February 11, 2009

Walker DePriest dinner aids alumnus

By KATHY GRAY
of The Chronicle

     This year’s Jerry Walker DePriest Foundation spaghetti dinner will help a Dufur alumnus with more than just college tuition.
     The dinner, which will be held Friday in conjunction with Dufur’s home basketball games against South Wasco County, will help 2004 graduate Jake French, who broke his neck in a Dec. 6 incident. French, who is paralyzed from the shoulders down, has returned to Dufur to recover from his injury.
     “Jake is a great kid, who participated in basketball in the winter,” said Dufur Superintendent Jack Henderson. “He’s just a happy-go-lucky kid and big time into the outdoors. He loved to go hunting and fishing.”
     French graduated with honors from the University of Idaho in 2008. He had just started a job in the Tillamook area with the Oregon Department of Forestry.
     French has spent the past two months at Harborview Hospital in Seattle, where he participated in their spinal cord injury recovery program. Now he’s doing rehabilitation work at the Center for Mind Body Medicine in The Dalles.
     Despite his injuries, French remains optimistic about his future, says his mother, Margaret French.
     “From day one he’s been that way,” she said. “He woke from the surgery saying ‘Chill, Mom and Dad, we have to get on with life and face life.’”
     French has some prospects for improvement, his mother said. One young man in the community with a similar injury now has full use of his hands two years after the injury. Another alternative would be to “learn to live with what he has,” she said.
     “If anything, Jake’s spirit and positive attitude are really going to inspire him to go far,” she added. “He wants to be independent and to work.”
     French’s mother said Dufur’s “bigger, faster, stronger” athletic conditioning program has given him a better start at dealing with his injuries.
     “It’s really helping now,” she said. “A lot of people who are quads have to develop their upper body muscles and chest. He already has that, thanks to Mr. Darden (Hollie Darden, basketball coach).”
     This isn’t the first time the Walker DePriest dinner has benefitted an injury victim. Dufur resident Dusty Arzino, who broke his neck in a rodeo injury, also benefitted from an earlier dinner.
     Friday’s dinner runs from 3 to 8 p.m. Admission is $6 for adults, $5 for children 6 to 12 years of age, and free for those 6 and younger. A family ticket is also available for $20.
     Admission buys spaghetti, salad, bread and punch.