The Linn Expo Center Goes to the Dogs

Linn County Kennel Club Hosts Annual Dog Show

For three days the Linn County Expo Center had well and truly gone to the dogs.

On the lawn, dog owners walked their bullmastiffs, Scottish terriers, coiffed poodles, and St. Bernards in embroidered drool bibs.

Boxers await conformation judging.

Inside the Expo Hall and Santiam Building show boxers and samoyeds pranced and posed for judges. Meanwhile in the Calapooia Arena, German shepherds, border collies, pugs and corgis demonstrated their agility by weaving in and out of obstacles, walking over seesaws, and leaping over hurdles.

After a one year absence due to the challenges of COVID-19, the Linn County Kennel Club Dog Show returned to the Linn County Fair and Expo Center Feb. 25-27. The schedule of events was packed for the entire three-day show. Each day more than 1,500 dogs were judged for conformation (how well they conformed to the standards of their breed), or competed in obedience, rally, or agility trials. Activities were held in all four buildings of the Expo Center.

Susie Shearer, the Linn County Kennel Club president, said that in addition to creating fun and community among dog owners and dogs, the show raises money to fund the club’s activities and donations each year. The club provides dog owners with services such as free eight-week obedience and new puppy classes. They also provide scholarships to Oregon State University veterinary students and donate to a number local non-profit organizations and their events.

Dogs leaped hurdles on the agility course.

Shearer said that dog shows also provide an economic boost to the community by attracting people from long distances. She cited a American Kennel Club study that found that exhibitors at AKC dog shows spend an average of $512 per show weekend and can inject more than $1.5 million into the local community.

One such long-distance traveler to the show was Amy Denton, 65. She drove nine hours from Omak, Washington to compete in agility trials with her Pembroke Welsh Corgi, Carbon. Denton has shown and competed with her dogs for more than 40 years. During that time the farthest she has ever driven for a show was Missouri.

Denton said, “I like the activity because I love my dogs. I have five corgis … and they’re a big part of our lives and they seem to enjoy it.”

Carbon on the agility A-frame with owner, Amy Denton

Stacy Dickinson, in her late-40s, has been showing dogs for more than 20 years. She said she continues because, “I like the relationship it creates. It’s something special that you do with your dog … and they’re beautiful dogs so you show them off!”

Running the shows, however, requires an army of volunteers. Usually they are gleaned from the ranks of the people who show their dogs, but according to Shearer “a lot of the people who show are older and dog shows are kind of fading. We want to get young people showing, but they’re more interested in videos.”

Jesse Questchke, 33, the Obedience and Rally chairperson agrees. “I am fresh blood, and a lot of clubs are looking for young people to join. A lot of clubs are aging.”

This is a problem in part, Questchke said, because the show requires that some volunteers serve as “stewards” that can do physically demanding jobs such as setting up agility equipment to match dog heights and re-setting competition fields between trials.

Jesse Lalley stewards the rally trials. 

Recently, Questchke was able to enlist the help of some teen volunteer stewards from the 4-H club, Guide Dogs for the Blind-Corvallis. One volunteer, Jesse Lalley, 16, is in the process of training her third puppy as a guide dog but this was her first time at a dog show. It was clear that she was already hooked.

“It’s amazing! I love watching all the dogs. It’s definitely different than what I imagine because I’ve never been to anything like it before, … especially watching the obedience trials. I feel like my guide dogs are learning to do half of this stuff,” said Lalley. “I’m definitely going to be stewarding again in the future!”

The dog show also has a mission to help improve the health of individual dogs and their breeds. Over the weekend the show hosts eye and cardiac veterinary clinics. According to Gail Hill, 77, chair of the Eye Veterinary Clinic, the clinics are “a low-cost way for a whole lot of dogs to be screened all at once” for potential genetic disorders by a specialist from the OSU College of Veterinary Medicine.

Hanging out with a best friend

Hill, who is also a volunteer, says that the dog show is “a labor of love.” She said it shows that “there are so many different kinds of ways that we human beings connect with these animals. We’ve been hanging out with these guys for 100,000 or more years. For some of us they are an integral part of our existence.”

At-a-Glance
What: The Linn County Kennel Club Dog Show
When: Feb. 25-27, 2022 and annually every Feb.
Where: The Linn County Fair and Expo Center in Albany, Oregon
For more information contact: The Linn County Kennel Club, (503)394-3693

Lionel, a 4-month-old Pekingnese, took first prize for the Toy Group for puppies.

