Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012, March 28, 2005, Page 9, Image 9

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    | National update |
IN BRIEF
Alternative fuel retailer
starts business in Eugene
Look for a new soybean- and corn
powered fill-up station in the Eugene
Springfield area in fall.
SeQuential Biofuels, a fuel mar
keter and distributor in Eugene and
Portland, plans to open an alterna
tive-fuel service station in September
or October in Eugene.
Biofuels — typically made from
grain or bean oils — can be found
alongside some gasoline pumps
around the nation, but the proposed
SeQuential station is a pioneering ef
fort because all the fuels it would offer
would be earth-friendly to some de
gree, managing partner Ian Hill said.
SeQuential’s project represents a
three-way partnership with Lane
County and the state Department of
Environmental Quality.
Hill said SeQuential expects to
spend about $1 million to start up
the station.
The station would hire up to eight
employees, boost property tax rev
enue and be an option for motorists
who want alternatives to gasoline,
said Jeff TUrk, a Lane County proper
ty management officer.
The station would offer two kinds
of fuel. One, for diesel engines,
would be a blend of diesel and
biodiesel, he said. The biodiesel
would be made from soybeans and
vegetable oil waste from restaurants
and the food industry. The other type
of fuel, for gasoline engines, would
be blends of gasoline and ethanol,
which is distilled from grains such as
corn, Hill said.
Consumers would be able to
choose from varying blends with
varying percentages of biodiesel or
ethanol. They also could buy pure
biodiesel, which runs 50 cents to $1
more per gallon than petroleum
diesel, Hill said.
Biofuels burn more cleanly than
petroleum, can help the United States
shift from the use of foreign oil, and
can increase the use of sustainable
domestic crops, Hill said.
“We see the flowering of the sus
tainable business movement with or
ganic foods at grocery stores, we see
the blooming of recycled products
from paper and plastic,” Hill said.
“But we see a real lack of that hap
pening at the retail fuel level. We’d
like to let the market make the deci
sion on whether it’s a viable business
or not.”
— The Associated Press
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Red Lake teacher gave hope to others
Neva Rogers, one often killed in the school shooting
last Monday, was remembered in a wake on Sunday
BY AMY FORLIT1
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
BEMIDJI, Minn. — English
teacher Neva Rogers had finally
found a place where she felt need
ed, where she could give opportu
nities to poverty-stricken children
who struggled with teen pregnan
cy, drugs and alcohol.
That place was Red Lake High
School, where she died in a school
shooting last week. While students
crouched under their desks in a
corner, Rogers stood out in the
open and began to pray.
“God be with us. God help us,”
15-year-old Ashley Lajeunesse
heard Rogers say after she told stu
dents to hide as gunman Jeff Weise
fired through a window and
marched into the room.
“He walked up to that teacher
with the shotgun, and he pulled
the trigger, but it didn’t fire,” said
Chongai’la Morris, 14. “Then he
pulled out his pistol, and he shot
her three times in the side and
once in the face.”
Rogers, 62, was the only teacher
killed by Weise, a depressed
teenager who last week shot his
grandfather and his grandfather’s
girlfriend, then went to the high
school and shot Rogers, a security
guard and five students before
turning the gun on himself.
Friends and family of the slain
teacher gathered Sunday for a wake.
A funeral was scheduled for Monday.
Rogers’ adult children were not
surprised by their mother’s actions.
“There wasn’t anything she
wouldn’t do for her students,” said
her son, Vern Kembitskey, 34, re
calling that she gave scarves and
gloves to needy children and
helped help raise money for kids
who wanted to take field trips to
Washington, D.C.
“I think she was good at what she
did,” Kembitskey said. “I think she
actually wanted those kids to learn.”
Rogers felt she was needed at
Red Lake, a place where truancy is
common and teens face poverty,
pregnancy and violence.
She had a soft spot for teens who
had lost their parents or became
parents at a young age, said her
daughters, Cindy Anderson and
Kim Kvam. But she also expected a
lot from her students and would
stay late to help them.
“One of the things she admired
most were people who came from
absolutely nothing and made
something of themselves,” Kem
bitskey said.
In a state survey conducted last
year of 56 Red Lake ninth-graders,
nearly half the girls said they had
attempted to kill themselves.
Twenty percent of boys said the
same — numbers about triple the
rate statewide.
“She said you have to just give
them hope and keep encouraging
and try to get them to keep coming
(to school),” said her half-sister,
Doris Berndt. Rogers, she said,
believed that “by getting an
education they are going to have a
better life.”
Rogers began teaching at Red
Lake after attending Bemidji State
University. She left teaching in the
early 1980s to work in the insur
ance industry but returned to Red
Lake about six years ago.
The blond woman stood out
among the American Indians, but
she felt at home on the reservation.
Her children said she considered
her students to be like family.
“I think one of the things that
she liked the best about it was
there’s such a sense of communi
ty,” said Anderson. “My mom was
the type of person that likes to
know (about) other people’s lives.”
Berndt said that Rogers never
worried about school safety.
“She just had a desire to do
something, go somewhere where
she could really make a big differ
ence in a child’s life,” Berndt said.
Get
Ready for
Summer
Plan Your
Classes
Now!
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Check Our
Website.
The UO Summer Session
Catalog is available on campus.
It’s free.
Summer session starts June 20
Group-satisfying and elective
courses, seminars, and
workshops begin throughout
the summer.
The 2005 UO Summer
Session Catalog
is here!
Read it online, or pick up
a free copy today in the
Summer Session office,
333 Oregon Hall,
or at the UO Bookstore
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Telephone (541) 346-3475
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