with a mixture of hope, horror and resignation. To some, it’s a global event that finally may awaken the world to the real cost of oil. “This is a call to attention for all humanity,” said Pablo Fajardo, a lawyer in Ecuador suing Chevron over oil pollution in the Amazon on behalf of 30,000 plaintiffs. “Oil has a price, but water, life and a clean environment are worth much more.” Others say previous oil disasters haven’t changed things much, and this one won’t, either. See Oil / A5