WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 14, 2019 ❚ SILVERTONAPPEAL.COM
PART OF THE USA TODAY NETWORK
Stayton will no longer
charge athletes to play
Bill Poehler
Salem Statesman Journal
USA TODAY NETWORK
About five times each year, a teacher or coach ap-
proached Stayton High School athletic director Dar-
ren Shryock and told him they suspected a student
needed assistance to pay the school’s $115 fee to play a
sport.
Shryock, also the school’s girls basketball coach,
helped all the students he could by giving them a dis-
count or by letting them work at other sporting events
such as track and field meets to make up the fee.
But it was always an awkward conversation.
“They didn’t come to me, I would have to come to
those kids,” Shryock said. “Who knows how many
more there were through the years that I didn’t know
about.”
That potential hurdle to a student participating in a
sport or activity at Stayton High School won’t exist
anymore.
The North Santiam School District has eliminated
participation fees for all classes and sports at Stayton
High School and the district’s three middle schools,
Stayton Middle School, Sublimity School and Mari-
Linn School starting this school year, except golf and
swimming.
Along with those participating in sports such as
basketball and football, students in classes such as
fabrications, woods and art will no longer be charged
fees, nor will students in activities such as dance,
band and choir.
Superintendent Andy Gardner said it’s taken three
years for the district to get to the point where it could
make it financially feasible to eliminate the fee, which
brought in approximately $75,000 each school year.
Among Stayton's four schools, about 500 students
participate in at least one activity.
Tillamook was the first school district in Oregon to
eliminate activity fees when they did it in prior to the
See FEES, Page 2A
Silverton's Riley Traeger
wins national title
Statyton's Riley Nichol (15) passes the ball in the
second half of the Woodburn vs. Stayton boys
basketball game at Stayton High School in Stayton
on Wednesday, Jan. 16, 2019. Stayton won the game
68-51. ANNA REED / STATESMAN JOURNAL
Rail crossing
accidents trend
upward in Oregon
Ben Botkin
Salem Statesman Journal
USA TODAY NETWORK
Silverton's Riley Traeger competes in the 5A girls javelin during the OSAA 5A/6A State Track and Field Meet
at Mt. Hood Community College on Friday, May 24. AMANDA LOMAN / FOR THE STATESMAN JOURNAL
Christena Brooks
Special to Salem Statesman Journal
USA TODAY NETWORK
SILVERTON – Riley Traeger is returning to high
school with one heck of a how-I-spent-my-summer
story. She traveled to Sacramento, Calif., competed in
the U.S. Track & Field Hershey National Junior Olym-
pic Championships and won first place in women’s
javelin.
Traeger, 17, overcame 105-degree heat and the pres-
sures and quirks of national-level competition, in-
cluding being barred from using her own javelin, to
throw 140’3” and win over all other 17-and-18-year-old
girls competing at California State University, Sacra-
mento on July 28.
See TITLE, Page 3A
Railroad crossing safety
Riley Traeger, center, of Silverton won the National
Junior Olympics in javelin. COURTESY OF TRAEGER FAMILY
Aumsville preps corn fest for the bigger time
Bill Poehler
Salem Statesman Journal
USA TODAY NETWORK
AUMSVILLE – A summer festival can mean a lot to
a small town.
Some gatherings – such as the Mt. Angel Oktober-
fest, the Sublimity Harvest Festival and the St. Paul
Rodeo – have grown to annual events that bring a
large influx of people into town for a few days each
summer and shape a community’s identity.
For 50 years, the Aumsville Corn Festival drew
from a limited base of a demographics of people
around Aumsville, but missed wide swaths of people
from throughout the rest of the Willamette Valley.
People in nearby towns didn’t know it existed.
See CORN FESTIVAL, Page 3A
Railroad crossing crashes in Oregon have nearly
doubled since 2013.
But because such accidents are relatively rare
compared to highway crashes, the increase has
largely flown under the radar outside of transporta-
tion circles.
Oregon had 19 rail crossing accidents in 2018, up
from 10 in 2013.
And Marion County had the most among Oregon
counties, logging 28 railroad crossing crashes since
2008, according to an analysis by the Statesman
Journal.
That's 18 percent of Oregon's 154 railroad crashes
since 2008.
They unfold in a variety of circumstances: Drivers
attempting to get around closing gates; pedestrians
walking across tracks; bicyclists failing to yield.
The annual statistics may not sound like much,
but the number of victims since 2008 adds up.
Thirty-five people were killed.
Thirty-six people were injured.
There's no simple explanation for the increase.
State transportation officials and safety advocates
say a variety of factors are at play: Oregon's growing
population; people's unfamiliarity with their new
surroundings; and the popularity of pedestrian and
bicycle travel.
Officials say the increase in accidents underscores
the need for Oregonians to pay closer attention as
they navigate the state's nearly 4,000 railroad cross-
ings.
"The vast majority of the incidents were poor
judgment and poor decisions on the road users' part,"
said Rick Shankle, manager of the crossing safety
section at the Oregon Department of Transporta-
tion's rail division.
Oregon Department of Transportation officials
have put together a plan intended to address the is-
sue and reduce the number of crossing incidents.
It's called the Oregon Highway-Railroad Crossing
Safety Action Plan. The 139-page document, released
this summer, lays out steps for the state to improve
railroad crossing safety. It's a first for Oregon, coming
because of additional federal requirements for states
from the Fixing America's Surface Transportation
Act of 2015.
The state's plan also examines a decade's worth of
railroad crossing crashes, from 2008-2017.
Oregon's transportation agency regulates railroad
crossings and works with local road authorities and
railroads to plan crossing configurations.
"People don't understand the risk," said Roseann
O'Laughlin, a principal planner with the agency.
"They're either complacent or don't understand the
real risk."
See CROSSINGS, Page 2A
Parade participants make their way down Main
Street during the 48th annual Aumsville Corn
Festival on Saturday, Aug. 27, 2016. DANIELLE PETERSON
/ STATESMAN JOURNAL
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The railroad crossing at Main St. NE in Aurora is
seen in Aurora on August 5.
KELLY JORDAN/STATESMAN JOURNAL