Q&A with LBCC English Professor Ramycia McGhee

Ramycia McGhee is a professor of English and Literature at Linn-Benton Community College and the CEO and founder of The Valencia Cooper Second Chance Scholarship Opportunity Award. While McGhee has lived in Albany for almost five years, she was born and raised on the west side of Chicago. In this interview she talks about how her upbringing, her family, and her faith has shaped her career and philosophy on life.
 

Ramycia McGhee, you are a graduate of three universities: University of Wisconsin-Whitewater for your bachelor's in Broadcast Journalism, Roosevelt University for your master’s in Journalism, and Capella University for your Doctor of Education. Given this, why did you decide to teach at a community college instead of a university?

Yes, I went to all universities. But in elementary school I took prep classes on Saturday at Truman College, which is a part of the Chicago Community College system. I went to elementary school near Malcolm X Community College. We would go over there for assemblies… African dance…field trips. When I was in high school I took college credits at Harold Washington College.

So if you think about it, community college was always playing in the background. It's always been a part of my life. It was part of my formative years, so it would make sense that I would teach at one.

And I think that what I really love about community college is that you get an opportunity to meet and interact with people, i.e. from the community...You get an opportunity to interact with everybody who makes up a community. When you are working at a university you can have those relationships but to me they don't seem as important or pertinent to the work you're doing.

I also know that community colleges play a role in people who cannot afford to go to a university at that time.

Imagine you are taking a gen ed class at a university and all you see are students who live on campus… and you are a 40-year-old woman or man, or you identify as non-binary, and maybe you have kids. Nobody in there looks like me. Nobody in there can relate. That's a problem because that's going to impede the learning process.

You go to a community college, you don’t know who the hell you’re going to get! You’re going to get somebody, maybe, who is fresh out of jail and this is their mandate. You’re going to get some students who come right out of high school. You're going to get the working mother, the working father, the working inmates, the job-poor person. You're going to get these people who can relate because they bring life experiences - which I love even more.

I feel and I know community colleges are the backbone of this country.

How did your mother feel about your decision to become a college professor?

When I first told my mother I was going to be a professor she was so pissed off. She said, “I took out that Parent PLUS Loan for you to be a journalist! Now you’re telling me you’re going to be a teacher?!”

But that was short-lived because before I knew it, my mother was saying, “My daughter is a professor!” and walking around with her chest all out, so happy and bragging and boasting.

One time my mom went to class with me (in Wilbur Wright College in Chicago). I had older people in my class and my mother saw two people that she knew growing up in my class because they were all in recovery (from substance abuse).

They hugged each other for so long. They went downstairs. They smoked cigarettes. They talked and laughed, reminiscing about good times. They came from this lifestyle (of substance abuse) and this is the fruit of the process (of change). It was just so fun because it was good to see my mother connect with people she grew up with in my class.

Since then the guy would say, “Your daughter is my favorite professor. She's so smart!” Every time they ran into my mother they would say that.

And, while I think she knew that I was good at what I do, I think seeing her friends made her think, “My daughter is really doing this and it's working, because people I know are telling me on the regular.”

Your mother clearly had a strong impact on you. What kind of person was she?

She was something. She was street. She was hardcore, but she had a heart of gold.

My mother had been through quite a bit as a younger woman. Both of my parents were recovering drug addicts, but my mother never let her addiction to drugs detour how she raised and protected me. My daddy didn’t either. I had a two-parent household growing up.

My mother worked. She was super funny. My mother was intelligent.

She was raw. She would tell you the truth, no matter how you felt about it.

But she would give you the clothes off her back. She always wanted to help people, and that's how she ended up in the industry that she did. She worked for women who were HIV positive and who were also recovering addicts. My mom loved her work and the women loved her. My mother never made them feel as though they were diseased. They were in recovery.

My mother was selfless.

Her younger sister, who's my favorite aunt, had a baby at 13. My mother dropped out of school and helped raise the baby. She told her sister, “You go on and you do school and you get that and do all that.”

My aunt went on to get a degree and worked in corporate America - really moved up the ladder.

My mother did not. My mother helped raise her son. And my mother went back to school later and got her GED. She was clean and sober 10 years when she passed away.

In the fall of 2020, you launched The Valencia Cooper Second Chance Opportunity Award, named after your mother. Please tell me about it.

During my mother's time of drug abuse she went to jail for three months. Every weekend I would go see my mother. I remember seeing my mother through that glass. My mother was distraught. She could not believe she was in jail. Three months may have felt like three years.

