KWSO News for Mon., Feb. 3, 2025

A new vending machine was recently placed at the Three Warriors Market in Simnasho. The machine is stocked with items intended to promote health, safety, and harm reduction, according to Jaycelene Brisbois, Opioid Prevention Coordinator in Warm Springs.

Items in the vending machines include: Narcan (nasal naloxone) and Zimhi (injectable naloxone), which are both used to reverse the effects of an opioid overdose. There are also feminine hygiene products, sexual health products, soap, toothbrushes, Band-aids/Neosporin, and pregnancy tests. The supplies are funded through the Tribal Opioid Response Grant and the Save Lives Oregon grant.

This is the first machine of its kind to be placed in the community and the Simnasho location was selected as the initial site as residents there could find it a challenge to get to the places where these products are more easily accessible. Supplies will be monitored and filled weekly. More machines are planned in other community locations in the future.

This past Friday night in the Buffalo Dome, Madras boys varsity basketball saw a 27-15 halftime lead dissolve into a dog fight for the top spot in the Tri-Valley League.  Crook County came surging back in the third period to take a one-point advantage into the final period. In the fourth quarter, scoring by both teams went back and forth and the White Buffs took back the lead twice, but Crook County held off Madras in the game’s final 1:30 and won 47-46. The win put Crook County on top of the Tri-Valley League and they moved up a spot in the OSAA Class 4A state rankings to #3. Madras remained in the #6 spot for 4A. The Buffs travel to Estacada tonight for a game against the Rangers.

In varsity girls’ basketball on Friday, the Madras girls lost to Crook County 43-61. Tonight, they host Estacada. The JV game has been cancelled. The varsity game tips off at 7.

A Point-in-Time (PIT) Count, done every year at the end of January in communities across the county, is an unduplicated count on a single day or night of the people in a community who are experiencing homelessness. That includes both sheltered and unsheltered populations. A PIT Count was done January 28^th in Warm Springs. The event also included meals, information and resources available in the community. One of the resources is a homeless shelter behind the Behavioral Health Center. Edmund Francis has run the homeless shelter for the past two years and was there to make sure people knew about the services they can provide.

“It just depends on the situation, sometimes people come later in the day. If they decide to come later in the day, we can take them in as emergencies, if room is available. If they come in as an emergency, we try and get them to go to the Family Resource Center the following day to do an intake with Jackie Minson. The services that are provided at the shelter are the bathrooms, the showers, and the dining hall where in the cold temperatures we also allow the residents and walk-ins to stay there as well because it’s heated. We have a total of ten 2-person units and three singles.”

The Warm Springs PIT Count yielded 67 completed surveys.

During the event, KWSO took the opportunity to do 61 surveys about how folks in Warm Springs get their news and information.   Initial takeaways for us were: that people still look forward to hearing radio announcements, not everyone is on social media, and that people are interested in national news in addition to local and Native news.

KWSO staff members attended Tribal Council nomination meetings in all three Warm Springs Districts and presented each nominee with a letter inviting them to come in to record a short interview about themselves and their views on the most pressing issues facing the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs.

As of Sunday (02/02/2025) only 3 candidates of the 25 nominated had come in.  Absentee Ballots are scheduled to be mailed out in 2 weeks and so KWSO would love to complete interviews around that time to help better inform Tribal Member voters.

All Tribal Council Candidates are asked to please contact KWSO to set up an interview for Tribal Council Candidate Programming at 541-553-1968 or email kwsonews@wstribes.org.