NEWS | Level 2 Sex Offender moves to Orcas [3] COMMENTARY | Library looks at emerging needs [5]
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WEDNESDAY, March 20, 2013 VOL. 46, NO. 13 75¢
Orcas Island nurse provides aid across the globe Cali Bagby/Staff photo
Left: Cathy Ellis has spent more than 20 years as an aid worker. her home turf at the animal shelter, the senior center and the new hospital in Friday Harbor. She left nursing in 2009 and retired from aid work in 2010 after deciding to “leave that job to another generation.”
The early years
by CALI BAGBY Staff reporter
Cathy Ellis has seen the many faces of altruism from hope to tragedy to hard truths about humanity. After serving as an aid worker across the globe for nearly 20 years, she has wrestled with such
complexities and come to a conclusion that despite the hardships, “I know that I always receive more than I give.” The retired nurse has worked in El Salvador, Honduras, the Balkans, Liberia, Uganda, Sri Lanka, Haiti, Iraq and Afghanistan. Since moving to Orcas three years ago, Ellis has volunteered on
In between her time overseas she spent 34 years as an emergency room nurse in Eugene, Ore. It was there that Ellis found the fire that would propel her towards a life of service. As a student at the University of Oregon, she was surrounded by political activism and social justice. Sitting in her political science classes, she learned of atrocities around the world, horrors she couldn’t shake. After graduating from nursing school, Ellis applied for the Peace Corps and did not hesitate to write that her reason for applying – to change the world. She recalls the Peace Corps staff responding to her by saying, “grow up and have
some life experience before traveling to these rough places.” So she worked as an emergency room nurse and by the mid-80s she was ready to get her hands dirty. She spent six months in El Salvador in a refugee camp, working for a Catholic organization out of San Antonio, Texas. She and four other Americans were there as volunteers, but also carried on their shoulders a heavier burden – their very presence, as Americans, helped to ensure that the military treated the refugees humanely. “Our goal was to protect and empower,” Ellis said. Her other job was to instruct local health care providers how to be better care givers. She lived in a simple hut, washed her clothes in the river and hauled water. “It was an awakening to the daily grind, to the reality of these stories I had heard,” she said. “There was real pain and unfair suffering because of misguided international policies.” The time she spent there also opened her eyes to other aid workers and their sacrifices. Ellis was amazed to see PeaceHealth nuns from the north-
County council candidate conversations Part one of three-part series by SOUNDER STAFF
With less than six weeks until San Juan County elects a new three-member county council, all six remaining candidates are hitting the campaign trail. The revamped council, and the April 23 elections, are the result of revisions to the county charter proposed in 2012 by the Charter Revision Commission and approved by the voters in November, 2012. The revisions returned the council to three members elected countywide from “residency districts” comprising San Juan, Orcas and Lopez and their respective nearby smaller islands. Nominated in a February, 2013, primary were Lovel Pratt and Bob Jarman from San Juan for District 1, Lisa Byers and Rich Hughes from Orcas Island for District 2, and Jamie Stephens and Brian McClerren from Lopez Island for District 3. Hughes, Stephens and
Jarman are current incumbents on the present six-member council; Pratt is a former councilwoman who was defeated by Jarman in a 2012 council race; Byers is the director of OPAL Community Land Trust on Orcas; and McClerren is a Lopez resident making his first run for elective office. Leading up to the election, the Sounder will be running a series of Q&A segments with candidates from each district.
Brian McClerren Sounder: What do you bring to the table that is different from the other candidates and why did you decide to run? BM: I’m in a different world than the other candidates and that gives me a unique perspective on government. I’m trying to become a homeowner. I’m starting my business while hanging on to a full-time job. I’m raising kids and about to have a new baby. My political ideas aren’t being fed to me by an organized party machine. They come from my own experiences and result from an enor-
mous amount of time studying, listening and making observations. It has taken a hefty dose of courage and determination to put myself into this race. It is a reflection of my deep love for the San Juan Islands that I am deliberately seeking the most demanding, stressful and criticized job available. I am convinced, as are my supporters, that I can be that change that I seek. Sounder: How do you plan to balance the county budget? Do you support renewal of Prop. 1, the voter-approved property tax increase that expires at the end of 2015? BM: I am bothered that the assumption appears to be larger government and increased taxes. A special part of our identity in this place is that we value our independence. I can tell you unequivocally that nothing sacrifices independence like being in debt. This relates to bond debt as well as grant-funded activities. Last year our council signed a debt obligation that demands repayment through taxa-
SEE ELECTION, PAGE 7
west in El Salvador. Some would spend up to 30 years in the country helping people ravaged from the “never-ending” civil war.
Middle East & beyond In 1991, Ellis was given her first assignment with Northwest Medical Teams International. The destination? Northern Iraq in 1991 after the Gulf War. It was there that she had a first-hand look at the Iraq culture. “There are so many good people in the Middle East,” she said. “There are so many people that are not radicals, the radicals are a minority.” Her patients mainly consisted of children and the elderly. Watching them interact together made her realize how much common ground could be shared between the west and the east – cultures that seemed so different. “Seeing families care about each other – it was heart warming and familiar,” she said. Although Northwest Medical Teams International is a Christian organization, Ellis said that their priorities were health care, nutrition and civil responsibility, not pushing their religion.
SEE ELLIS, PAGE 10
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