So when I was working over at the Oak Creek Youth Correctional Center (in Albany), I thought about some of the women my mother helped in her work.

I remember when my mother got out of jail, even though it was only three months, she's still on probation. There were still all these hoops and things you had to do to be in compliance. You had to see a probation officer. You had to take classes. It’s never ending. And then they want you to get you back into society! But you have a criminal record. You also have to pass a drug test. You have to have experience. You have to have all this sh*t.

But there's really not a lot out there for you. The resources are slim, or you have to go through all these different hoops to get through to the resources.

I thought I would love to do something in my mother’s name…I thought, I can do a scholarship and it would directly impact these young ladies (at Oak Creek), because it'll be for them, and they would have to take classes at LBCC. So I'm marrying what I do and where I work to the memory of my mother.

That's how I came up with the scholarship. I launched this Sept. 5, 2020, which is the day my mother died, but then there weren't a lot of young ladies matriculating out of Oak Creek. If they were, secondary education was really not their priority. They needed jobs, money, etc.

So in 2022, this year, I’m going to change the direction of the scholarship. I want to benefit any black student in the State of Oregon who wants to attend a community college because there's so few black folk here and sometimes resources are slim to none. Why not be able to be another resource on the educational ramp?

[The scholarship] has a very basic application. The reason why it's so basic is because I want to give the money away! I want to take away all the barriers! It's not a competition. Everybody's going to get money.

My friends and family were just really receptive about this when I first launched it. They just gave and gave and gave and and it's been going really well. I'm in the midst of making it a non-profit. … My vision for this is that it will become so big and so well known in the State of Oregon that I'll be able to launch it also in Chicago, where my mother and I grew up. So there will be one in the Midwest, one on the West Coast, and then who knows? In the next 20 years maybe we'll have one on the East Coast. It will be a nationwide scholarship which I would love to see happen.
 

You grew up in the west side of Chicago where you were surrounded by African-American role models in your family and schools. Now as a college professor in Oregon, you’re often the first African-American teacher that your students have ever had. How does that make you feel?

I think it makes me feel special because I'm able to impart some things on them that they probably haven't had and dispel myths that a lot of them probably have about black people, or black women and black educators, and etc…

Even at a church I was going to I was able to dispel what they stereotypically thought a black woman should be. I was highly educated. At the time I was married. No children out of wedlock -- no offense to people. These are just things that people think…I wasn't addicted to drugs. I wasn't beaten. I didn't come from a broken home.

All of that stuff was dispelled.

And I feel the same way about a classroom. What you've heard about black teachers. What you’ve heard about black women. What you’ve heard about inner city youth. What you’ve heard about children of recovering addicts. I'm going to take all of what you've heard and flip it on its head. I have the opportunity to do that. And that is so good because I don't want them to have these assumptions about us…because of what they’ve seen on TV, what they’ve read in books, what they’ve heard...

It's a way to change the narrative, so that they are aware. Like (when they are confronted with stereotypes) they can say, “No, I had a teacher, and that wasn't the case” and “I interacted with a person and that’s not how she acted.” They can speak about it.

I feel very blessed and lucky to be in that position.

February was Black History Month. This was the fifth year that you’ve organized events for this month at LBCC. What are some of the concerns that lead you to choose “Breaking the Cycle of Shame: Black Mental Health” as this year’s Black History Month theme?

[In] black mental health, particularly at this time, suicide rates are at the all-time high. It's a shame.

Black people do not talk about going to therapy. I think that narrative is changing now with recent events, but every time you look up somebody is dying or has died by suicide.

Did they not have someone to talk to? Maybe they did, but they were ashamed. People in a sense shame black folks from going to therapy.

Why do you think Black people feel shame about mental health therapy?

[Black people often say] “Pray it away!” You know we’re spiritual people. Yes, you can pray and I think that's one of the tools that God gives you, but He also gives you these other tools of therapy, and talking to people, etc.

I have two cousins who had contemplated suicide, and they're both young women. I had a boy cousin who contemplated suicide. When things hit home like that, it's like, “Oh, my God!”

[When I suggested] “Maybe you should talk to somebody…” to my one cousin, she said, “I don't want people to think I'm crazy.” Because [to her] therapy is only for people who are crazy or think that they're crazy.

I said, “No, I don't think people would think you’re crazy. I think you think you’re crazy because you're going to see someone. [Therapists] can talk to you about stuff that your family can't. Because we [your family] are in it with you so we're not objective. We want to be, but we're not.”

