Old St. Francis at 75 • C1
State titles for 3 teams • D1
MAY 27, 2012
SUNDAY $1.50
Serving Central Oregon since 1903 www.bendbulletin.com
BEND’S LUXURY HOME SLUMP Birthplace of Memorial Day: Many cities claim it
Also on G1: The area’s slow (but sustainable?) recovery
“They’re willing to let me die over policy.”
Is a cure delayed a cure denied?
By Campbell Robertson New York Times News Service
COLUMBUS, Ga. — Right on either side of Alabama, there are two places with the same name. Like the one over in Mississippi, this Columbus was founded in the 1820s and sits just a few minutes from countryside in almost any way you drive. Residents say it was here, in the years after the Civil War, that Memorial Day was born. Residents of the other Columbus say that, too. It does not take much for the historically curious in either town — like Richard Gardiner, a professor of teacher education at Columbus State University here — to explain why theirs is the true originator of a revered American holiday and why the other is well-meaning but simply misguided. The custom of strewing flowers on the graves of fallen soldiers has innumerable founders, going back perhaps beyond the horizon of recorded history, perhaps as far as war itself. But there is the ancient practice and there is Memorial Day, the specific holiday, arising from an order for the annual decoration of graves that was delivered in 1868 by Maj. Gen. John A. Logan, the commander in chief of the Grand Army of the Republic, a group made up of Union veterans of the Civil War. According to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, roughly two dozen places claim to be the primary source of the holiday, an assertion found on plaques, on websites and in the dogged avowals of historians across the country. See Memorial Day / A6
• Insurance limits — and a missed diagnosis — mean Prineville cancer patient Kurt Kendrick must wait for a transplant to save his life. If he can survive until 2013.
Rob Kerr / The Bulletin
Kurt Kendrick, 43, undergoes chemotherapy treatment at the Bend Memorial Clinic in Redmond on May 17, the day before he was supposed to hear about receiving a stem cell transplant — a step to curing his lymphoma.
By Markian Hawryluk • The Bulletin or Kurt Kendrick, another nine months
F
willing to let me die,” said Kendrick, 43, “over policy.” Doctors who perform stem cell transplants say the high costs of the procedure — also called a bone marrow transplant — are prompting insurance plans, both public and private, to limit coverage for the procedure. And in many cases, individuals are holding policies they think will cover their medical needs, only to find the plans don’t deliver when they need them most. “Insurance is key to a patient’s access to transplant,” said Michael Boo, the chief strategy officer for the National Marrow Donor Program. “In our world of insurance coverage, there’s far too much variability for families to understand whether they’re covered or not until the time is upon them. And that is very unfortunate.”
represents a lifetime. If he can survive that long, his
insurance company will probably pay for the But because of a missed diagnosis four years ago, the downturn in the economy and the vagaries of the health insurance business, he’s
Initial diagnosis
playing a waiting game with life-and-death implications. Kendrick was diagnosed in July 2011 with non-Hodgkins lymphoma. A stem cell transplant is his best chance at a cure, but his insurance policy won’t cover the procedure until he has been enrolled in the plan for two years. “They’re
The Associated Press
Flags mark the graves at a site in Vicksburg, Miss., where tens of thousands of Union troops are buried.
Bulletin wire reports Active volcanoes often send out signals advertising they are awake: small quakes and venting gasses usually aren’t good news. But often, the messages aren’t clear. Now, researchers have another tool to help predict when a volcano may blow. A new study shows that
SUNDAY
By Dylan J. Darling The Bulletin
A pair of mustangs at the High Desert Museum this summer will provide living lessons about modern wild horse issues while playing the role of horses rounded up in 1904. One of the horses, a pinto less than a year old, will be put up for adoption by the Bureau of Land Management at the end of the summer, said Dana Whitelaw, vice president of programs at the museum. The event is planned to be held at the museum. The other horse, an 8-year-old silver dapple named Rocky, will return at the end of the summer to the Wild Horse Mountain Ranch in Sherwood, where he serves as a therapy horse. (The young horse doesn’t have a name.) “We are really pleased to have them here to tell the mustang story at the museum,” Whitelaw said. The museum has had wild horses and adoptions on its property before, she said, but the horses are the first since 2008. See Horses / A6
chemical patterns in volcanic crystals match up with patterns in volcanic earthquake and gas recordings, giving scientists a chance to save thousands of lives before it’s too late. Tiny volcanic crystals, often just 50 to 100 micrometers across, float suspended in magma, the ultrahot mix of molten rock and dissolved
The Bulletin An Independent Newspaper
Vol. 109, No. 148, 52 pages, 7 sections
gases that can rise beneath volcanoes. Once a minor eruption preceding the main event spews crystal-bearing magma (much like tree rings) above ground, it all solidifies and locks in the record of the volcano’s past. Geologists can then collect the debris and interpret it. See the full story on Page B4.
AP file photo / USGS
In 1980, Mount St. Helens warned for months it would erupt. Scientists want to know sooner.
TODAY’S WEATHER
INDEX Business Books Classified
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Community C1-8 Crosswords C7, E2 Local News B1-8
Milestones Obituaries Opinion
C6 B6 F1-3
Sports D1-8 Stocks G4-5 TV & Movies C2
• Wild horse adoption: To find out more about the Bureau of Land Management’s wild horse and burro adoption program, go to www.blm.gov/wo/st/en/ prog/whbprogram.html.
• Video: To watch the mustangs at the High Desert Museum, go to www.bend bulletin.com/wildhorses.
Gas prices falling? Not on this coast By Kirk Johnson
Kendrick’s curious case started last summer while working on the house he and his wife, Donna, built in the hills above Prineville. He would feel bloated after eating, and his stomach began to look swollen. His friends at church joked that Kendrick — also stepfather of Donna’s 16-year-old son — had been living the good life and it was starting to show. See Kendrick / A4
Will a volcano blow? Answer is crystal clear
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A chance to learn about, even adopt, a wild horse
On the Web
stem cell transplant that could cure his cancer.
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The Bulletin
Partly cloudy High 67, Low 38 Page B8
New York Times News Service
TACOMA, Wash. — A lot has come down the pike since the summer of 2008, which for many Americans may already feel like the closed chapter of an old book. But on the West Coast there is an unhappy echo: gasoline prices. One thin dime separates the current average price of a gallon of regular from Tacoma’s historic high of $4.37 that was set in June 2008. While most Americans have caught a break over the past year, with the average price for regular falling 15 cents over this point in 2011, in western Washington it was up 32 cents. You can probably blame the Cascade Range. See Gas / A3
TOP NEWS SYRIA: Children among 90 dead, A3 USPS: Buyouts for mail handlers, A3