Volume 33 Number 5 June 2021 Fall Conference has exciting plans by Vickie Jackson million. Gorman was previously the associate and Paul Zastrow director of Oregon Natural Resources Council, Discover the land now Oregon Wild. between Mt. Hood Our planned workshops will include: Racial and the Columbia Justice, Senior Fraud, AARP Safe Driving Tips, River. Come to our Emergency Preparedness – Mother Nature’s annual Fall Confer- Wrath, Travel, and Retiree Benefits. ence September 27 in We plan to be finished with our structured Hood River at the activities by 2:30 p.m. to give everyone enough Rockford Grange. time for wine tasting and/or exploring the There will be work- beautiful countryside. shops, snacks, and To help plan your trip here are the links for lunch, all included in places to stay: the $25 registration • Campgrounds in the area: https:// Kevin Gorman fee. visithoodriver.com/stay/? We will have a Silent _sft_type=campgrounds Auction to raise funds for the OEA Foundation • Hampton Inn and Suites, close to the marina and ask members to donate a book or two to the Westcliff Lodge, with quite a view of the Literacy Project. Columbia River. Our keynote speaker, Kevin Gorman, will give a • Brookside Bed & Breakfast to be closer to the history of the Columbia Gorge. He is the conference site executive director of Friends of the Columbia • Hood River Hostel to bring back college Gorge, as well as its land trust memories Gorman joined the organization in 1998, and These are just a few suggestions for you to during his tenure, Friends has grown from eight choose from with most rooms costing around staff and one office to 22 staff and three offices; $150, with tax. Make you reservations soon! net assets have grown from $750,000 to $22 To register fill out form on Page 11. Census makes changes in representation by Maureen Barnhart Max Denning of the La Grande Observer wrote As a result of the 2020 Census, Texas gains two an article that ran January 14, 2019, in which seats, one seat each to Colorado, Florida, some political observers offered these potential Montana, North Carolina and Oregon. Seven scenarios in Oregon. These are NOT official, just states have lost seats: California, New York, some possibilities determined with the help of a Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and West computer program to fit the parameters of Virginia. Oregon law. Five seats will move from blue states to red ORS 188.010, which gives the state’s criteria ones — owing to population shifts from the Rust for drawing congressional Belt, the Northeast and California to the South districts, states that a district and other portions of the West. must “be contiguous; be of Three of seven being taken away are coming equal population (approx- from states in which Democrats have some imately 720,000 people in measure of control over the maps. Other states 2022); utilize existing have more divided control or redistricting geographic or political commissions. Continued on Page 7. ———————————————————PrimeTimes 1———————————————— Random Remarks by President Bobbi cations—from postcards to texting to email to Yambasu PrimeTimes. We have used all of these communi- Two things strike me as I cation modes in the past, but not in the ways we write this last article for the are using them now. We are making a concerted current year—first, that we effort to provide more ‘touch’ space for all our have completed more than a members. year of personal isolationism Like most people, we “Zoom” a lot. While those due to the pandemic and, second, that the of us on the Board look forward to being able to pandemic actually led to some good eventually meet in person again, we also have consequences. I know the second part of that benefited positively from our Zoom account. As a statement will cause some pause for some of us. group, we have decided to continue our com- The pandemic gave us time to really reflect on mittee meetings via Zoom even after we return to many of the events happening in our country and in-person Board meetings. They seem to be more the world. It laser-focused us on our actions and productive with better attendance. There is more the actions of others, and on the interconnected- later in this newsletter about our committees. ness of those actions. Due to events outside the actual pandemic, we Our world will never again have the ’normal’ of as a nation have had to face the continued racism the pre-pandemic. And that is probably a good in our country and around the world. While we thing. We have had to face a lot during the last can’t change the whole world, we can make year and examine for ourselves the type of world changes happen in our country. As in most things, we want for the future. that change must start with us as individuals. As In the OEA-Retired arena, we have had to learn Michael Jackson once sang, we have to ‘look at different means of meeting together and to amp the man in the mirror.’ up our communications. These are good things. The necessary changes will not always be easy. We are trying to do various types of communi- In fact, I predict that many of them will be very hard and will result from both personal and collective soul-searching. For some of us, the changes will be painfully slow and for some of us they will be far too fast. As I look forward to my last year as the OEA- Retired President, I also look forward to the programs and policies that we can put into place to enhance our lives and the lives of all those around us. Much of what we are now working PrimeTimes Continued on Page 4. June 2021 Volume 33 Number 5 Editor Marleen Wallingford - [email protected] CALENDAR Assistant Editor Ray Johnson - [email protected] 2021 PrimeTimes, the official publication of OEA-Retired, May 17 OEA-Re-red Board (virtual) is published five times a year as a benefit of membership. June 1 PrimeTimes published Officers June 29-30 NEA-Re-red Annual President Bobbi Yambasu, [email protected] Mee-ng (virtual) Vice President Eileen Wende, [email protected] July 2-6 NEA Representave Secretary Susie Garrison, [email protected] Treasurer Mavis Randklev, [email protected] Assembly (virtual) www.oearetired.oregon.org July 12 OEA-Re-red Board (virtual) July 19-23 OEA Summer Conference Staff UniServ Consultant (virtual) Evan Wickersham - [email protected] September 27 OEA-Re-red Fall Conference, Hood River ———————————————————PrimeTimes 2———————————————— Advocating for Infrastructure and Nutrition for Families by Maureen Barnhart and our Legislators are surprised support to keep funding for Eileen Wende that we do not find the free school lunches, as has all The OEA Congressional “compromise” offered by the of the Oregon delegation with Advocacy Team Zoom-met with Dept of Ed to be acceptable. the exception of Rep. Cliff Sen. Ron Wyden on April 30 to The team thanked him for his Bentz, CD 2. thank him for his support of advocacy for schools and As Congressional our national legislative school infrastructure relevant Representative, he also voted priorities and to clarify what to the Rebuild America’s against the COVID relief bill. support is still requested. Schools Act and tax fairness Senator Wyden also spoke of Both in opening and as we proposals. We were surprised his bill, the Malheur Com- ended the meeting, the Senator that the Senator was unaware munity Empowerment for the extolled the efforts and valor of of how high a priority it is for Owyhee Act, which will allow our educators who have been NEA to rebuild, modernize, ranchers and the BLM to offering their best efforts in and make structurally safe interactively manage rangeland teaching online throughout the America’s public schools. in Malheur County. pandemic and in the return to CAT members were quick to He is hoping to get bipartisan in-person learning—surely it’s respond to the Senator that support for his bill from fair to say that those of us who many of our schools are old, Oregon’s Representative Bentz. are retired are equally in awe suffer mold, air and water The Senator and his staff of our colleagues. quality issues, and have been gave us their time between On the agenda was an not retrofitted for earthquake meetings and after a long night update/discussion regarding safety; and that NEA has and plane flight that included a statewide standardized testing. actively lobbied on these issues delay on a stopover. As your representatives to CAT, for many years. They were engaged and we do wonder from whom our Senator Wyden was adamant attentive to our comments. Congressional delegation is about the need to expand However, we did not have time receiving incorrect reassur- funding for broadband in rural to fully explain some of our ances that all is well on this and underserved areas. He issues nor to appropriately front? reiterated that in any infra- thank him for his support. In this meeting, as with Rep. structure bill coming out of the The Senator has been an Suzanne Bonamici, CD 1, we Senate Finance Committee advocate of including had to remind that the time would include broadband. He supplements to the revenue commit-ment for even limited had not only heard from our Continued on Page 4. standardized testing would committee members, but it is a question the wisdom of using concern that he hears, loud the precious time left in this and clear, voiced at every rural school year for such testing.