In addition to having speakers come to speak on the Black History Month theme each year, you also put together a Black History Essay writing contest. This year you asked essayists to reflect on how the stereotype of the “Strong Black Woman'' has affected black women. For context, you ask essayists to read the 2015 Cosmopolitan article, “Black Girls Don’t Get to Be Depressed” by Samantha Irby. The tagline for the article is “When I finally got help for my mental illness, I was sure I was letting Rosa Parks and Harriet Tubman down by talking about my silly little feelings.” How did this article and topic resonate with you?

When I read the article, I’m like, that’s so true because you feel like, “Damn! I'm going to let Harriet Tubman down!” And these (historical) people were dealing with conditions way worse than what I’m dealing with -- my little problems. So it really stuck with me because this is something that we carry around all the time.

…Black women have always been seen to be the pillars of the community. Even when we think about enslavement, black women slept with slave owners …so that the slave owners wouldn’t kill their husbands or their children. So we've sacrificed our bodies. We've sacrificed our minds. Like we have to play into the ego of our husbands or our kids and not say anything. We sacrificed our time. “Don't worry. I can take on this, you just do that.”

We've sacrificed so much of ourselves, and we still have to be a mother, be a wife, be a good friend, be intimate, however that intimacy is. Be very good at what you do, because you have to be 10 times better than your counterpart.

So you have all of that pressure. What do you have for yourself?

One of my aunts said, “You know we bend, but we don't break.” But sometimes, you really want to break!

Here's the thing (not long ago) -- my career was skyrocketing and my personal life was falling apart, but I still had to show up in this space and do what I had to do. No one knew I was going through a divorce…I remember that there were times that I would be up for more than 48 hours, just distraught…I was crying. But I would get up, put make-up on, get dressed, and go to LB, teach and smile, and do everything I needed to do. Then I would come back home, and I would cry for more hours.

Because I knew people were watching me. I'm new here. I'm black. I got to do my job. I got to do it really well. And I can't let these people know that my whole damn personal life is… in the toilet.

…There was a lot of shame for me. People were like “You excel in every part of your life, but you can't hold your marriage together?”

I think that's what happens with women anyway... but then here we go again, the Strong Black Woman...We deal with a lot as women in general but I think we deal with an immense amount of pressure as women of color. As a black woman to be told you're the least likely to marry, that you’re the last picked. You know, when you hear sh*t like that, you get depressed.

Then you start thinking “Oh my God, I need therapy!”

It's a culmination of stuff. But you still have to maintain this persona of a Strong Black Woman. “No matter what, I can take it!” when inside you are breaking into pieces and you aren't telling anyone.

I think the Strong Black Woman is a blessing and a curse, a burden and a blessing. That essay resonated with me, and I want people to understand that. Because some people feel that black women can take everything because historically we've had to. And there was never any objection.

And the time has come for us to really start healing from that.

At-a-Glance
Who: Dr. Ramycia McGhee
Occupation: LBCC Professor of English and Literature and Founder and CEO of The Valencia Cooper Second Chance Opportunity Scholarship Award
Hometown: West side of Chicago, Illinois
Years at LBCC: Almost five years
Passions: Getting dressed up and dancing, traveling solo to at least one place every year
Beloved Pet: A 10-year-old Shih Tzu named Cupcake
Mantra: “Things happen for me, not to me.”

Fans Return to Dam Cancer

Lauren Letzsch (right) wishing teammate Madi Dagen luck.

After being forced by COVID-19 restrictions to go on without an audience for much of the last year, the Oregon State University Dam Cancer Gymnastics Meet welcomed fans back to the Gill Coliseum on Feb. 5.

Attendees streamed into the coliseum excited to not only cheer for the competing OSU and Arizona State University gymnasts, but also to support the cause of cancer awareness and early cancer detection. Many fans demonstrated this by wearing bright pink t-shirts with slogans that read “Dam Cancer,” “Pink Out!” and “Beaver Fans Wear Pink.”

During the opening ceremony, the video boards showed OSU gymnasts holding up signs with the printed words “I Believe for …” followed by the handwritten names of loved ones who had been affected by cancer. Afterward, fans who had filled out similar signs when they entered the coliseum raised theirs in the air in solidarity.

Fans young and old wore pink for cancer awareness.

