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About Vernonia's voice. (Vernonia, OR) 2007-current | View Entire Issue (March 21, 2013)
march21 2013 VERNONIA’S volume7 issue6 www.vernoniasvoice.com reflecting the spirit of our community Vernonia Loggerbots Take 3 rd Place at Regional Competition The Vernonia High School Logger- bots finished in third place at the Oregon FIRST Robotics Competition on March 8 and 9, 2013 at the Memorial Coliseum in Portland, Oregon. free lis High School to join their alliance. “Having done so well, and having been an alliance captain in just our second year means we know what happens at the very top levels of the competition,” said Easter Egg Hunt Saturday, March 30th 10:00 AM sharp! Hawkins Park CC Rider to Reduce Services The Loggerbots, in just their second year of competing, led the entire field of fifty- nine teams after the first day of the regional competition. After the end of the qualifying round on Saturday, the Loggerbots were in third place overall and had qualified for the elimination round. “The regional competition was an outstanding learning experience,” said VHS instructor James Brookins “The kids real- ized that they really can hold their own with teams that are bigger, and that have been around longer than they have.” The Loggerbots are made up of stu- dents from high school as well as several middle school students. They received as- sistance from a team of community mentors. The top eight teams in the elimina- tion round choose two partner teams and create an alliance with whom they compete together for the rest of the competition. The Loggerbots chose West Valley High School from Spokane, WA and Corval- inside 3 10 12 14 19 city budget anderson art sustainability day vhs sports the scuttlebutt Brookins. The Loggerbots and their partner teams won their best-of three quarterfinal, losing the first match 76-77, before rebound- ing in the second match 78-76 and forcing a decisive final match. The Loggers and their partners prevailed in the third match 92-63 and advanced to the final four and the semifinals. The Loggerbots were eliminated in the semifinals, losing 59- 41 and 88-62. The Loggerbots were awarded third place based on their overall point score of 214 points. “A reliable, consistent design is more important than trying to build the most sophisticated robot on the planet,” said Brookins. “Falling just short of qualifying for Worlds provides motivation to try to do better next year and get that trip to St. Louis, and proves to us that doing so is a realistic goal.” continued on page 3 The Columbia County Rider public transit service in plan- ning to significantly reduce services they provide in certain areas of the county, including Vernonia, starting April 2, 2013. Among the cuts to the Ver- nonia service are a reduction of the Dial-a-Ride (DAR) Service to two days a week and a reduction to the Nehalem Valley Route from five days to three days a week, with the elimination of the midday loop. The reduction was an- nounced to the Vernonia City Council at their meeting on March 18, 2013 in a report provided by Columbia County Transit Director Janet Wright. According to the re- port, reductions in service are nec- essary for three reasons: -The County’s General Fund can no longer supplement the transit program’s operating costs. -CC Rider does not gener- ate enough revenue to match avail- able grant allocations to support current service levels. -The County must comply with a requirement to establish an operating reserve of 2.5 times their monthly expenses. In addition to the reduc- tions to service for Vernonia, CC Rider will also be eliminating DAR service in Clatskanie and combin- ing it with the Rainier DAR; re- ducing the Rainier DAR service to three days a week, five hours per day; reducing DAR service in St, Helens, Scappoose and Colum- bia City to five hours per day, five days a week; reduce service on the Westport to Longview and the North Flex Routes to three days a week service. There were no reduc- tions made to the South Flex Route which serves St. Helens to Portland. Vernonia DAR service will now be available only on Tues- days and Thursdays. The Nehalem Route will only run on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. CC Rider staff and the Columbia County Citizens Transit Advisory Committee (CCCTAC) decided to institute the upcoming reductions after reviews of financial and ridership data. CC Rider staff determined a need to reduce service hours throughout the system by 204 hours/week, a 36% reduction. Students Spend Spring Break in Vernonia A group of college students are spending their Spring Break this year in Vernonia. Yes, you read that correctly. Twelve students have forsaken sunshine, bikinis and parties to work outdoors in the rainy coastal range of Oregon. The students signed up through Sierra Service Project based out of Carmichael, California near Sacramento. The students are from Washington State University and the University of Idaho. Next week students arrive from Central Washington University for a similar experience. And in April a group about fifty students aged twelve to eighteen who are affiliated with church youth groups from all over the west will arrive in Vernonia to work instead of play during their Spring Break. Morgan Blair is a nineteen year old Virtual Technology and Design student at the University of Idaho. “This is a great excuse to travel and it looks good on my resume,” says Blair about his Sierra Service experience. Sierra Service Projects was originally started by the United Methodist Church but in recent years it has been opened up and is now non- denominational. “Basically anyone who wants to come out and serve God is more than welcome,” says Robbie Frederiksen who is a Regional Coordinator for the Portland office for Sierra Service Projects. “We’ve had people from the Mormon faith, the Catholic faith - anybody who wants to come out and work we are more than happy to have their hands. We actually have people here who don’t have a faith at all but want to be of service.” Frederiksen has been working with locals to organize the logistics for the work project. The first group was building garden boxes for the Community Garden project at the Vernonia Schools. The group used Western Juniper Lumber to build the boxes, an untreated, sustainable and durable continued on page 10
