june16 2016
free
VERNONIA’S
volume10 issue12
www.vernoniasvoice.com
reflecting the spirit of our community
School Bond
VHS Internship Program Earns
and Advanced Two Grads Assistant Ranger Jobs
Refund Update
Town Hall: Bond Priorities
The Vernonia School District
(VSD) Board needs your help in developing
priorities for school facility improvements
if a bond were to pass in the upcoming
November 2016 election.
On Tuesday, June 21 from 6:30-
7:30 pm the District will hold a Town Hall
meeting in the Vernonia Schools Library
to collect input on which projects are most
important for use of any potential bond
funding.
School Bond Town Hall
Tuesday, June 21 at 6:30 pm
Vernonia School Library
The VSD Board has approved
moving forward with a $6.8 million bond
request for the November 2016 election.
Paying off the loans used to complete the
Vernonia Schools building is the main
purpose for the bond, but priorities must be
set for which projects are most important to
have completed with the funds remaining
after these payments.
Please come join the Board in
developing these priorities for the District.
Advanced Refund
The VSD will be moving forward
with an Advanced Refund of the current
$13 million General Obligation Bond
approved in 2009. An Advanced Refund is
very much like refinancing a house in that
the District will be able to take advantage of
current lower interest rates and pass on the
monthly payment savings to the taxpayers
of Vernonia.
The estimated amount of savings
for each taxpayer is between eight to ten
cents per thousand dollars of assessed
property value. Over the life of the bond the
estimated savings for all taxpayers should
be between $800,000-$900,000. The actual
savings realized will depend on interest
rates on the date of the final transaction
which is scheduled to occur sometime in
mid-July.
inside
3
community
action team
9
sheriff’s
marine partrol
11
vhs graduation
15
vhs all stars
Two Vernonia High School
(VHS) graduates have used prior
experience they gained in an internship
program through the high school to get
hired at L.L. Stub Stewart State Park as
full time Park Ranger Assistants (PRA)
this summer.
Bridger Steward, a 2014
graduate of VHS, and Quentin Skanes,
a 2016 VHS grad, both participated
in an internship program developed
by staff at Stub Stewart State Park
in partnership with VHS. Steward
and Skanes served one summer
together in the program in 2014 and
Skanes completed a second season in
2015. Both applied for full time PRA
positions this summer and both were
hired and started June 1. Their season
is scheduled to end September 5.
Steward has been attending
Mt. Hood Community College where
he is finishing an Associates Degree
in Forest Management. He has spent
several summers working in the
Backcountry Leadership Program with
Northwest Youth Corps, and is also
considering spending a summer doing
wild land firefighting. “My five year
plan is to try some different things
to see what I might want to do for
a career,” says Steward. He says his
ultimate goal might be a position as a
fish and game warden in Montana.
Skanes just graduated from
VHS where he won both the P.E.O.
Service Award and the prestigious
Senior Cup at the graduation ceremony.
Steward also won the P.E.O. Service
Award as a graduating senior. Skanes
plans to attend Portland Community
College in the fall and eventually study
Biomedical Engineering at Oregon
State University. According to Stub
Stewart Park Manager John Mullen,
Skanes is one of the youngest PRAs
the Oregon State Parks Department has
ever hired.
According to Park Specialist
Former interns Quentin Skanes and Bridger Steward have been hired as full time
Park Ranger Assistants at Stub Stewart State Park this summer.
Betsy Miller, the idea of a high school
student internship program was
introduced by park staff who developed
job descriptions for intern positions
and approached VHS about hosting
students. VHS Superintendent Aaron
Miller applied for, and was awarded a
Career and Technical Education (CTE)
grant and created three internships: at
Stub Stewart, with the Upper Nehalem
Watershed Council (UNWC), and
with the Vernonia School District
maintenance department.
According to Stub Stewart’s
Betsy Miller, the interview process
for the State Park intern positions is
very rigorous. “We ran them through
the exact same process we use to hire
full time Park Ranger Assistants,” says
Miller.
Miller said the paid student
internships at Stub Steward were
funded in their second year, and this
year, by a grant from the Northwest
Trails Alliance. This year Brook Naron
from VHS has been hired for the
internship, along with a student from
Banks High School, Eric Larson. The
School District and UNWC have also
continued their internship programs
through different funding. Interns in
the program work 20 hours a week for
six weeks.
Having
parlayed
their
internship experience into a full time
summer position, Steward and Skanes
will be working 40 hours a week and
will receive a full benefits package as
PRAs. “A PRA position is the starting
point to becoming a state employee,”
said Miller.
Skanes says his summers
working as an intern really helped
prepare him to apply for the full time
position. “All my experience in this
park really helped,” says Skanes. “I
already know all the trails. I know
about the park and the plants and the
wildlife. I know how it operates. I
know how to use all the equipment we
have here.”
According to Miller, PRAs
help with operations, doing general
maintenance, checking in and out
visitors, collecting fees, cleaning
continued on page 22
New Hosts Welcome Guests at Anderson Park
Vernonia’s Anderson Park has
new park hosts and the difference has
been immediate.
Adam Copenhaver and Me-
linda Carter took over as the new park
hosts at the city RV park in March and
have been hard at work cleaning things
up and getting ready for what they an-
ticipate will be a very busy summer sea-
son.
“Our goal is to make people’s
stay pleasant,” says Copenhaver.
Both Copenhaver and Carter
are originally from the Detroit area of
Michigan. They had previously worked
as camp hosts at Pontiac Lake State Park
in Michigan before heading to Oregon
last winter to visit Copenhaver’s daugh-
ter in Portland. They ended up falling
for Oregon and decided to try and find
a way to stay. They applied for a camp
host position at Stub Stewart State Park
but there were no openings, so
they were directed to Anderson
Park where the City of Ver-
nonia was looking for a new
camp host.
The hard work the
couple has done to clean things
up and maintain the park each
and every day has been notice-
able and the City has received
numerous compliments on the
current conditions at the park.
Not only do Copen-
haver and Carter go out of their
way to keep the park tidy and
clean, they are also outgoing
Adam Copenhaver and Melinda Carter are
and friendly, making a point
the new Park Hosts at Anderson Park.
to greet and make each guest
Copenhaver spent time when
feel welcome. “We always go
he
was
younger working at Disney
introduce ourselves and make sure they
know where we’re at in case they have World in Florida as a monorail driver
and in one of the restaurants. Carter is
any problems,” says Carter.
continued on page 6