For this meet, the OSU women’s gymnastics team put aside the color orange to wear the colors and symbols of cancer awareness. The women sparkled in hot pink and black leotards. Each gymnast also wore a small temporary tattoo of a pink ribbon at the base of her neck.

In their hair, the gymnasts wore two different colored ribbons. They all wore zebra-striped ribbons in honor of their head coach, Tanya Chaplin, who is a survivor of neuroendocrine tumors. The second ribbons were in the color of a cancer experienced by a friend or family member for whom the athletes dedicated their performance that night.

Phoebe Jakubczyk holding a sign in support of her mum.

“We even have some coaches who wore different colored ribbons as well,” said Head Coach Chaplin. In addition to her own cancer experience, Chaplin has had close family members who have been affected by cancer. “So it’s near and dear to our heart to promote it and to get the awareness out,” she said.

Jade Carey, freshman OSU gymnast and Olympic gold medalist said, “This is a really important meet. It was bigger than gymnastics tonight and we wanted to go out and show support for everyone going through cancer. Just anyone touched by cancer really. We just wanted to go out and fight for them and do it for them because it’s just really special to be able to dedicate a meet to someone”

“I know a girl back home who was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma as a child and I would visit her in the hospital. She is a gymnast. I did it for her tonight. I wore gold [ribbons] for childhood cancer and we all wore zebra [ribbons] for Tanya [Chaplin],” said Carey.

Teammates cheered Jade Carey's floor routine. 

The Dam Cancer Gymnastics Meet is one of a series of Dam Cancer events and competitions that have been held since 2005 as a way to foster cancer awareness, encourage early cancer screening, and raise money for local non-profit cancer support organizations. The events were originally organized by the Corvallis Clinic Foundation and OSU. In the past, each major athletic women’s sport at OSU held one Dam Cancer event per season. These have included women’s volleyball, soccer, basketball, golf, and swimming as well as gymnastics.

The pandemic brought new challenges to holding the Dam Cancer events. Due to COVID-19 restrictions many collegiate sporting events were postponed, canceled, or went on in empty stadiums. Eventually, the Corvallis Clinic Foundation decided to stop organizing the events altogether. The Willamette Valley Cancer Institute and Research Center (WVCI) took up the responsibilities for organizing the events in their place, but according to both Head Coach Chaplin and Christy Curtis, the WVCI oncology Liaison and Marketing Coordinator, the Dam Cancer series is still very much in transition.

“It’s a new world so we are still trying to figure out things that we can bring to the community,” said Chaplin.

For example, they are still working out how to re-incorporate fundraising and develop new ways to honor cancer survivors. Previously, cancer survivors were welcomed to walk onto the performance floors and playing fields to be cheered and encouraged by fans. With the rise of the COVID-19 virus, however, it is more dangerous for cancer patients to be around crowds.

According to Curtis, the “I Believe for” signs were created as a way to safely honor survivors. The signs are a way for fans “to at-a-glance see how many people are touched by cancer. It has a pretty strong impact,” she said.

Another concern with allowing non-athletes on the field is the risk to athletes. “We have to make sure that all of [the athletes] are safe, too. So they’re not having many interactions until the season is over,” said Chaplin.

Despite the challenges behind-the-scenes, fans appreciated the message that the events promote. Judy Rinkin, 79 and her husband of 58 years, Mike Rinkin, 81, are diehard Beaver fans who have been to many Dam Cancer events over the years. Both were at the meet on Saturday and wore pink in support.

“The cancer events do a great job because they bring [cancer] to the forefront. I remember as a kid we only whispered about cancer, but now we can talk about it. And we need to!” said Judy Rinkin. “[Cancer] is not something to be ashamed of. It’s not something [cancer survivors] choose. It’s just something they get.”

In addition to supporting the Dam Cancer cause, fans and athletes alike enjoyed the competition and spectacle of young women appearing to defy gravity. Everyone cheered and marveled at the OSU and ASU gymnasts’ performances.

Madi Dagen receiving encouragement during her floor routine.

“I just love gymnastics because these young women compete against themselves and they are there being watched by the world,” said Judy Rinkin. “And those girls can tumble so high. Oh my goodness it’s amazing!”

The climax of the meet for both the Rinkins and the rest of the fans was Carey’s performance on the uneven bars. When it was announced that Carey had earned the first perfect score of her collegiate career the coliseum reverberated with the sound of the audience leaping to their feet and roaring.

