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Two teams and two individuals made the stage at the International DECA competition by placing

in the top 20 overall. One team finished up placing 6th overall.

Klamath Union (KU) DECA took 17 members to Orlando Florida from April 19-26 for the

International DECA competition. This team competed in 10 events with KU placing in four of the

ten events.

Juniors Brooke Nelson and Alyse Perez placed 6th overall and earned a role play medal in

Sports and Entertainment Team Decision. Senior Micah Gaede placed top 20 and earned a

role-play medal in Marketing Communications. Senior Bell Riley placed top 20 in Hotel &

Lodging Management. Junior Abby Martin and Freshman Jacob Martin placed in the Top 20

Hospitality Marketing Team Decision.

According to KU DECA Advisor, Nat Ellis, this is one of the best teams in KU DECA History.

“Placing students in four events is a challenge. Only one other school in Oregon had more

finalists than KU DECA. I believe this is a testament to the amount of preparation or team

dedicated before leaving for Orlando. All the competitors practiced role plays and studied for

exams.” said Ellis.

In addition to the four finalists, two teams had near-perfect score presentations and did not

make the finals. “This shows how challenging it is to place at the International DECA

competition. Making the Top 20 and moving into finals is a tremendous challenge. I am proud of

how KU DECA competed this year. The seniors led the team, but all members were

encouraging to others. The strength of KU DECA is the tight-knit bond between the members.

Each year I enjoy watching the team come together to support each other.”

“The best part of attending the International DECA competition is hearing your chapter called.

Once is amazing, but the fourth time is just hard to believe sometimes. The ultimate is when

you hear your team called for the Top 10” The team of Nelson and Perez made the Top 10 in

Sports & Entertainment, placing 6th overall. When they came off the stage, the entire KU DECA

team was there to congratulate them. That is how teams support each other. “This duo is really

amazing.” said Elllis of Nelson and Perez, “They work well together and have the technical

knowledge to solve the most difficult business problems. Their first role score of 99 tells the

story of what they can achieve.”

This year Jacob Martin made KU DECA history by being the first KU freshman to make the

International DECA competition stage. Jacob competed with his sister Abby in Hospitality

Marketing Team Decision. The pair worked well together as all siblings should. “This is the first

sibling team I have worked with. It was fun to watch them work together and challenge each

other. You could see the sibling rivalry every once in a while, but they were focused on creating

a great solution.” Ellis added.

Two senior individuals ended their DECA careers on the stage. Gaede and Riley placed last

year in the Top 20 and repeated this year. “Gaede and Riley are great competitors and had

amazing scores to move them into the finals. These two were such amazing assets to our

chapter. They were both willing to help other members and shared their DECA wisdom with the

team.”

Traveling is always fun, and winning is better, but along the way, KU DECA made lifetime

memories and built friendships. Over the course of a few days, this team built an unbreakable

bond. That bond is something that makes KU DECA different from other DECA chapters.

The other members competed well and earned significant scores, but the competition is fierce.

The rest of the KU DECA team included:

● Abby Cook & Cassidy Bogatay - Project Management Selling Project

● Grace Keyser & Connor Carlson - School-Based Enterprise

● Kate Rodriguez - Quick Serve Restaurant Management

● Addi Brown & Heather Ritter - Travel & Tourism Team Decision

● Ameesha Hazarika & Emma Tolstikhine - Buying & Merchandising Team Decision

● Lina Stanfield - Apparel & Accessories Marketing

● Hali Ganong - Thrive Leadership Academy

KU DECA would like to thank our many sponsors for making this trip possible.

● Cascade Comprehensive Care

● Bogatay Construction

● Howard’s Meat Center

● Tucker Gailis Dental

● PourHourse Cantina

● ZCS Engineering

● BDI Industrial Supply

By JOAQUIN AGUILAR-FLORES

KFCS Media Relations Specialist

Anyone who has ever asked for a donation knows the feeling. It is uncomfortable, awkward and perhaps a little embarrassing.

Members of the Klamath Union High School Key Club did not shy away from their opportunity to impact and make a difference to a special organization in the community.

The consensus was to begin a donation to go toward Assistance League of Klamath Basin. Through much brainstorming, the idea to start a coin drive arrived.

Several Key Club members took one of the many coin jars the club had to ask families for donations. Club members worked rigorously during lunches and free time to seek donations.

