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About Appeal tribune. (Silverton, Or.) 1999-current | View Entire Issue (May 1, 2019)
WEDNESDAY, MAY 1, 2019 ܂ SILVERTONAPPEAL.COM PART OF THE USA TODAY NETWORK Developers eye wetlands for housing projects Tracy Loew Salem Statesman Journal USA TODAY NETWORK Dr. Olwyn Davies has been a practicing physician and surgeon for more than 60 years. He turns 90-years-old on May 1 and has no plans for retirement. Photographed at his general practice office in Silverton on April 25, 2019. ANNA REED / STATESMAN JOURNAL PHYSICIAN HITS 62 YEARS IN PRACTICE No stopping Dr. Olwyn Davies, not even turning 90 Christena Brooks Special to Salem Statesman Journal USA TODAY NETWORK May 1 is International Workers Day, and working is exactly what Dr. Olwyn Davies plans to be doing, even though it’s also his 90th birthday. Davies is a Silverton institution who’s worked 62 years here as a general practice physician. A stroke last fall convinced him to cut back to four days a week but, for most of his career, he worked six days a week and made house calls on Sundays. “I’m not going to quit until people stop coming in my front door,” he said. “It amazes me how many peo ple will come to an 89yearold doctor. My patients tell me, ‘I come to you because, for 60 years, you’ve been telling me what to do, and it hasn’t gone wrong yet.’” Davies’ career stretches back to a time when family medicine barely resembled what we know today. He’d deliver your baby, remove your 8yearold’s tonsils, take out your appendix and provide dementia care for your grandfather. Specialists were the stuff of dreams and big cities. In towns like Silverton, family doctors (almost) did it all. “Dr. Davies represents a time when medicine wasn’t just a job; it was a calling,” said Dr. Clinton San ford, a retired Silverton doctor 18 years Davies’ junior. “He’s the epitome of being called to medicine … as The Willamette Heritage Center Along the banks of Silver Creek in the late 1840s, two twin communities took hold, Bethany and Silver ton. The older by a few years, Bethany’s roots date to the arrival of brothers Gideon and Peter Cox, immi grants of 1846. Readers of local history may be more familiar with their historically famous brother Thomas Cox who es tablished the first store in Salem. In 1847 Thomas brought his merchandise over the Oregon Trail in thirteen specially built covered wag ons each drawn by three to four teams of oxen. On reaching the summit of the Cascade Mountains along the Barlow route, the goods were transferred to 60 pack horses belonging to Indians in the vicinity of Bethany – Silverton that had been secured by his Oregon wetlands lost Wetlands once covered 2.3 million acres in Ore gon. Over the years, nearly a million acres have been lost to agricultural and urban development. Oregon law requires people who want to fill wet lands in order to build to obtain a permit from the Oregon Department of State Lands. Each permit requires an evaluation of efforts to re See HOUSING, Page 2A A cross stitch made by a patient is displayed in the general practice office of Dr. Olwyn Davies in Silverton on April 25, 2019. He has been a practicing physician and surgeon for more than 60 years. He turns 90-years-old on May 1 and has no plans for retirement. ANNA REED / STATESMAN JOURNAL Chemeketa nursing students go hitech Capi Lynn Salem Statesman Journal USA TODAY NETWORK long as he can do it, he’ll do it.” If you’d told the teenage Olwyn Davies he’d grow up to be a small town’s good doctor, he’d probably have laughed in your face. He was born in Enterprise, into a family where no See PHYSICIAN, Page 3A Bethany was a bustling pioneer town Kaylyn F. Mabey Developers would be able to build in wetlands more cheaply and quickly if three bills in the Oregon Legislature are approved. The legislation would reduce the amount of wet land mitigation required in some cases, streamline the permitting process and create a pilot program to create a local mitigation bank. Backers say the bills will help address Oregon’s housing crisis and spur economic development. “As much of our valley is wet and delineated as wetlands, we are at a disadvantage when trying to develop new housing, economic opportunity or in dustry,” Corvallis Mayor Biff Traber said during pub lic testimony on the bills. Opponents say the legislation threatens to under mine natural infrastructure that protects residents from floods and drought, helps provide clean air and water, and provides critical habitat for fish and wildlife. brothers Gideon and Peter. Quite an undertaking at the time. Bethany was an ambitious rival of Silverton in pio neer Oregon days with the backing of the Cox family and Thomas Shaw, future assessor, sheriff and judge of Marion County. The town was platted with 56 blocks that lay on both sides of the county road just north of Silver Creek, presentday Hazelgreen Rd. A number of busi nesses took hold including a chair factory, blacksmith shop, general merchandise store, and doctor’s office. The community took its name from the Biblical home of Lazarus, Mary and Martha, friends of Jesus. It was in Bethany that Jesus stayed the week before his crucifixion and resurrection. As such, it is fitting to note that the first church in Bethany was organized on See BETHANY, Page 4A Online at SilvertonAppeal.com Vol. 138, No. 19 News updates: ܂ Breaking news ܂ Get updates from the Silverton area Photos: ܂ Photo galleries Serving the Silverton Area Since 1880 A Unique Edition of the Statesman Journal QEAJAB-07403y ©2019 50 cents Printed on recycled paper While training to be a nurse in the late 1960s, it wasn’t unusual for Tom GrayCQ to go home with bruises on his arm. He was enrolled in the new associate degree pro gram at Salem Technical Vocational Community Col lege, soon to be renamed Chemeketa. “We actually did IVs on each other,” he said. “NG tubes in the nose, too. We didn’t have any manne quins to practice on. We were the mannequins.” Fast forward to today, and Chemeketa nursing stu dents are mastering their skills on hightech medical mannequins that sweat and bleed. The college is ranked No. 2 on RegisteredNursin g.org’s 2019 Best Nursing Schools in Oregon List, be hind only Clatsop Community College in Astoria and six spots ahead of Oregon Health and Science Uni versity in Portland. And Chemeketa is the only one of 17 associate de gree nursing programs in Oregon to achieve a 94% or better licensure exam pass rate each of the past five years, Oregon State Board of Nursing statistics show. This year, the program received 236 applications for Fall 2019, accepting just 40 — a reflection of the high demand for nurses and the intense competition to get into nursing school. Since Tom Gray’s class graduated in 1969, the school has produced more than 2,300 nurses, a fete the college will celebrate with a 50th anniversary open house from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, May 4, in Building 8 on Chemeketa’s northeast Salem campus. Admission to the program has always been com petitive. Gray was a thirdalternate in 1968 before getting in after classes started. A point system is used today to determine who is selected into the program based on grades earned in prerequisite courses. Even back when nearly twice as many students See GRADS, Page 2B saturday morning NEVER TASTED So GOOD! BREAKFAST Made Fresh on the Grill Every Saturday Morning 7:00AM to 10:30am Saturdays Only $ 99 5 EA. 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