In the end, the 13th-ranked OSU Beavers prevailed against the No. 21 ASU Sun Devils with a final score of 197.374 to 196.500. Carey won the all around with a score of 39.825. OSU senior, Madi Dagen came in second with a score of 39.550. In third with a score of 39.375 was ASU junior Hannah Scharf.

With this event now under their belt, WVCI and OSU are looking forward to collaborating on many more Dam Cancer events. According to Curtis, their main objective for the first year back is “engaging in our community and raising awareness for cancer. Hopefully we’ll just keep getting better at that!”

At-A-Glance
Who: Oregon State University (OSU) and Arizona State University (ASU) gymnastics teams
What: The OSU Dam Cancer Gymnastics Meet
Where: OSU’s Gill Coliseum
When: Saturday, Feb. 5, 5:30 p.m.
Why: To compete and raise awareness of cancer and early cancer detection 

Outcome: OSU prevailed against ASU 197.374 to 196.500. Freshman Jade Carey won the all around with a score of 39.825 and made the first perfect score of her collegiate career with her uneven bars routine. The Dam Cancer events are transitioning after a year of COVID-19 and a major change in organizers, but still succeeded in bringing greater awareness for cancer.

The LBCC Student Organic Farm: Past, Present, and Future

LBCC’s once bustling Student Organic Farm now sits quietly, as though asleep. The plots that once overflowed with fruits and vegetables are leveled and covered with close-cropped grass. The salad greens and tomatoes that used to grow year round in the farm’s two large greenhouses have been replaced with brown waist-high weeds. Rotting fruit hangs from un-pruned branches and litters the ground beneath the orchard trees.

The two-acre farm sits on the northwest corner of campus, between the jogging track and the northern portion of the Wellness trail. The farm served students and the community for nearly two decades until budget shortfalls led the college to indefinitely suspend the horticulture program in early 2020. Since that time the farm has been out of operation. The college currently has no plans to revive it.

Grass covers the farm fields today.

“[The farm] served us in our vision of curriculum -- what we thought a horticulture program should look like. It was our outdoor laboratory for students to live and learn,” said Stefan Seiter, former Chair of the Horticulture Program.

When Seiter first arrived at LBCC in 2001, the area that is now the farm was a dumping ground for the college’s waste construction material. It also had soil trenches that Seiter’s predecessor had dug for soil classes.

Seiter, however, wanted an outdoor space for his horticulture students to practice organic farming and gardening. In the spring of 2002 the horticulture program began filling in the trenches and incorporating leaf compost into the soil to build its first large, 35-by-65-foot garden plot. Over the next seven years, the farm expanded slowly, growing to include two additional large garden plots, a smaller herb garden, a rain garden to the west of the plots, and a composting center.

In 2010, Miriam Edell joined the department as a part-time Horticulture Instructional Specialist. Edell brought with her a background in sustainable agriculture and, according to Seiter, a “passion to run the farm.” She took on the primary responsibility of managing the farm and the student workers who maintained it, ushering in a period of rapid growth. During the last ten years of operation, the farm expanded to include two large greenhouses, three more large garden plots, an orchard, a small vineyard, a forest garden, and sheds for tool and irrigation equipment. For a time there were even beehives and a chicken coop.

The farm in operation, sometime between 2014 and 2018. Image: Google Earth

The farm not only provided opportunities for horticulture students to gain hands-on experience in all the ins and outs of running a small organic farm, it also provided resources for the community. The Profitable Small Farms Program used the farm to provide subscribers to their Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) boxes with fresh produce during the growing season. The program donated extra produce to organizations such as the local food bank and the LBCC Parenting Program. 

For a time, the farm rented out garden space to both LBCC students and members of the community. The Veterans Garden was established on the farm in 2018 to give students who are military veterans a place to relax while gardening. In 2019, the horticulture program was in talks with the Community Services Consortium and Jackson Street Youth Services to begin a youth farming program, but talks ended with the announcement of the horticulture program suspension.

According to Seiter, funding for the farm was largely piecemeal. Lab fees for the horticulture classes paid for tools and other class supplies. The farm raised additional money though the sales of produce and plants, and from private donations for capital projects like the irrigation system. Many of the fruit trees were donated, as were materials for the greenhouses, sheds, and composting center.

Today the farm continues to fall under the responsibility of the Division of Science, Engineering, and Mathematics (SEM). Kristina Holton, the Dean of SEM, says that neither SEM nor the college currently has plans for it.