At Klamath Union, coin jars were also located in the attendance office and Pel Shack.

Likely no one worked harder and got out of their comfort zone more than KU senior, Maria Osuna Gonzales.

The final day of the coin drive, during lunch time, Osuna Gonzales asked Klamath Falls City Schools Superintendent Keith A. Brown, who came to KU to have lunch, to donate. She persuaded Superintendent Brown to give.

Osuna Gonzales said the Key Club earned likely the most money during Incoming Freshman Night. She did not shy away from asking parents and staff if they could give, which included her going throughout KU as families went on a school tour.

The Key Club raised $426.85 in its coin drive and raised $1125.00 by challenging KUHS departments and clubs to sponsor a student for $125. The grand total of the fundraiser came to $1551.85.

“I am not used to talking to people or to strangers, so that was the challenging part,” Osuna Gonzales said. “I did not go to many kids but went to teachers instead. It was great to get out of my shell.”

Returning to Klamath Union
Two members of Assistance League of Klamath Basin came to Klamath Union to receive their check. Cathie Davis and Sally Palcovich represented Assistance League and met Key Club Advisor Lisa Danskin and her club.

It was the chance for Davis to return to the high school she worked at for 32 years as a secretary. Davis retired at KFCS six years ago before she came back to work during KU’s remodeling.

“I helped set up the new offices here. I miss KU,” Davis said. “Scott Olsen (Roosevelt Elementary School Principal) used to work here as a science teacher. His daughter came to the office a lot and she was so little. She helped me here in the office during conferences. We are excited students, as well as the adults, have such big hearts to give.”

The Key Club donation will clothe over 12 children with coats, shoes, socks, among other attire.

“Assistance League teaches philanthropy. Families benefited from Operation School Bell. They say, look at where I am now. ‘You told me I mattered and gave me the clothes to make me feel good about myself so I could project into the community.’ It has turned into a round robin of giving,” Palcovich said.

It was the first time Key Club has donated to Assistance League, which originally began due to a heartfelt story.

Assistance League was started after hearing two brothers shared the same clothing. As a custom, one brother wore an outfit they had, while the other brother stayed home because he did not have school clothes to wear.

Now, Assistance League has been spread throughout the country.

Key Club was also part of a large Christmas donation but the coin drive was the donation the club spent the most time on this year.

“We have not faced something as bad as the students who have a shortage of clothes. I feel I am obviously privileged but I want to be able to help other people … to not feel that bad they do not have the same circumstances, situations. I came from a different country, across the world. I want them to feel they are wanted,” KU Key Club President, Ameesha Hazarika, said.

Key Club and Assistance League have a lot in common as Kiwanis Club of Klamath Falls supports Assistance league just like it does with Key Club.

In all, just in Klamath County, 125 children are clothed through Assistance League each year, with $1,600 going toward each person. Fred Meyer also helps the organization by providing discounts.

Palcovich and Davis also asked Key Club members to find any seniors who may need an additional $100 to go toward graduation clothes or even clothes for a job interview. More information can be found through Klamath Union counselors.

The Oregon School Boards Association recently distributed Brady Fund Grants to needy students. This year, grants were used for the purchase of: clothing or school supplies or to help pay for vision or hearing services.

Klamath Falls City Schools Superintendent's Executive Assistant & School Board Secretary, Tara Bosse, applied for the grant, which went to two Mills Elementary School students.

Mills' siblings Karlee Forsman, a fourth grader, and Jeffery Forsman, in second grade, earned the grant. Acompanied by their parents and Bosse, the two siblings earned $55 each to spend at Walmart.

Klamath Union High School represented the school district at Bike to Work Day Friday, May 19. Countless businesses and originations in Klamath Falls sponsored the event from the early morning at several locations in Klamath Falls. Participants earned the chance to win many prizes.

Tony Swan, Sandy Yazzie and Evan Gallagher represented Klamath Union.

Local FoodCorps representative Alex Martinez works with students at Klamath Falls City Schools and educates healthy eating and habits.

Martinez was accompanied by FoodCorps Impact and Partnership Lead Oregon, Aaron Poplack, who came from the Willamette Valley to watch an exciting day of bread making.

Conger instructor, Kelly Nelson, and her class were able to experience what it is like to make bread from scratch. More than half of the bread made was donated to the Klamath County Food Bank.

