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WEDNESDAY September 25, 2019
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First-ever eye clinic applauded By David Hayes Staff Writer
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hree regional Indian tribes, two nonprofit groups and the Del Norte Unified School District recently pooled their resources to provide a first-ever week of free eye exams for limited-income children and adults. The national Native American organization Walking Shield partnered with the international OneSight Program to provide all aspects of a visit to an optometrist’s office at Elk Valley Rancheria’s Sam Lopez Community Center, located just outside the Crescent City limits on Elk Valley Road. “Both nonprofit groups have the same mission of improving the quality of life,” said John Castillo, Walking Shield’s executive director. “Everyone should get an eye exam every year. But 49% of American Indian reservations are underfunded, with some 71% of young people and 98% to 99%
of adults needing glasses,” said Castillo. Bessie Shorty, the Native Connections program manager for the Yurok Tribe, said she was excited to partner for the first time with OneSight, especially given that tribal children attending Margaret Keating Elementary School were participating. Shorty said she had reached out to school district Superintendent Jeff Harris, who was happy to provide the students with transportation to attend the clinic. The school district’s director of curriculum and instruction, Leslee Machado, said it took considerable coordination among the tribes and the district to pull off the event. “We were accepting registration forms from parents, passing them on to the Yurok Tribe, who was inputting them for OneSight, scanning them, then getting them back to us. We were getting them back in bunches, sometimes a More Eye Exam on Page A3
Crews keep water on in Fort Dick C
Students from the Del Norte Unified School District have their eyes examined during a free OneSight Eye Clinic at the Elk Valley Rancheria Sam Lopez Community Center. Photo by David Hayes.
Staff Report
rescent City Public Works crews worked around the clock over the weekend to keep a water pump system manually running in the Fort Dick area. City officials said a cell tower had failed, cutting off communications with the automatic computer back in Crescent City. City Manager Eric Wier said the telemetry cell tower failure occurred in the early morning hours Saturday, which raised a number of significant issues. “Probably about eight More Water on Page A2
Western medicine now has alternatives in Crescent City By David Hayes Staff Writer
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Janet Gilbert smiles in front of the Tansy Games booth at the Del Norte County Fair a month ago. Courtesy photo.
Del Norte’s newest sport: picking tansy ragwort T
he first year of the Tansy Games came to an official close Sept. 17, with Craig Strong of Hiouchi taking the $500 first prize for gathering 1,540 pounds of the invasive plant. Community volunteer Janet Gilbert coordinated the contest in conjunction with the Del Norte Solid Waste Management Authority. Sixteen teams entered the games and disposed of some 10,000 pounds of tansy ragwort, a noxious weed that’s a threat to livestock and agriculture. The weed was brought to the Pacific Northwest from Europe in the 19th Century,
said Gilbert. The contest began June 22 and ran until Aug. 22 because of a late bloom. The award ceremony was held during the Solid Waste Management Authority’s board meeting on the 17th, giving volunteers plenty of time to determine the winner. The bags of eradicated tansy were taken to the Del Norte County Transfer Station, which underwrote the disposal costs. Gilbert said she’s planning another Tansy Games for next year.
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isa Kramer was no stranger to the benefits of acupuncture when she moved to Gasquet from Colorado 32 years ago. Having researched the subject, Kramer had received treatments for stress, neck and shoulder pain, and for her knee surgery. But Kramer hadn’t been able to visit a Chinese medicinal practitioner locally until Shelly Sovola set up Five Rivers Healing Arts in Smith River, then Crescent City in 1992, at 1303 Northcrest Dr. Sovola later combined her practice with her son, Joshua Francis, a licensed massage therapist. Kramer took notice. “I get my body massaged from Josh to make sure I’m okay,” said Kramer, “and I usually go to Shelly for tune-ups, as I call them, even though there might not be anything going on. “They’ve helped me so many ways — my stress level, sleeping. At my age, 69, sleeping is a big deal. “Sometimes, I schedule their services back to back. Which is really cool. I come out of there feeling like a noodle.” Sovola acknowledged that her practice differs markedly from western medicine. “MDs are more about treating symptoms,” she said. “Very few know about nutrition, and if they do nutritional counseling,
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they can actually come under attack. “They hear about our herbs and say, ‘Oh, yeah, you’re just a needle-sticker.’ This medicine we’re in is over 5,000 years old. It’s one of the original holistic medicines.” Sovola began her health studies in college as a psychology major. She said she always had been interested in health, yoga and nutrition. But she shifted from traditional western medicine when, “I was introduced to polarity therapy. It changed my life, because it hinged on Chinese medicine. “I went through adjusting techniques of the meridians, the energy flows of the body, and I felt it released a lot of emotional baggage. “Here I was, studying psychology, and I find a system that is of a bodyand-mind connection to a healing system. That started me on a whole new road. It became my passion to pursue.”
Donnetta Summers, a Crescent City resident for more than 50 years and a retired teacher now in her 70s, has been receiving treatments from Sovola for more than two decades. Summers had been struggling with a back injury and was considering treatment beyond the prescribed physical therapy – not to mention, working to avoid progressing to surgery. “A friend recommended acupuncture,” said Summers, “but I’d heard stories of needles and thought it would be scary. “But you don’t even feel it. (Sovola) usually does the area that needs working, such as the neck and shoulders. The needles go in and you lay there for 20 minutes or so. Then, massages in those areas afterwards.” Summers said she’s also impressed with Sovola’s knowledge of Chinese herbs as alternative meMore Medicine on Page A2
Joshua Francis, a licensed massage practitioner, explains how his techniques work in conjunction with acupuncture pressure points. Photo by David Hayes.
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