“Without Miriam’s [Edell’s] role to spend time maintaining the space, we don’t have the capacity to maintain the farm the way it was being maintained previously,” she said. So the goal of the college is to “keep it mowed so at least maintenance can keep it from being a liability.”

One of the farm's greenhouses, filled with weeds and disintegrating.

Michael Brady, interim director of LBCC Facilities, concurred with Holton’s assessment, saying that the difficulties caused by the ongoing pandemic have left Facilities down to a “skeleton crew.” Unable to assume the labor costs for maintaining the organic farm, facilities has leveled the land, plowed the plots, and seeded it with grass to control the growth of weeds. 

Brady says that facilities will try to maintain weeds between the fruit trees as time permits, but will not prune the trees. In the meantime, he acknowledged that without maintenance, farm structures like the greenhouses will eventually break down due to weather and the sun’s ultraviolet light.

Despite the farm’s current state, both Seiter and Brady hope that one day the farm will once again be a valuable resource to students and the community. Seiter said that the farm could still provide a mix of uses for classes in different departments such as Biology and Art. He also suggested continuing to use the farm for community garden space. Brady was concerned about the college taking responsibility for outside community groups using the farm but, “if we could get a program or a student group that wanted to run something back there, I think that would be awesome!” he said.

Edell said that the closing of the farm is “a real loss for the community. It was a great resource.” Still she believes that it would be difficult for student groups to run the entire farm on their own.

“Truth be told, farming is a lot of work. It’s the rare person who wants to dig in the dirt and sweat.”

Maintenance of the farm, she said, is constant, and at the height of its operations the farm required the efforts of not just Edell but also three work/study students and a part-time greenhouse assistant. Even with all of that, Edell added, “I could have used another full-time person just to keep the place neat.”

At-a-Glance
What: LBCC’s Student Organic Farm is out of operation and there are no plans to re-open it.
When: After nearly 20 years serving students and the community, the farm was closed in the spring of 2020.
Where: The farm is located on the northwest corner of LBCC campus, between the northern section of the Wellness trail and the track.
Why: LBCC currently does not have enough resources to operate the farm. 

For more information: Contact Kristina Holton, Dean of Science, Engineering and Mathematics, at holtonk@linnbenton.edu.

LBCC Phlebotomy Program Welcomes New Blood

Phlebotomy Program Director, Whitney Funk prepares to draw blood from Gina Flak. (Image: Abby Erikson)

You may have heard that the nation is facing critically low supplies of donated blood, but you may not know that there is also a shortage of phlebotomists, the healthcare professionals whose job it is to draw blood for donations and medical tests.

The shortage is due in part to the challenges of training new phlebotomists during the Covid pandemic. Linn-Benton Community College has run a 15-week phlebotomy training program twice a year (fall and winter) for nearly twenty years, but between Fall 2020 and Fall 2021, the college was only able to offer the program once. This January the LBCC Phlebotomy program welcomed its first new class of students in almost a year.

According to Linda Carroll, LBCC Dean of Healthcare, the Phlebotomy program experienced difficulties early in the pandemic. Phlebotomy students finish their training with a five-week clinical practicum, essentially a supervised apprenticeship, at a hospital or clinic. However, at the start of the pandemic, hospitals and clinics were unable to host student practicums due to concerns about virus transmission and shortages in personal protective equipment (PPE) for regular staff.

Even when these initial problems eased, students were still hesitant to return to the program. Low enrollment forced the program to pause again last fall. Whitney Funk, the Director of LBCC’s Phlebotomy program and herself an LBCC Phlebotomy graduate, said that it was the first time they had experienced low enrollment in the seven years she has taught for the program.

This winter, enrollment recovered enough for LBCC to once again offer the Phlebotomy program. The program's 11 new students will take up to 40 hours a week of classes for 10 weeks. The classes include Phlebotomy (blood collection and preparation from adults, children, and infants), Medical Terminology, Anatomy and Physiology, and Medical Law and Ethics.

Students who pass their classes with a grade of 70% or better will be assigned to five-week clinical practicums in local hospitals. Students do not receive pay during this time, but if they perform well, they are likely to receive job offers once their practicums are complete. According to Carroll, full-time phlebotomists in Oregon earn a median salary of $39,823 per year with benefits. Due to the severe shortage of phlebotomists, some hospitals are also taking the unusual step of offering hiring incentives. Samaritan Health Services, for example, is currently offering applicants $1,000 sign-on bonuses at three of their hospitals.

While the pay and benefits may be tempting, being a phlebotomist is not for everyone. For one thing, phlebotomists cannot be squeamish.