Everyone knows that tobacco is trouble. It's the hardest thing in the world to stop. This article is not about that. It is not about making you feel bad for using tobacco, or berating you, or being yet another nagging voice to ask you to quit. No judgement here, other than at “big tobacco” for trying very hard to get as many people hooked as they can. I do not need to convince you that tobacco is worth quitting, and if you want help quitting then I, and/or your primary care doctor, know a lot of ways to help you do so. Just ask.

This article, however, is about helping people avoid starting smoking. I see a lot of patients who, amid their 6th attempt at quitting, say something like “I wish I never would have started.” While starting, doing, and continuing anything, including smoking, are all individual choices and I cannot and should not make them for anyone else, we can certainly try, as a community, to make some things easy to avoid. We should make quitting smoking as easy as possible, and we should make avoiding smoking similarly easy, especially for kids.

There are a few ways to do this without compromising freedom of choice. On March 9th and 23rd at 1 pm at the government center (305 Main Street Klamath Falls, OR 97601 Room 214) Klamath county Government will hear testimony concerning one way we could do this in Klamath County. There are a few ways that “big tobacco” targets youth. Tobacco companies use bright colors; fruit, candy, and dessert flavors; as well as advertising campaigns design to attract kids (think about it – who was Joe Camel designed for?). In 2009 the FDA banned flavored cigarettes, which resulted in a 43% decrease in youth smoking and a 27% decrease in young adult smoking. This is just to say that policy changes can work. There are other things that “we the people” can do to help people avoid smoking, from warning labels and photos on packages to making movies with smoking in them rated R. These, however, are interventions that require federal changes, and are not what is on the docket here in Klamath. In Klamath county we are going to be talking about something much more straightforward – how close cigarette retailers can be to schools and daycares. When a store wants to sell cigarettes (or vapes) they apply for a tobacco retail license.

The county sets the rules for those applications, and can set rules for where they can be, how close to each other they can be, and what they can be close to. It seems obvious when said out loud, but the more exposure you have to a place where you can buy tobacco, and the higher the density of retailers, the more likely you are to start smoking. This means, of course, that the less exposure you have, the less likely you are to start. When talking about helping youth avoid smoking, one of the best ways to do so is to decrease the density of tobacco retailers around schools, daycares, and the overall density in town.

This then is the policy we are talking about on March 9th and 23rd. Klamath county is proposing new location rules on new tobacco retail licenses. I highlight the word new here – this will not affect existing locations. This will only affect new applications. The idea is that for new license applications they must be at least ¼ mile away from schools and childcare locations and 1000 feet from each other. Klamath county already has 92 tobacco retailers. Keeping new ones a little bit further away from schools seems like an easy answer. If you feel similarly, feel free to show up at the government center on March 23rd at 1pm (your testimony can be 90 seconds long), or submit written testimony by emailing bocc@klamathcounty.org. If you do, include the subject line “written testimony for March 23rd hearing re: TRL ORD 90.02,” and please cc Jennifer Little (jlittle@klamathcounty.org) and Miranda Hill (mhill@klamathcounty.org ).

Thanks for reading! If interested in hearing more about the Sky Lakes Wellness Center, please call us at 541.274.2770 or visit our website at https://www.skylakes.org/services/wellness-center/

Information provided by

Stewart Decker, MD, MPH, FAAFP, FWMS

Jeanette Rutherford, MA, LPC

Jennifer Newton, RD, LD, CDCES, MPH

The new district website has an Alumni page for graduates of KU. This past week, six KU alumni sent us updates on their lives since they graduated. Take a look on the KU Alumni page on the district website. And, if you are an alumni, be sure and send us YOUR update!

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Carol Usher, Zone 1, Roosevelt - carol.usher@kfcityschools.org

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Vanessa Bennett, Zone 3, Conger - vanessa.bennett@kfcityschools.org

Kathy Hewitt, Zone 4, Mills - kathy.hewitt@kfcityschools.org

Trina Perez, Zone 5, Pelican - trina.perez@kfcityschools.org

Patrick Fenner, Zone 6, At-Large - patrick.fenner@kfcityschools.org

Ashley Wendt-Lusich, Zone 7 At-Large - ashley.wendt-lusich@kfcityschools.org