“Blood, guts, gore – you just got to be prepared for it all,” said Funk.

Phlebotomists must also be able to remain calm and draw blood quickly even in stressful situations, Funk said. Students train for this by first drawing blood from each other, with the goal of eventually being able to draw blood from beginning to end in less than five minutes. According to Funk, during the first ten weeks of the program each student will draw blood between 30 and 50 times from their classmates.

Sierra Thayer, a 2018 graduate of the program and now a phlebotomist at the Corvallis Clinic, said, “The only thing I didn’t like [about the program] was that we poked each other. It’s either you get poked or you don’t get to poke at all. I didn’t like getting poked, but I had to get over that.”

In addition to drawing blood from each other, students must also perform at least 120 draws from actual patients during the practicum.

Erika Arnold graduated from the very first LBCC Phlebotomy program over 19 years ago and is now Lead Phlebotomist at the Corvallis Clinic. Arnold believes that the practicum experience is invaluable to students.

“When we hire people from the LBCC program they have been really great because…they do a work experience,” she said.

Arnold acknowledged that there are other phlebotomy programs that can be completed in much less time than LBCC’s, but they usually do not offer practicums. And, according to Arnold, without work experience, “Those people don’t get jobs."

In addition to being a career, phlebotomy can be a way to gain valuable clinical experience for entrance into other health care programs. Funk says that about half of her students eventually go on to nursing programs or medical school to become doctors.

Arnold also thinks of phlebotomy as a stepping stone.“It’s a foot in the door in the medical field. If I decide to step up or do anything different in the medical field at least I have this skill set," she said.

Both Arnold and Thayer say that they love being phlebotomists, largely because of the relationships they form with their patients.

Even after 19 years in the profession, Arnold said, “I still enjoy it! I really enjoy the patients! They are wonderful! … We're just trying to make that spark, that connection with each person, be as good as we can with them and make them feel special because giving your blood is not fun.”

Additional details about requirements for applying to LBCC’s phlebotomy program can be found on LBCC’s Special Admissions Programs website or by contacting Lorraine Lara, LBCC’s Academic Advising Assistant for Healthcare at Lorraine.Lara@linnbenton.edu.

♫ Getting to Know You, Getting to Know All About You ♫

I am an ecologist and an educator with an insatiable curiosity and a love of story telling. While I am not currently pursuing a degree in Journalism, I enrolled in the JN216 - News Reporting class because I want to expand my communication skills to include journalistic writing. Eventually I hope to explore the field of science journalism, so I want to know all of the tricks of the trade.

Outside of college and work I am training to become an extreme day hiker - if such a thing exists! I spent my formative years in muggy, mosquito-filled Florida where long overland treks were unpleasant at best and health hazardous at worst, so I only recently discovered this passion after moving to the lush and temperate Pacific Northwest. Over the past year I have hiked many trails in the Coast Range and the Cascades. This year I am looking forward to hiking around Mt. Rainier and The Enchantments as well as traversing Zion National Park.

My three main goals for the News Reporting class are to learn to think like a journalist, develop my skills as an interviewer, and hone my journalistic writing abilities. I have had a lot of training on how to pose and investigate science research questions. Now I would like to know how journalists approach questions in order to shape informative and engaging stories. I also want to become a first rate interviewer. I love to listen to radio and podcast interviews and I envy the ability of interviewers to pull the most fascinating tidbits and insights from their guests. Finally, I would like to improve my ability to write clearly, concisely. and quickly. While I recognize that I am not a bad writer, I can be verbose and slow to compose my thoughts. I hope that this course helps me to make the leap to being a productive journalistic writer.

My first news story is going to be about the Phlebotomy Program at Linn-Benton Community College. Next week I will be speaking to Linda Carroll, the LBCC Dean and Director of Healthcare, and Whitney Funk, the Phlebotomy Program Director. I am also planning to line up interviews with a current phlebotomy student and a graduate of the program. If possible, I would love to speak with employers of graduates for their perspective of the program.

Seven questions that I intend to ask about the Phlebotomy Program are:

1. What is the Phlebotomy program?
2. How long has LBCC had this program?
3. What does completing the program entail?
4. What are some recent challenges that the program has faced?
5. How do current students feel about the program?
6. How do students fare once they graduate from the program?
7. What do prospective employers think about the the phlebotomy program and its graduates?

Wish me luck on my first story! I am so looking forward to getting the facts and sharing them with you.